Use of binaural beat tapes for treatment of anxiety: a pilot study of tape preference and outcomes.

CONTEXT: Recent studies and anecdotal reports suggest that binaural auditory beats can affect mood, performance on vigilance tasks, and anxiety. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether mildly anxious people would report decreased anxiety after listening daily for 1 month to tapes imbedded with tones that create binaural beats, and whether they would show a definite tape preference among 3 tapes. DESIGN: A 1-group pre-posttest pilot study. SETTING: Patients' homes. PARTICIPANTS: A volunteer sample of 15 mildly anxious patients seen in the Clinique Psyché, Montreal, Quebec. INTERVENTION: Participants were asked to listen at least 5 times weekly for 4 weeks to 1 or more of 3 music tapes containing tones that produce binaural beats in the electroencephalogram delta/theta frequency range. Participants also were asked to record tape usage, tape preference, and anxiety ratings in a journal before and after listening to the tape or tapes. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Anxiety ratings before and after tape listening, pre- and post-study State-Trait Anxiety Inventory scores, and tape preferences documented in daily journals. RESULTS: Listening to the binaural beat tapes resulted in a significant reduction in the anxiety score reported daily in patients' diaries. The number of times participants listened to the tapes in 4 weeks ranged from 10 to 17 (an average of 1.4 to 2.4 times per week) for approximately 30 minutes per session. End-of-study tape preferences indicated that slightly more participants preferred tape B, with its pronounced and extended patterns of binaural beats, over tapes A and C. Changes in pre- and posttest listening State-Trait Anxiety Inventory scores trended toward a reduction of anxiety, but these differences were not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: Listening to binaural beat tapes in the delta/theta electroencephalogram range may be beneficial in reducing mild anxiety. Future studies should account for music preference among participants and include age as a factor in outcomes, incentives to foster tape listening, and a physiologic measure of anxiety reduction. A controlled trial that includes binaural beat tapes as an adjunctive treatment to conventional therapy for mild anxiety may be warranted.

Complementary and alternative medicine and psychologic factors: toward an individual differences model of complementary and alternative medicine use and outcomes.

CONTEXT: Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is in widespread use. Study of the psychologic factors associated with CAM use may provide descriptions of subgroups of health care consumers and give further insight into the reasons for using alternative therapies. OBJECTIVES: To see if the use of CAM is associated with psychologic factors in two outpatient samples and one community sample. SETTING: The University of Virginia Hospital and Charlottesville community. PATIENTS: Patients at the Cancer Center (60) and Pain Management Center (63) and adults from the Charlottesville community (63) for a total of 186 participants. DESIGN: A survey of CAM with psychologic assessment. MAIN MEASURES: Level of CAM use, effectiveness ratings of CAM, positive affect, negative affect, and the Absorption Scale, which measures a personality factor associated with the capacity for focused attention and mind-body awareness. RESULTS: Participants using six or fewer CAM scored an average of 13.9 on the Absorption Scale compared to participants using seven or more CAM, who scored an average of 21.4 on Absorption (F = 48.73, p < .0001). Higher effectiveness ratings of CAM were associated with greater positive affect. Pain Center patients rated alternative therapies as least effective, and reported lower positive affect and greater negative affect compared with the Cancer Center patients and community adults. CONCLUSIONS: Above average use of CAM is associated with higher education, greater well-being and higher Absorption. The personality traits associated with alternative therapies are compatible with participation in these therapies and may facilitate the capacity to benefit from them.

Binaural auditory beats affect vigilance performance and mood.

When two tones of slightly different frequency are presented separately to the left and right ears the listener perceives a single tone that varies in amplitude at a frequency equal to the frequency difference between the two tones, a perceptual phenomenon known as the binaural auditory beat. Anecdotal reports suggest that binaural auditory beats within the electroencephalograph frequency range can entrain EEG activity and may affect states of consciousness, although few scientific studies have been published. This study compared the effects of binaural auditory beats in the EEG beta and EEG theta/delta frequency ranges on mood and on performance of a vigilance task to investigate their effects on subjective and objective measures of arousal. Participants (n = 29) performed a 30-min visual vigilance task on three different days while listening to pink noise containing simple tones or binaural beats either in the beta range (16 and 24 Hz) or the theta/delta range (1.5 and 4 Hz). However, participants were kept blind to the presence of binaural beats to control expectation effects. Presentation of beta-frequency binaural beats yielded more correct target detections and fewer false alarms than presentation of theta/delta frequency binaural beats. In addition, the beta-frequency beats were associated with less negative mood. Results suggest that the presentation of binaural auditory beats can affect psychomotor performance and mood. This technology may have applications for the control of attention and arousal and the enhancement of human performance.