How your brain works

How your brain works

Your brain operates on a small amount of electricity, just like other computers. It can process and store information, retrieve that information, and use that information to make decisions and solve problems.

Unlike other computers, the electricity that the brain generates and functions with does not remain at a fixed frequency. Sometimes this electric current vibrates rapidly - twenty times per second or more. Other times it vibrates very slowly, one time per second or less. Scientists call these vibrations "cycles" or "Hertz," and have divided the brain frequency spectrum into four different segments, based on the number of cycles per second, which is abbreviated cps.

*Beta is above fourteen cps, typically twenty cycles per second when your body and mind are active and you focus your eyes.

*Alpha, from seven to fourteen cps, is associated with light sleep and dreaming.

*Theta, from four to seven cps, is associated with deeper sleep, and with the use of hypnosis for such things as painless surgery.

*Delta, below four cps, is associated with deepest sleep.

Jose Silva reasoned that the best range to use for mental activity would be the range that has the least impedance and the most energy.

The alpha frequency is the strongest current-wise, and the most rhythmic of the four. That's why it was the first to be discovered by scientists with their primitive sensing equipment, and was named "alpha" for the first letter in the Greek alphabet.

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