In this video, I describe why many people have trouble getting into a meditative or shamanic state of consciousness when journeying and how to fix it. I then guide you on a journey using this technique so you can feel the difference for yourself.
Learn to play the drum for healing at https://www.stronginstitute.com/blog/drum-healing-course/
Listen to my music for free at brainshiftradio.com
Learn more about my auditory brain stimulation programs at reicustomprogram.com
In this video, I share the 3 core components of a shamanic journey and describe what they do and why they are important for you to have a successful experience. I also guide you on a short journey to help you see what your body needs.
Learn to play the drum for healing at https://www.stronginstitute.com/blog/drum-healing-course/
Listen to my music for free at brainshiftradio.com
Learn more about my auditory brain stimulation programs at reicustomprogram.com
The following is an excerpt from my book, Different Drummer, exploring how the REI Custom Program can improve sensory processing.
Learn more about the REI Custom Program
Sensory processing issues are common among the people I work with. In fact, sensory challenges are part of nearly everyone who falls into the developmental disability spectrum, including people with ADHD and autism. Sensory processing issues come in three basic forms: sensory-defensive, sensory-seeking, and poor sensory discrimination.
Sensory defensiveness is characterized by being easily overstimulated by sensory input. This is the child who recoils to touch, won’t wear shoes, covers his ears in response to loud noises, gets dizzy easily, or throws up in the car.
Easily overstimulated people constitute most of my clients with sensory issues. I work to reduce their sensitivity to stimulation by giving their brains more stimulation.
“What do you mean by stimulation?” Laurel asked. “Emily is always overstimulated. Why would you add more, and how could it calm her down?” This was one of the first questions she asked me after I began to work with her daughter, Emily.
From her very first track, Emily responded immediately and decisively to the drumming. After just one listening, her emotional outbursts increased and her sleep, already poor before the Program, deteriorated further. Upon her first night on the REI Custom Program, she needed to be held by her mother to calm down.
Laurel and I quickly discovered that Emily needed less stimulation, far less than a Program usually begins with. In fact, I had to step down the level of stimulation on her tracks to a point lower than what was on our ‘stimulation low enough for anyone’ Calming Rhythms CD. Once we determined a stimulation level she could tolerate, we were then able to slowly begin adding more stimulation and progressively build her tolerance to address her sensory issues.
“Stimulation is related to the complexity of the rhythms on the track,” I described to Laurel. “I have built a series of rhythmic structures, varying in their length and complexity, for each symptom.
“By complexity, I mean the difficulty needed to decipher the rhythm’s pattern. Think of the brain as a computer whose central job, when dealing with a sensory stimulus, is to decipher and categorize the stimulation.
“Emily takes in sensory stimulus at a very high level. It’s as if her volume control is turned way up. Everything comes at her with an intensity that is higher than for you or me. And she can’t turn down the volume. A light touch may feel like a hard squeeze, or a normal voice level may sound like a shout. Our goal with the REI tracks is to teach her sensory system to turn the volume down and to learn to distinguish important from unimportant sensory input.
“With each track, we want to increase the level of stimulation we can give her so that she becomes used to it. Over time, she’ll develop the skills to be able to moderate the stimulation she receives.”
Before I made her first Program track, Emily, who was four at the time, wouldn’t wear clothes, preferring to only wear undies. Some- times she would wear shorts or a skirt but she was never okay with a shirt. And don’t even think about a coat. She also slept poorly, often waking at night or early in the morning, unable to get back to sleep. Emily was also anxious, and Laurel needed to be with her at all times lest she has a meltdown. Laurel was one of my favorite parents. She was engaged and inquisitive. And the two years I spent working with her extremely sensitive daughter was one of the most satisfying—and sometimes perplexing—experiences of my career.
Emily mirrored many challenges exhibited by a six-year-old boy I worked with a few years before. Gerald had both tactile and auditory sensitivities. He wouldn’t wear shoes or socks and would cover his ears, or sometimes cry or scream, when someone turned on music, even if the volume was low.
