ADD and Brainwave Entrainment - not as scary as it sounds.

When I first heard the phrase "brainwave entrainment" it conjured up some rather scary images in my head. And what I discovered on the surface after that didn't really help to make me feel better about it. There is no shortage of mis-information on this topic so it is no real wonder I initially got the wrong impression. But let me start at the beginning and explain how and why I have changed my initial impressions.

Some background to start with. I have been meditating and doing yoga, on and off, for the last 20 years. I certainly recognize the benefits of both, for me, but am not always very disciplined:) Suffice to say I have had some experience with both...

I am also the father of two beautiful and very intelligent boys. My eldest son was a handful from the moment he was born. Even as a tiny little thing, he was a constant challenge. Before going to school, his playschool teachers warned us that they thought he might be ADD and suggested we get it looked at. This was not news to us but we did not take him to a doctor. We are both completely anti pharmaceutical treatment. From the start, both our children have been treated homeopathically (and they are both super resistant to disease now because of this). So we didn't take him to a doctor 'cos we knew they would 'diagnose' him as ADD and prescribe drugs. Since we would never give him the drugs we saw no point in visiting the doctor.

School turned out to be a real challenge. We sent him to a public school to start with and that did not even last a year. The first teacher he got was not very bright and she most certainly could not handle my son. So we ended up changing schools before the year was finished. We sent him to a private school which seemed to be more geared to teach difficult children. And he did settle in much better there. This school did manage to finally convince us to take him to an ADD specialist. They reassured us that no matter what, they would respect our judgement regarding any and all treatment for our son. So off we went to the super specialist. He spent 15 minutes with us and 15 minutes with my son. Then he called us back into his office and started writing out a script for powerful drugs. I explained to him that drugs were not an option. My wife asked him if he could recommend any alternative treatments. The blank look on the face of this 'specialist' was priceless! He could not give us a single recommendation, what a pro.

So we turned to the internet and started doing loads of research. We changed my son's diet and started giving him certain supplements and vitamins. We made sure he stayed active by doing karate and gymnastics and lots of walking. This had some effect but not a huge effect. I even tried to teach my son some meditation and yoga techniques. The problem was he could not sit still long enough to understand!

Then my wife heard about someone locally who was getting great results doing something called brainwave entrainment. When I first Gooled it, I discovered it was a process of using sound frequencies to train the brain into its 'correct' frequency (or so I understood it then). I didn't want to make my boy like everyone else, I loved him just the way he was. But my wife convinced me to try it and we booked the 6 required sessions. I found out he would have to go to their office and sit listening to earphones for about 45 minutes at a time, 6 times, one week apart. I took him to his sessions, making sure to bring some toys, books and DVD's to distract him while he was subjected to the entrainment (you can hear, I was still not completely convinced). From the way these experts spoke, I was hoping for a switch to be thrown and see an enormous change. The week after his final session, I kept checking in with his teacher to see if there was some big change but nothing... I felt somewhat cheated at this point and we even started looking into drug treatment at this point in time.

In retrospect, it was like a switch was thrown. It did not happen over night, it happened progressively over the next next 3 months. There was constant improvement in his behavior and learning for the next 3 months. Real change is a process, it is not instant. The brainwave entrainment had affected the subtle under-lying causes of his ADD and, over time, this made an enormous change to the exterior expression of his ADD. And all without changing the essential essence of who my boy is! He is still the same lively, super-intelligent boy he always was, but now he can concentrate and apply himself enough to fit in with the public education system. He is still a challenge for his teachers but kids like this are designed to be just that:)

I want to add a few words about ADD at this point. Firstly I do NOT believe it is a medical condition that can or should be treated with drugs. I believe it is more a label than a real condition. I must credit Dr John DeMartini for crystallizing it for me, I went to a great talk by him about awakening the genius in all children. There is nothing wrong with ADD children, in fact, quite the contrary. They are almost all exceptionally intelligent. This is why they have trouble fitting in with the public education system. These are kids who can and do display genius abilities in everything they enjoy. But like all geniuses, they do not see the point in applying themselves to anything that does not interest them. That makes perfect sense & they do not accept the arguement "because I'm telling you to do it". The public education system constantly asks them to apply themselves to stuff that is of no interest to them. The trick in getting them to apply themselves is to explain to them how learning a particular thing will further their own interests. We need to shift our perception of children like this. They are not going to fit in with anything that does not make sense to them, we need to fit in with them!

