The benefits of meditation, including binaural brainwave activity, is an ever growing list, as the mind - body connection becomes more documented with every passing year. Mystics and yogis have been espousing the advantages of meditating for thousands of years, but it took Western science until the 1970s to confirm that something special happens when proper meditative states are achieved.

Here are some of the benefits of meditating: Stress reduction, lower blood pressure, relief from depression and/or anxiety, improved sleep, mood enhancement, overall health improvement, boost for immune system, pain relief, help with addictions, increased ability to focus, developing intelligence and creativity, development of positive habits, brain synchronization, cholesterol reduction, improvement of relationships, emotional maturity, increases & decreases of various hormonal outputs, deeper relaxation, improved productivity, and memory improvement.

Meditation is a relaxation of the mind, an attempt focus on one thing, like your breathing. This gives your mind a break from outside stimuli and well as from the internal dialogue that is always occurring upon, or just beneath the surface of your consciousness. You may be unaware of this dialogue because you are constantly exposed to TV, radio, computers, texting, mp3 players, the internet, phones, and conversations with other people.

Then, on those rare occasions when we give ourselves peace & quiet, we are reminded of that constant conversation we are having with ourselves. It is this conversation that gets in the way of meditation. Many people give up trying to meditate because the development of the discipline it takes to clear their mind seems impossible.

It turns out that the process and benefits of meditation can be automated with technology. Tibetan monks who do nothing but meditate during most of the waking hours have been hooked up the brainwave monitoring machinery. They create brainwave activity that is unlike any ever before seen.

But, other research that came a little later showed, that if you give non meditators, soundtracks of binaural beats to listen to with headphones, their brainwaves create patterns that took the monks decades to achieve.

Binaural beats are called apparent sounds. There are created within the brain when two separate tones, of slightly different frequencies, are played in headphones, one tone in each ear. The brain perceives a single tone with beats, or clicks, that are not actually there when listened to in other ways. The beats represent the difference between the two tonal frequencies, and they create binaural brainwave activity by causing the brain to entrain to, or follow the pattern of the beats. Ultimately, this allows for the creation of meditative states of mind, not unlike the Tibetan monks, but without the effort and discipline that is normally required.