He also tended to isolate himself from his family, preferring to be in his room alone, playing with toys by himself. If a sibling or cousin came in his room, he’d have a meltdown.
For Gerald, the Program was pretty straightforward. He responded within the first two weeks in all areas.
“Gerald is doing great with the Program,” said Jenna, his REI provider. Jenna, an occupational therapist in south Texas, was our first active provider and this was one of her first clients. We were both excited by Gerald’s progress, especially by his quick response to REI.
“He’s been wearing socks and shoes every day, since the end of the first week. Yesterday he joined his extended family outside and played with his brothers and cousins. He now lets his mom turn music on in the car and he has also been rocking out to his own pop music in the house.”
“That’s pretty quick progress. Is he using CD #2 yet?”
“He just started the other day. So far the transition is going well.” The transition from CD #1 to CD #2, at this time in the history of the REI Custom Program, was sometimes difficult because of the jump in stimulation.
The first CD (and first track with the current Program) generally focuses on reducing anxiety and sets the foundation for improving sleep issues, if there are any. The subsequent tracks progressively build stimulation and broaden their focus to include other areas of concern.
When sensory sensitivities reduce during the first track, it usually means that they are related to anxiety. This was my assumption with Gerald.
I had no such assumption with Emily when she started the Program. This is because, even though she had a similar symptom make- up, she also had sleep issues and a more heightened response to overstimulating environments.
“We’ll start with trying to help Emily’s sleep,” I said to Laurel when we started the Program. “If she can fall asleep more easily and not wake up, we may also see some improvement in her sensitivities. Sometimes being tired, especially chronically, can increase the presence of these symptoms. Her overreaction to things, in general, suggests that this may be the case.”
“So, do I play the track at bedtime, then? Can I play it all night long to help her stay asleep or turn it on again if she wakes up?” asked Laurel.
“Yes, turn it on at bedtime. Just play it once through. If she wakes up, it’s okay to turn it on again, but only once. With any luck, she’ll be able to stay asleep after a couple of weeks of this pattern.”
Many of our clients wake up at night. In fact, falling asleep is often not a problem. It’s the night waking. And this is probably one of the most difficult things for a parent to deal with. Having your night interrupted, night after night, becomes wearing and leads to a host of problems.
The kids who wake up at night often wake up ready to go for the day. Getting them back to sleep can be exhausting. So, the first and most important thing for us to focus on is to help the child sleep so the parents can sleep, too.
“Emily slept all night the fifth night,” Laurel told me at her two-week check-in. “She slept through the night for the next week and started waking up again the last couple of nights. Do you think we need to change tracks?”
“It sounds like it.” I made a new track and waited to hear from Laurel again in another two weeks.
“Emily slept through the night again when we started the new track, but she started waking up again the last couple of days.”
And so a pattern started to emerge for Emily. Sleep was a barometer to how a given track was working for her. Every time I made a new track, Emily would sleep well for a while and then she’d start waking up again.
“How are her anxiety and sensory issues?” I asked after the third track, hoping that we’d now start seeing some changes there.
“Oh, I forgot to mention this because I’ve been so focused on her sleep, but she’s now letting me put on a shirt,” Laurel added, sounding like it’s not a big deal.
“Wow, that’s great! When you started, she’d melt down if you tried that,” I added, trying to help her see what a big change this was. When we first talked, Laurel was much more concerned with Emily’s tactile sensitivities than she was by her sleep, but our focus on the sleep issue seemed to make her not as aware of Emily’s tactile improvements.
“Yeah, I guess it is a big change. And come to think of it, she hasn’t been melting down as much,” she said as we talked about where Emily was before the Program started.
This isn’t uncommon. Many times people are so focused on playing the track and dealing with whatever is up that it’s hard for them to see the big picture unless it’s pointed out to them.