Secondly, diet and physical activity levels also have a profound effect on ADD children. As the parent of an ADD child you have to be vigilant of their diet. That doesn't mean absolutely no sweets but you must certainly monitor the intake of sugars (there is much more to this, do your research)! And keeping an ADD child active is vital. They must be involved in some kind of physical activity every day!

Lastly, brainwave entrainment does work for ADD children. It can and does have a lasting effect! But be sure to find someone who really knows what they are doing. This is something I would recommend for all children who have been labelled ADD.

ADD can be treated without drugs. There is no one cure but rather a number of things you need to do (and since each child is unique, each solution is unique). You must research it and experiment with your child. Keep trying different things until you find you are getting the desired results. But most of all, never lose sight of the fact that there is NOTHING 'wrong' with your child, the world is simply not quite ready for such clever beings! Shift your perceptions.

It was as a result of the above that I started doing more research into brainwave entrainment. I discovered that it was the process of using aural and/or light cues to encourage the brain into a certain frequency range to create a desired state of consciousness. I also discovered that it does not work unless you allow it to. If you resist the entrainment, it has no effect. We are always the true source of our own power. But if you allow it to do what it is designed to do, the effect is instant and enormous, mainly because entrainment can be designed with pinpoint accuracy! It is a very powerful application of some rather new science. I decided to experiment a little further and bought some very expensive software which would allow me to create my own meditation tracks with embedded brainwave entrainment.

I started creating meditations to supply some of my own needs at the time. Like I said, I had done meditation and yoga, on and off, for the last 20 years. But when I listened to these 'entrainment' meditations I was now creating for myself, it went to a whole new level. It was amazing. The relaxation track made me relax like no other meditation session ever had in the past! I was gob smacked when I tried this on myself. Then I had to try it on someone else, so I gave it to a friend of mine and asked him to listen, without telling him too much about it. He could not believe what happened to him and asked me all about it. I told him everything that had brought us to this point in time and he was amazed. Suffice to say I had to give him everything else I had made and he went off to listen to that. He then started pushing me to step out of my shell like never before, he told me I had to share this with everyone. My first reaction was "no way!" Who am I to make meditations for others? Thank goodness my buddy didn't give up there. He got me to agree to let him give the relaxation meditation away to some people he knows, just to get their reaction. The result were almost unanimous, awesome.

Eventually I was completely out of arguments and agreed to make my work available. My friend also had to create some and we have decided to collaborate on this. With the help of my friend, we created a website, www.thelightstream.org. We are giving away that super powerful relaxation meditation which started it all. And we have a number of guided and unguided meditation tracks available too. All of them have an embedded entrainment track which is designed to encourage the listener into a desired state of consciousness. If you listen to these meditations and ALLOW them to work, the effects are instant and very obvious. Brainwave entrainment is not something to fear. It is a powerful application of some rather new scientific research. You might feel afraid when you realize how quickly and easily it can transport you to another state of consciousness, but that is simply old fear patterning. Don't be afraid. Push past that and allow it to do what it is designed to do. The benefits are nothing short of amazing and they will seem instant in retrospect.

If you are looking for someone who does brainwave entrainment for ADD children, do your research. Make sure the person knows what they are doing. I certainly would not rate myself as being ready to try help ADD children (& I don't have the bio-feedback gear needed to do this anyway) but I am learning more and more every day, with a view to to doing this one day. For now, I am creating meditations to help with some fairly general human conditions. They are working for me. I have tried and tested everything on myself and certainly put ALL of my own, initial fears to bed! It is not something to fear, it is a powerful tool that can help to fast track your personal growth!