My name is Peter Meilahn, and I am a clinical teacher at The University of Minnesota Medical Center. I am a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor and Neurotherapist in Minnesota (here is my clinical website, www.minnesotabiofeedback.com).
I created this site to help as many people as possible with simple techniques that create amazing results for individuals and communities. Please share this service, and your login details (if you feel like it), with your family, friends, coworkers, or people who go to a school your family members goes to. Clinicians and other healthcare or human service professionals can share it with people they are working with too.
I created the questionnaire below to ask you key questions that will reveal which sounds will work best for you based on brain research for how certain sound speeds help us either slow down, or speed up.
When people become members and sign in, the sounds that are suggested below are on the menu. If you are not a member, you won’t see the sounds on the menu until you register. Remember, you can share your login details with anyone you know personally or work with (and that includes healthcare providers and people who work in human services.
Add Rules and little understanding quiz in the questionairre, including question, are you learning?
If users answer these questions every week, they will constantly be re-evaluating how they are doing, so they can re-adjust what they are doing. This lets them learn how to use these sounds the best way they can for them. Each month is different. So, please review these questions every week. The aren’t long, and are based on thousands of interviews by myself and others.
If you see a question that doesn’t apply to you, move on to the next question.
Before we start, here are a few rules for how to use the sounds:
- The sounds are meant for people over 10 years old.
- They are also meant to be listened to while relaxing, and on headphones. Obviously, don’t use them with anything that can hurt the listener.
- Each listener is expected to agree to the rules on the rules page.
- We also ask that people do not use them while under the influence of alcohol or any illegal drugs.
Add SSRI Question.
Also, do you or the listener have a history of seizures?
The research on the attention and focus sounds, available to members, shows that they increase brain brain rhythms for attention and focus. This are known to help seizures. However, there are relaxation rhythms on this site too, and these are used by listeners to slow the whole brain down. This can contribute to seizures. So, please don’t listen to the relaxation sound if you have a history of seizures. If you have a history of seizures, and want to relax, you can listen to ocean sounds, since they cause the brain to slow down.
Try not to over-focus:
Please don’t listen to the focus sound within 5 hours before bed. We copy rhythms we hear, like we copy music, but this process is more focused. Listening to the attention and focus sound before bed will cause your brain to wake up more, somewhat like caffeine. The attention and focus sounds are good for increasing focus during your day.
How the Questions and Answers Can Help You:
If you do not think you can accurately answer a question, please skip it. The questions all cover different topics that are for different people and situations. There are only a few of them, and they give us insight into a person’s nervous system balance. When someone is helped by practicing brain rhythms with the sound rhythms for one thing, other struggles start to clear up too. All of our successes, health, and struggles are related. So, if just one question makes sense to you, the other things in your life will improve. So, you can just answer the questions that fit your needs. If you want to find our more about your specific situation, The Research Page is full of information and research. We will be updating it with more facts, explanations, and research. You can read The Research Page topics to find out more.
Questions with Suggestions, Based on Your Responses:
Are you or the listener between ages 10 and 25?
If yes, you can try the focus sound twice a week. If it doesn’t feel good, then stop. For most students, it increases their memory and mental accuracy by an average of 22%. It will help you focus for school work. If you feel over-focused, please try The Relaxation Sound. You can go through the questions below with a parent to see how you can add another sound meditation to your week.
Are you or the listener experiencing frequent or chronic pain?
If no, please go to the next question. If you answered yes, does it include not having enough concentration? If you want to lower pain and you want to have more concentration, you can listen to The Attention Sound. If you want to just lower your pain levels significantly, you can listen to The Relaxation Sound. Please listen once per day at first, then, if your situation needs it, two or three times a day can be done. Using these sounds for pain is the only time I give users the recommendation to use it more than once a day. You can listen to The Relaxation Sound after The Focus Sound, if The Focus Sound is recommended for another reason.
During the last month, have you, or the listener, felt generally stable and able to balance your focus and relaxation?
If you answer yes, you can try listening to The Focus Sound for 10 minutes, and then The Relaxation Sound for 10 minutes. This will increase your performance and creativity. If you answered no, and you want to work on increasing your sense of focus or relaxation, see the questions below.
When you, or the listener, get distracted, stressed, or more emotional, do you have an equal amount of over-focusing and of thinking about too many things at once?