This is one of the most helpful things about our REI providers. Since they can’t make the CDs or even mix-and-match pre-recorded CDs as is common in other auditory programs, many providers feel like they don’t have an important role in REI. The key to their role is their relationship with their clients: It is valuable not only to help me see what the real issues are but also to help the client gain perspective on how much progress they’ve made.
Laurel didn’t always need to be reminded of where Emily started. She became keenly aware. In fact, she was one of the most astute observers of her daughter’s progress with the REI Program.
“Emily has been weepy the last few days in this track,” Laurel told me a few more weeks into her Program. “She did fine for the first week then she started crying for no reason. It’s not like a meltdown. She’s not reacting to anything going on around her. She’ll just stop and cry. Could it be the track?”
“I don’t know. It could be, I suppose. How is she sleeping? How are her sensitivities?”
“She’s sleeping okay. She has been a little fussy about clothes. She’ll only wear one particular shirt and she doesn’t want to wear shoes anymore. Do you think we should try a new track?”
“That’s what I’m thinking. I’d guess that this track is probably too stimulating for her.”
I made a new track. Laurel called a week later.
“She’s not weepy anymore and she wearing shoes again. What did you do with the new track?”
“I went back to rhythms we used in Track #2 and rearranged them. I looked at your current track (#3) and noticed that it had changed databases and drums. The Udu drum is much more stimulating than the Gonga, and I’m guessing that had an impact on her.”
“I noticed it sounded like a different drum. Why would that matter?”
“The Gonga drum has a pretty soft, rounded tone. The Udu is really sharp. As well, on the Gonga I tend to use rhythms that are less complex and carry a longer structural flow than those played on the Udu. The Udu tracks tend to be much more stimulating than the Gonga tracks because the drum’s sound is more pointed and the rhythms more complex. Someone as sensitive as Emily may find the Udu uncomfortable to listen to.”
An REI Custom Program will draw from eight databases and switch back and forth between the Gonga and Udu. Even though the Udu drum rhythms tend to be more stimulating, the stimulation is presented on a scale. So a particular database of Gonga rhythms may be more stimulating than another database of Udu rhythms. In fact, each database used for the Custom Programs are progressively more stimulating;, so even though database two is an Udu, the rhythms are less stimulating than the rhythms played on the Gonga in database three.
We discovered that Emily was never able to handle the Udu tracks. I had to alter her Program so that we never drew from the Udu databases. She could handle fairly high-intensity Gonga rhythms, but not lesser stimulating Udu drums. Fortunately, I was able to accommodate her.
Over the course of almost two years, Emily made significant progress in her anxieties and sensory issues. Then Laurel offered me another opportunity.
“Are you ready to work with my other daughter?” she asked. “Lila is the polar opposite of Emily. She is a sensory sponge. She could spend all day in the swing.”
“Okay, let’s give it try.”
Like Emily, Lila was four-years-old when I started working with her. Unlike Emily, who withdrew from sensory stimulus, Lila was a classic sensory seeker. She was high energy, high activity.
Her response to her Program was also harder to track than Emily’s. For instance, Emily’s sleep would change when she was ready for a new track. She also made steady progress, as long as we changed tracks on her schedule.
Lila, on the other hand, could stick with the same track forever without showing any negative effects. With Lila, we needed to be more vigilant in changing her tracks on time in order to move her forward. She soaked up all the stimulation her Program would offer.
In some ways, a client like Lila is easy because I never have to contend with, or even worry about, overstimulation. Overstimulation generally causes sleeplessness, anxiety, and agitation. Once we see overstimulation in a client, we tread pretty carefully from that point forward to ensure that she doesn’t become overstimulated again.
Someone like Lila, though, doesn’t react as strongly. Because she can handle so much stimulation, it takes more intense rhythms and more frequent changes to the tracks to ensure that she makes progress. If I’m not seeing tangible progress by Track #3, then I step up the stimulation further. If progress doesn’t happen even after adding more stimulating REI tracks, I’ll sometimes also ask that the REI tracks be played more than once a day.
