When I quit smoking, I relied heavily on music with alpha brainwave binaural beats to get me through the day. I would slip on my headphones and listen to alpha music all day long. While not created to treat addiction or to help you quit smoking, Ennora’s Deep Concentration and Crystal Clear Mind became my crutch. I looped these tracks for days at a time: I was really quite obsessive.
So why did these tracks speak to me? What was so special about these tracks that I immediately and naturally gravitated towards them? It turns out that they stimulate the part of the brain that is also stimulated by Nicotine.
Digital Drug Download: “Nicotine”
Citing research about the effects of smoking nicotine on the brain published in a 1991 edition of the journal Psychopharmacology, a 2009 study in the International Journal of Psychophysiology and a 2003 study on denicotinized cigarettes published in Brain and Cognition, Simon F. has created a free binaural beat tone set to help with the cessation of smoking.
Data in the research clearly demonstrate that alpha brainwaves increase during smoking. According to the study performed by the University of Michigan, EEG readings taken after smoking showed that “there was a significant generalized increase in dominant alpha EEG frequencies.” What I find fascinating is that even pretending to smoke caused “minor statistically significant increases in the dominant alpha frequencies after sham smoking.”
Simon’s blog post suggests that you should kick back, close your eyes and visualize yourself smoking a cigarette for at least two minutes. I have an issue with this as it is reinforcing the negative behavior, but I understand the basis of the visualization comes from the research of sham smoking. Instead, I would suggest a short exercise where you focus on your breathing.
According to Simon’s notes, the audio first drifts from the beta to alpha range simply to achieve a better frequency following response. Near the 2 minute point, the alpha binaural beat sweeps from a low alpha to high in an effort to mimic the ‘buzz’ from smoking. I am curious if a better simulation might be to remove the beta and go straight for the alpha sweep to create that jolt a smoker gets when taking the first puff or two. As I don’t smoke, this is just conjecture: Simon’s approach is solid.
Simon has created this and gifted it to the world, so download it and give it a go. It won’t cure your habit, but it just might calm your nerves while you are learning non-smoking behavior.
