Bands are everywhere. With light, you see seven colors in the spectrum. On your radio is the AM and FM bands, plus there are other special purpose bands. In music, you have the bass, midrange, and treble. To each band we assign a certain frequency range, where all frequencies in that range share certain characteristics: the green light band is more green than any other color in the band, and the music bands are recognizable even though it my be hard to tell when something belongs in the bass or midrange if it is right between the two. It is natural for us to recognize bands: we see seven colors of light when there could easily be more colors if our brains recognized more colors within the visible light spectrum.
Banding together
Brainwaves appear to have five distinct bands ranging from near zero hertz (cycles per second) to over 100 hertz (or Hz). But we assign five bands to them because the waves in those ranges tend to have certain distinct characteristics. These are the five bands scientists assigned to brainwaves:
Delta: ranging from .5 Hz to 4 Hz, these are produced during dreamless, deep sleep.
Theta: from 4 Hz to 8 Hz, these are produced during light sleep or when you are extremely relaxed.
Alpha; from 8 Hz to 12 Hz, these are calm, relaxed, but fully awake brainwaves.
Beta: from 12 Hz to 35 Hz, these are produced during daily focused activities and when making decisions.
Gamma: from 35 Hz to about 100Hz, these are produced during high concentration, learning, and problem solving.
As you can see, each band of brainwaves has unique characteristics. We could have assigned more bands, but then it would be hard to distinguish the purpose of each range. However, there are some distinctions even within a band, as some studies are showing. Your brain has many nuances of thought and function, and the combination of frequency, amplitude (also called power), and length of time that wave is emitted all reflect different brain activity as well as the signaling of those waves to other parts of the brain. This combination means that your brain has a rich “language” through its brainwaves. We don’t yet understand all those nuances, but we have learned much about what the frequencies and power levels mean about brain function. That means we know basically what is a good brainwave pattern and what imbalances look like.
When the cells of your brain, the neurons, trigger, a group of them often works together and fire together, producing a pulse. As they fire over and over, the rhythmic pulses form waves. The firing is electrochemical, and the waves are electromagnetic (EMF) waves. All EMF waves are composed of photons, even though you usually think of photons in terms of light. Photons are the smallest unit of energy that make up an EMF wave. Because of a formula known as the Planck law, the energy contained within the photon is higher as the frequency rises. That means that higher frequencies have more energy even if they have the same amplitude/power level as lower frequencies.
If your brain neurons fire faster, that produces a higher frequency wave. And firing faster would require more energy. So as the brainwaves progress from very low frequency Delta waves during deep sleep to very high frequency Gamma, your brain is working a lot harder to reach those higher levels of thought and function.
So what does all that tell us?
Your brain is controlling your body — not just in the involuntary functions like heartbeat, digestion, and breathing, but in moderating your entire body’s environment. Your brain is designed to be in control because your body requires a lot of decision-making that requires more than simple reflex. Your body needs to know what hormones to produce at various times, when more or less are needed to keep your body running. It needs to know when an aggressive action is needed against a viral invader or an outside threat. Your body needs rest and depends on the brain to find times when rest is safe and appropriate. Without your brain, your body could not be much more complex than a plant or a jellyfish. So rather than making decisions on their own, resulting in inefficiency and outright chaos, cells look to your brain for instruction.
So it makes sense that focusing on the brain is the foremost key to health. But the brain is very delicate, and invasive techniques are quite harmful to its intricate structure. Thankfully, brainwaves tell us a lot without any invasion. As we continue to study brainwave patterns in healthy and diseased situations, we learn more about brain operation and health, and thereby learn more about achieving full body health.
A study published in Nature Communications attempted to find a connection between a number of diseases (Parkinson’s Disease, tinnitus, depression, and neuropathic pain — improper pain caused by the nervous system) and shifts in brainwave patterns. The researchers mapped the five brainwave bands of 541 test participants and compared against these diseases. They found that, in all cases, there was a reduction of the output of alpha waves in the resting state, and an increase in theta, beta, and gamma waves. They suspect that the alpha waves dropped into the theta band by dropping below 8 Hz. Further, the combination of theta and beta/gamma waves set up interference patterns called cross-frequency coupling, which is a form of modulation, whereby the theta wave acted as a carrier wave for the high frequency waves nested on it, thus enhancing the effect of the beta/gamma waves in other portions of the brain. This substitution of low and high frequency waves for the alpha waves appeared to heighten the effects of the diseases being studied. Since one of those diseases is heightened/abnormal pain response, this tracks well with this second study….