Lila didn’t need these contingencies. Her sensory-seeking became less pronounced during her second track, about three weeks into her Program. She was sleeping better and was less anxious overall. Other than that, Lila was hard to read. She didn’t react strongly to a track as Emily did. She showed a slow, steady pace. Laurel was used to reacting to Emily’s response to a track and felt a little lost when it came to knowing how Lila was responding.
“Lila is different than Emily in many ways, but the curious thing about the REI is that she just goes with the flow.”
“Sensory seekers tend to be more consistent than sensory defensive people,” I described. “I think that someone who is seeking sensory input tends to run at a pace that keeps them stimulated. They may not react to sensory input as much because they are still seeking more.
“A sensory defensive person, on the other hand, has a threshold that may change depending on how they feel. Different types of stimulus have different effects on them. So, unless they experience the same type and level of stimulation, you’re going to see some variability in their response to stimulus and, in turn, in their behavior.”
“That makes sense. I really see that with Emily. There are days when she can handle going to the grocery store, but there are other days when she melts down. Same thing with school. That’s the most difficult thing about Emily’s sensory issues: I can’t predict how she is going to respond to something. Just when I think she’ll be okay with going somewhere, she’ll have a meltdown.
“Lila, on the other hand, is always busy. This consistency, although it’s hard, is easier to handle because I can plan for how she’ll react to something.”
Though I see quite a few people who are sensory-seeking like Lila, more clients are on the sensory defensive side, like Emily. Either way, because I can fine-tune the stimulation for each person, I can accommodate their sensory needs and hopefully help them learn to more efficiently process sensory input.
In this newsletter, I share a case example of one client in the autism spectrum, a 35 year-old male with autism whose main issues were aggressive behavior and anxiety. This example is part of a larger study on adults with autism conducted at a group home setting. You can read the entire study here.
According to records, Carl had lived in a group home since he was 14 years old. He was placed there due to his family being unable to care for him and to manage his anxiety and aggressive outbursts. This facility was his fifth group home and, due to his volatile behavior, the director reported that she was concerned that he wouldn’t be able to remain in this facility.
The director described that he was responsible for 3-4 violent outbursts each week that resulted in someone begin injured. These were not so seriously as to put anyone in the hospital but significant enough that these incidents needed to be reported to the state agency responsible for the facility’s license. As of the beginning of the REI Study, the facility was under pressure to reduce his aggression or find him a different home that could better manage his behavior. His aggression often manifested when he was directed to perform an activity that he didn’t want to do such as clean up after a horse.
Due to this non-compliance and behavioral reaction, Carl was not involved in many of the day-to-day activities that many of the other residents enjoyed. The staff reported that he did enjoy riding and brushing the horses, but they didn’t allow him to do these activities often due to his tendency to spontaneously hit the horse with a closed fist.
The staff reported that, aside from these aggressive behaviors, Carl’s anxiety also manifested in the form of self-stimulatory vocalizations and sleeplessness. The vocalizations were often threatening. Although he could speak clearly with excellent grammar and vocabulary, he only talked in this aggressive manner.
When I was first introduced to Carl, he went into great detail how he was going to hurt me – punch me in the face, kick me in the groin, elbow me in the chest, for example – if I crossed him. He related this to me at a high volume without making eye contact. By my observation, he didn’t seem like he really intend to do these things because he had the characteristic monotone, lack of eye contact and overall flat affect that characterizes many with autism. He also lacked the usual intensity that typically precedes such an attack. None-the-less, given his history of unprovoked aggression, I was careful not to get too close or to provoke him in any way. I did, however sit down and pick up my drum, which he regarded curiously, and play, which prompted him to sit next to me and touch the drum’s shell. He held onto it as I played with his ear cocked toward the sound. His gaze was unfocused and at no point did he actually look at me.