If yes, then you can try listening to The Attention Sound for 20 minutes a day. This will increase your sense of calm awareness of the context you are in. Then, you can work on more focus or more relaxation if you need. This sound is also known to help with memory, sleep (i.e. lowering insomnia), and pain.
If you answered “no” to the above question, then let’s keep answering questions.
Have you or the listener ever been diagnosed with autism?
If yes, then you can listen to The Attention Sound to relax or The Focus Sound to increase your calm awareness of others, and lower your distractions. Try these up to once a day, just one sound per day. There are several studies showing that these sounds significantly lower the number of upsets in children with attention and autism struggles, and they improve test and school performance. Social awareness increases with calm attention too. These are both proven to help people with autism.
Do you get migraines?
If yes, then you can listen to The Relaxation Sound, and practice relaxing the blood flow in your brain. This is proven to lower the pressure than leads to migraines. Twice a week, in addition to other sounds would be fine. If you are already listening to this sound because of another question and answer, then just listen once per day. If you are listening to The Focus Sound for another reason, you can do both, and it will create a more effortless, focused state of mind.
Which is easier for you, or the listener; quieting your mind to fall asleep or creating focus in the morning when you wake up?
If a someone is clearly having a harder time focusing in the morning than falling asleep, they can listen to The Focus Sound two or three times in the first week, then try it daily if they need it. It works like a stimulant, but you are training your brain rhythms. It is known to increase memory and mental performance by 22%. If someone has a harder time falling asleep than waking up, it usually means they are over-focusing, and listening to The Relaxation Sound will help. I regularly see clients fall asleep easier, and sleep deeper when they listen to this sound before bed.
If you have a history of seizures, then you can listen to an ocean sound instead. Waves generally flow in a rhythm of once per second or less, and this is a rhythm the brain makes to let go and reorganize.
Would you say you or the listener tends to have more problems with inattention or impulsivity?
If a person struggles with inattention more than impulsivity, then listening to The Relaxation Sound twice a week at first, then more times per week after that can help.
If a person struggles with impulsivity more than inattention, then listening to The Focus Sound twice a week or more can help.
What causes you more anxiety, a sense of thinking of too many things in a way that leads to being overwhelmed (including from traumatic events), or a sense of over-focusing and obsessing about something to the point of ignoring other things?
If you are over-focusing or obsessing to the point of ignoring important things, we recommend listening to The Relaxation Sound. If you are thinking of too many things in a way that is not focused, but leads to feeling more overwhelmed, please try The Attention Sound. You can do one of these per day, and if you need to focus more, you can use The Focus Sound.
Are you or the listener concerned with the mental affects of aging, or are you experiencing memory decline?Â
By listening to The Attention Sound, you can improve your memory, and restore it to a certain degree. This technique has been well researched for older adults, and is demonstrated in studies in the research page. Listening for one time per day can help older people increase their memory, and lower anxiety that comes from the less intense concentration that happens in older age.
Remember, the key to using these sounds is to learn the key rhythms of relaxing, being steady with attention, or focusing as needed. These are skills, and something you already do to some degree (Otherwise, you wouldn’t be alive!).
That concludes the starting questions. Below are a few more key guidelines for your safety, so please read them:
Remember, you are practicing how to speed up the brain, slow it down, or maintain steady attention. This is a learning and healing process that is in every education and therapy system.
Please limit using the sound to two or three times in the first week, with using them once per day. After the first week, you can use them once per day as long as you are retaking the assessments on this site to guide you.
Please, do not listen to the attention or focus sounds within 5 hours before your usual bed time. Also, please do not listen to the relaxation sound (no matter how you answered the questions above), if you have any history of seizures. If you have a history of seizures, you can listen to ocean sounds to relax.
If you want more information and confidence in the statistics behind the effects of people practicing brain rhythm speeds with these sounds, please visit the research page. The research supporting these sounds is amazing. And, your ability to help people you know by supporting this platform is wonderful.
As this site develops, we will add sophisticated, game based brain and psychology tests to guide users. That will happen relatively soon. We are developing more tools to include live brain feedback and other services with this site for schools, homes, and practices around the world. If you want more information and confidence in the statistics behind the effects of people practicing brain rhythm speeds with these sounds, please visit the research page.
Thank You for Being a Supporter of This Project,
Peter Meilahn, Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor, Minnesota, U.S.A.
Founder, AttentionSounds.com and The Minnesota Biofeedback Clinic (www.minnesotabiofeedback.com)