Published in the British Journal of Anaesthesia, researchers at the University of Birmingham’s Centre for Human Brain Health and School of Psychology studied brainwave patterns as a predictor of post-surgical pain. They focused on alpha waves of patients scheduled for surgery, and found that for those patients where their alpha waves didn’t reach above 9 Hz, most of them reported post surgery pain in the range of 7 to 10 on a scale of 10. They also noted that when alpha waves regularly didn’t peak above 9 Hz, those participants experienced more chronic pain overall. This study, along with the previous study, suggests that robust alpha waves across the full alpha spectrum (8 Hz to 12 Hz) normalizes pain sensitivity.
More studies are being conducted to correlate disease states with altered brainwave patterns, but the fact that there is a correlation is clear. Different frequency brainwaves communicate different messages to the rest of the brain and body, and the combination or interference of multiple brainwaves further complicates and enhances the communication.
Brainwaves are a vital key to health. They are part of the complex communication network of the body, and since we can record them, they provide insight into a person’s health — insight of which we have barely scratched the surface. Already we can detect abnormal brainwave patterns and partially compensate them. Whether used to predict mental and physical dysfunction or in therapies to improve health, brainwaves are important.
Dr. Nemec’s Review
Albert Einstein once said “you cannot solve a problem with the same consciousness that developed the problem in the first place.” What does this mean? Simply to solve the problems of the world, the problem of disease, the problem of natural resources, the problems of world hunger, the problem of universal need and lack, you must see with new eyes you must hear with new ears.
Let us start to solve the problem of disease this way. What does this research show us? That the brain which is the transforming station of the mind controls every single aspect of your health which includes a lack of health, called disease.
Let’s take a scenario: a person feels a lump on their body and they think this could be cancer so they go to their doctor and the doctor confirms that testing should be done so they proceed with scans, lab work and a biopsy. When all the results come back the patient is informed that they have stage IV metastatic cancer and they must begin chemotherapy and radiation immediately to survive. Now let’s stop right there. And let’s start at the beginning of what the most important aspect of one’s health is. That is the mind which controls the brain and the brain then controls the body. You must understand this, for without this no healing or health will ever be achieved, let alone maintained. We must move on to a new consciousness as Einstein said — we’ve been looking at disease and cancer the same way for over 100 years. You cannot win the war on cancer until you change the consciousness of how you see. Let me ask you with this scenario of the person diagnosed with stage IV metastatic cancer; was the mind or the brain ever thought of as the cause? Was the mind and the brain ever considered as the solution? What did the oncologist do with a potentially impersonal diagnosis and treatment program that hasn’t changed much in the last 50 years? Did this doctor lift up the mental state or depress it for the patient?
Can you start to see that there would be no healing, no answer in solving this problem until we rise to a higher level — and what is that higher level? As this research stated it is the brain, which is programmed by the mind. So until we stop thinking of ourselves like a machine that just needs to remove and replace some parts we will never be whole.
What these research studies do show is that it’s very simply the brain that controls the body and the mind that controls the brain. End of story. So if we do not address the mind at the highest level we do not heal the body no matter how great our technology is. It’s just a temporary fix a patch job that’s only going to bring you so far.
So what is the answer? You must address the subconscious and conscious programming in the mind, which manifests in the brain, which controls every cell in the body. This has the basis of our treatment program — Revolution New Medicine Protocol® — and the reason people can actually heal. Is diet important? Is lifestyle important? Are chemicals and toxins important? Absolutely, we address all these in extreme detail, but if you do not address the mind first it’s like building a house in sinking sand nothing will last until you balance the number one root cause of every single blockage, imbalance, dysfunction, condition and disease.
Here are the ways we can help you in your health journey:
- Outpatient Comprehensive Teaching and Treatment Program-has the most benefit of teaching, treatment, live classes and personalized coaching. This program has the most contact with Dr. Nemec with 3- 6 month programs that can be turned into a regular checking and support program for life. This is our core program that has helped so many restore their health and maintain that restoration for years.
- Inpatient Comprehensive Teaching and Treatment Program-is our four-week intensive inpatient program for those that are not in driving distance, usually over 4 hour drive. This is the program that is an intensive jumpstart with treatment, teaching, live classes and coaching designed for all our international patients along with those in the US that do not live in Illinois. This program is very effective especially when combined with our new membership program support.
- Stay at Home Program-is offered to continental US patients who cannot come to Total Health Institute but still want a more personal, customized plan to restore their health. This program also includes our Learn Membership Program.
- Membership Program is our newest program offered for those that want to work on their health at a high level and want access to the teaching at Total Health Institute along with the Forums: both Dr. Nemec’s posts and other members posting. And also, to have the chance to get personalized questions answered on the conference calls which are all archived in case you miss the call. The Membership Program has 3 levels to choose from: Learn, Overcome and Master. The difference is at the Overcome and Master levels you received one on one calls with Dr. Nemec personalizing your program for your areas of focus.