I played calming type rhythms (at the characteristic REI 8-beats-per-second pace) for a few minutes while he held the drum and quietly sat next to me. After approximately 4 minutes I began a series of more intense rhythms to see if his behavior would change (this is a common approach used by traditional practitioners to invoke a response in a listener and to gauge their level of engagement in the rhythms). Within less than 30 seconds, Carl grabbed the hardware lugs that tension the drum and tried to pull the drum from my lap. Because I have become accustomed to anticipate a reaction of this sort (I’d lost hold of the drum many times before), I pulled back and just barely managed to hang on.
After a short struggle he let go of the drum and leaned back from it, though he stayed in his chair. I began playing it again using the rhythms I started with. He settled down in his chair while I continued playing for another 10 minutes or so. I was careful to not play rhythms that tend to provoke and he noticeably calmed during this time. When I stopped playing, he continued sitting quietly until I left the room.
The staff later reported that Carl remained calm for the rest of the afternoon, until dinnertime when he got into a scuffle with another resident (Subject 3: Billy) over food. Separating Carl and Billy during dinner diffused this incident. The staff noted that an altercation at dinnertime wasn’t unusual and that Carl was obsessive about food, taking as much as he could and eating fast and messily.
One of the other issues that the director related to me with Carl was that he had difficulty sleeping – both with falling asleep and with waking at night. She reported that if not supervised, he would sometimes attempt to leave the facility at night. He liked to wander around outside. On several occasions he was observed walking off the facility grounds and wandering onto neighboring properties. In one case he entered a neighbor’s house. Fortunately, the neighbors knew and recognized him and called the facility director to retrieve him. In order to avert an incident of this sort again, there was a staff member positioned within eyesight of his door throughout the night.
After four weeks of Carl listening to his REI recording once day, met I him in the corral where he was quietly brushing a horse. He had no reaction to me when I approached him – a much different experience for me than the first time I met him, He was clearly calm and focused on rhythmically brushing the horse.
I said hello to him and asked if he remembered me. He responded that I was “that guy with the funny drum” (the drum I use is very usual and shaped unlike any other drum, so this observation intrigued me. Of course it could mean that any drum was funny to him, or my playing was funny, or that he was observant enough to see the drum was different – this would mean he had some previous knowledge of drums and their common shapes. I didn’t explore this with him). I asked if he liked the drumming, to which he simply said, “yeah”. I asked if I could play for him again. His response was, again, simply, “yeah.”
I found a log to sit on about 20 feet away outside of the corral to play and began beating a calming rhythm for him. I noted no discernable response as he continued to brush the horse. After a while I began playing a regular rhythm that employed a steady accented pulse (this rhythm was a traditional Brazilian Samba rhythm with 16th notes playing two quiet notes and two accented notes, with the second accented note louder than the first every-other time through this pattern, making the loud accent occur once every second. This rhythm created a pulsing, forward-moving feel. This rhythm is different from a traditional Samba, however, because every other time through the pattern I cut the rhythm short by two notes, changing the time signature into 7/8, giving the entire rhythm pattern a 15/8 time signature). After a few minutes I noticed that he was brushing the horse to the rhythm, with his stroke following the louder of the accented notes.
I changed rhythms to something more typical of an REI rhythm (more complex and variable) and noticed that his brushing strokes slowly reduce in speed. I stopped playing at approximately 15 minutes, packed up my drum and left. He was still brushing the horse and made no notice of my departure. The staff reported that this was the longest amount of time he’d brushed a horse. They reported that he seemed content to do this. He offered some minor resistance when asked to stop this activity, though didn’t put up a struggle or react aggressively.
The director reported to me with some enthusiasm that they had noted no aggressive incidents from Carl since the first week of his listening to the REI recording. She related that he was much calmer and compliant overall. The staff described that he was more engaged in activities, especially those involving the horses. He hadn’t hit one since beginning listening to the REI recording. He also was more responsive to direction and would stop his vocal stimming when asked. He was still repeating phrases but they were less aggressive in nature.
The staff reported that mealtime was much calmer and noted that his eating had slowed down and he hadn’t gotten into any struggles with other residents over food.
As I instructed, the staff played the recording at bedtime. They noted that he often asked for the recording before going to bed. The tracking notes indicated that he fell asleep much quicker by the second night and was usually asleep by the time the REI recording ended (approximately 20 minutes). The staff noted that he had been sleeping well and hadn’t been observed getting up since then and hadn’t wandered at night. His tendency to wander was still apparent, though, as he did this during the day but he stayed within boundaries of the facility.
The staff also noted that Carl was beginning to engage in conversational speech when prompted. Contrary to what I experienced in my interaction with him at the corral, the staff reported that he was often able to respond with 2-3 sentences to the staff’s questions and directions. He rarely initiated conversations.
After twelve weeks, the facility still reported no incidents of aggression and noted that he was much less aggressive than he was before beginning the study. They described that he was still sleeping well and continuing to show improvements in compliance and listening ability. The director related that mealtimes had become a relaxed time since starting REI and they found that playing a calming REI recording (a precursor to REI Calming Rhythms) reduced anxieties during what used to be a stressful time at bay.
The staff also reported at this twelve-week check-in that Carl’s self-stimulatory vocalizations had decreased significantly. On the occasion that he did engage in these vocalizations, they were no longer aggressive and he would stop when asked. The staff reported that he began initiating conversation with others. This was evidenced by him approaching me and saying, “You’re the drummer guy. Where is your drum?” to me when I arrived for this visit. I answered that I didn’t bring my drum this time and would he like it if I brought it next time. He said, simply “Yeah”.
After 6 months the facility director reported that Carl continued to listen to his REI recording every day and requested it when the staff forgot to turn it on. He still hadn’t exhibited any aggressive behavior since the first week of beginning REI. Tracking notes indicated that he was still sleeping well and hadn’t gotten up in the night. The staff reported that he was much more pleasant to be around and continued to enjoy his horse-relate activities without incident.
In this video, I play complex, unpredictable rhythms on my Gonga drum to increase gamma wave activity for cognition, memory, and problem solving.
For more about using drumming rhythms to boost gamma waves, check out this video: https://youtu.be/B6hu6oXaau8
Try Brain Shift Radio for free at: brainshiftradio.com
Learn more about my auditory brain stimulation programs at: reicustomprogram.com
In this video, I show you EEG brainwave activity of an adult male with ADD as he listens to REI drumming rhythms and Brain Shift Radio music. I also describe how Brain Shift Radio’s ambient track influences the effects of the drumming rhythms.
Try Brain Shift Radio for free at: brainshiftradio.com
Learn more about my auditory brain stimulation programs at: reicustomprogram.com
In this video, I share real-time EEG brainwave activity of an REI client: an adult male with ADD. I show you how his brain entrains to an alpha state of consciousness and then becomes focused. I also show how his brain is exercised by REI drumming rhythms as part of the progressive stimulation aspect of the REI Custom Program.
Try Brain Shift Radio for free at: brainshiftradio.com
Learn more about my auditory brain stimulation programs at: reicustomprogram.com
In this video, I calm your emotions and sensory system with mildly variable rhythms played at the low end of the alpha state of consciousness. Whether you are a highly sensitive person, have sensory processing sensitivity, or are an empath, this will help you feel more resourceful and less overwhelmed.
Try Brain Shift Radio for free at: brainshiftradio.com
Learn more about my auditory brain stimulation programs at: reicustomprogram.com
Here is a transcript of the 17/16 rhythm I played during my presentation.
https://www.stronginstitute.com/assets/components/media/Theta-tempos-2.pdf
Activating the brain for memory and cognitive enhancement can be done two ways:
1. Play pleasingly variable patterns with an unpredictable, yet musical quality at 8 beats per second. This has an immediate activating effect and, coupled with progressively more complex patterns over a series of recordings, can provide long-term cognitive enhancements. This is the approach we use for the REI Custom Programs.
2. Play various tempos all within the alpha range of 8-12 beats per second (bps). Musically, 8-12 bps is 120-180 beats per minute when playing 16th notes and one beat of the metronome is a 1/4 note. This means that you are playing 4 drumming beats for each click of the metronome. This approach is the key to the Brain Boost category on brainshiftradio.com.
I end this video with a cognitive enhancement drumming session. Let it play quietly in the background and see how mentally clear you feel afterward.
Check out a free 14-day trial on https://www.brainshiftradio.com to explore more music to boost your brain.
Learn to play the drums for healing at http://www.drumhealing.com
In this video, I talk about the relationship between drumming tempos and brainwave states. I share a simple formula to help you choose the exact brain state to achieve your goals.
Download the PDF on brainwave states and drumming tempos here
Learn more about the Soundbrenner Pulse metronome I use in this video
Learn more about drum healing at: http://www.drumhealing.com
Try my music for free at: https://brainshiftradio.com
How do I stop tantrums, anxiety attacks and escalating aggression with a 16 bar phrase?Novelty, that’s how. Rhythm can do more than just calm the average person.
Learn more about drum healing at: http://www.drumhealing.com
In this video, I use an EEG brain computer interface to show how the music on Brain Shift Radio changes your brain. I also describe how we are building a new music player and algorithms to let your brain drive the music for better results with Brain Shift Radio and the REI Custom Programs.
Try Brain Shift Radio for free at: brainshiftradio.com
Learn more about my auditory brain stimulation programs at: reicustomprogram.com
In this video, I shows how I approach the three types of sensory processing issues – hyper-sensitivity, hypo-sensitivity, and sensory discrimination.
I play examples of various drumming rhythms to influence these sensory responses and describe how hyper and hypo sensitivity fits into an REI Custom Program.
Learn more about the REI Custom Sensory Processing Program here: https://www.stronginstitute.com/blog/sensory-processing-program/
In this video, I show you how to play a traditional ceremonial rhythm used to lift mood and create a sense of empowerment. Then I morph it into an REI rhythm to help with mood issues.
to learn more about how to use drumming for healing go to drumhealing.com or drumhealinglive.com
To try more of my music for free go to brainshiftradio.com
To learn more about my auditory brain stimulation programs go to reicustomprogram.com
Note: This is one of my first videos. As you can see, I’m not really comfortable on video, yet. But the content is good.
In my book, Different Drummer: One Man’s Music and Its Impact on ADD, Anxiety and Autism, I mention many of the rhythms I use as the basis of REI. This video explores the development of one rhythm to give you an idea of the intricacy of the patterns I use as well as the process I go through to determine the best rhythm to use in a given situation. This rhythm is in the time signature of 21/16 and is one that I find helpful in reducing a hand-flapping motion often seen in people on the autism spectrum.
In this video, I play randomly variable rhythms in 5 at four-beats-per-second to entrain active minds and ADD brains to a deep meditative state.
Learn to play the for healing in a free video workshop series: http://www.drumhealing.com
Since our first clinical study in 1994, we have focused on how to reduce anxiety and induce calm.
https://www.stronginstitute.com/blog/calm-studies/
Two independent studies show that REI drumming can increase focused attention. One study compared BSR music to the AD/HD stimulant medication, Ritalin, using a Continuous Performance Test (the T.O.V.A.) for an adult with Attention Deficit Disorder while the other study used a blinded placebo-controlled format for elementary-age children in a classroom setting.
https://www.stronginstitute.com/blog/cpt-test/
In this video, I use an EEG brain computer interface to show how the music on Brain Shift Radio changes your brain. I also describe how we are building a new music player and algorithms to let your brain drive the music for better results with Brain Shift Radio and the REI Custom Programs.
Try Brain Shift Radio for free at: brainshiftradio.com
Learn more about my auditory brain stimulation programs at: reicustomprogram.com