Theta brain waves are brain frequencies that measure 4 to 7 Hz. They’re present when you’re barely conscious like just after awakening or before sleeping. Theta is the fascinating edge between your conscious mind and your subconscious mind. Knowing how to reach the theta state, consciously comes with immense benefits.
Our brain waves shape our human experiences. Thinking hard doesn’t result in flashes of brilliance or creativity. Besides, overthinking doesn’t foster an emotional state that’s nurturing to our mental health and body.
Beta thinking utilizes the small mind to help your track routines responsibilities and typically emerges in high-stress situations. If you want to develop healthier brain waves and enjoy the benefits of theta state of mind, slowing your mind’s neurotic flow of thoughts is the solution.
Not thinking – calming the waves of ideas and words in your mind – leads to more wholesome brain waves, which, in turn, link us to our unconscious mind and help us tap into our veins of creativity.
By learning to reach theta state deliberately, you can also access and influence your powerful subconscious mind – something you normally won’t in your waking beta state. When you have theta brain waves, your brain is capable of intense and profound learning, growth, and healing.
Types of Brain Waves
Brain waves are basically electrical activity going on in the brain. And, depending on the frequency of the activity, it occurs in four states.
When you’re most active (for example, when you’re handling a complex task at your workplace), your brain generates beta waves. The brain shifts to alpha waves when you’re in a relaxed state (for instance, after you’ve wrapped up the complex task and you’re now taking a breather). Fast forward, the fourth brain wave is called delta; your brain generates delta brain waves when you’re deeply asleep.
Now, the third type is theta. The theta brain waves are excellent for problem-solving. People who do long-distance driving on freeways often get brilliant ideas during these times when they’re in a theta state of mind. This can also happen while you’re brushing or shaving your hair or in the tub or shower.
The theta state happens when you’re so competent in tasks that you can to them intuitively; you’re able to disconnect from them mentally. The generation of ideas that occurs when one is in a theta state often occurs freely without guilt or censorship.
Your mind also gets into a theta state when you’re about to wake up or sleep; when you’re between deep dreaming and active alertness.
During this sleeping/awakening cycle, you can stay in a theta state for relatively extended periods – like five to 20 minutes. In this period, you can freely generate ideas on yesterday’s engagements or reflect on the upcoming events and the responsibilities of the next day. This can be a productive and creative period in which you generate profound ideas and realize illuminating insights.
Learning how to reach the theta state takes practice. But, it’s a positive habit that raises your productivity to stratospheric levels.
Is there Proof that this Works
Capitalizing on periods when your mind is primed to deliver the brightest ideas is something exceptionally successful people have done for centuries. Brilliant creatives like Mary Shelley and Salvar Dali knew that the early stages of waking up or sleeping are the most optimal times to tackle difficult questions.
Great thinkers and innovators like Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein, too, used their half-awake moments to ruminate on various puzzles. A creative and agile mind is optimized for problem-solving. This is why chewing over your day’s challenges early in the day (or late at night before sleep) when you’re still in a theta state leads to amazing results. If it worked for Einstein, it will work for you.
How to Use Theta Waves to Accomplish your Goals
Pick a task
Just before you fully wake up in the morning, while your mind is still dreamy and your eyes closed, zero in on the most pressing issue of the day. Maybe it’s engaging in a dicey conversation at work or with a loved one, writing a report, negotiating with clients, or spearheading a marketing campaign.
No matter the number of tasks on your to-do list, choose one only task and allow your brain to kick it around. Stay focused on this one issue and do not let your thoughts or wonder elsewhere. Your mind has probably been analyzing it in the background, throughout the night, so as soon as you focus on the subject, your brain will, intuitively, start churning out solutions.
Often, you’ll get a couple of out-of-the-box ideas. And sometimes you’ll capture exceptionally brilliant ideas. Sometimes you may forget to engage in this activity, but if you do it frequently, it’ll become a habit and thus part of your daily morning routine.
Take notes
The trick part of solving problems during the theta state you’re likely to forget those bright ideas and solutions once you’re awake and out and about.
This tendency to forget is the reason why you should note them down as soon as you’re fully awake. Take your journal or smartphone from your beside and voice record or scribble down your thoughts. Make it short and highlight the keywords, phrases, descriptions, and words that will stir your recollection when you’ll need to apply those ideas.
Review
Collect your theta ideas over time so that you can take a macro look at them and find trends and patterns. You may learn that, for you, the theta state helps you most in creative work like designing or writing. Conversely, you may discover that it bolsters your planning or spoken communication. This will help you determine the kind questions you should mull over during your theta mental state.
Your mind draws inspiration from everywhere. But obstacles, too, emerge from all over the place. Tapping into the theta mental state exploits your mind’s innate problem-solving abilities in a way that allows you to remember and apply the solutions.
Often, problem-solving is about refining and half-baked thoughts into a useful plan or navigating around an obstacle, if you’re going to seek for a solution, why not start before you even step out of bed.
What are the Benefits of Theta State of Mind?
The theta state is versatile. For one, theta brain waves enhance your intellectual agility. But this state also helps you access your subconscious, stimulates pain relief and muscle relaxation, induces healing, heightens your problem solving and creative ability, and enhances your mind receptivity of transformative ideas and perspectives.
Here is a list of some of the key benefits of theta state:
1. Stress relief – theta brain waves can alleviate both mental and physical stress. It does so by calming the mind; this, in turn, enhances its ability to address physiological issues.
2. Boosts memory, learning, and creativity – learning and creativity are enhanced when you’re having bursts of theta brain waves. The theta state also bolsters your mind, which in turn allows you to retain new information and skill sets.
3. Therapeutic/ Improved physical and mental energy – the deep relaxation that’s triggered by theta waves allows you mentally and physically recharge after the hustle and bustle of the day.
4. Bolsters metaphysical abilities – theta brain waves enhance your metaphysical skills (dreaming, insightful spiritual experiences, and astral projection), which require a strong spiritual and mental muscle.
5. Ability to change/program your unconscious mind.
6. It improves emotional intelligence.
Other Ways you can use to Achieve Theta State Quickly
1. Visualization
When meditating, don’t try to empty your mind, instead, focus and visualize your past dreams, and the universe. This can help you reach a theta state.
2. Deep Relaxation
For you to visualize and meditate, you need to relax deeply; this, in turn, spurs theta brain waves.
3. Spiritual Connection
Regardless of your belief system, having a spiritual connection, whether it’s directed to your inner self or outward to the universe, can help reach a theta state. You can create a spiritual connection through prayer, a mantra, or a desire to connect lies inside or beyond.
We can all Achieve Theta state
Our subconscious mind holds a significant sway on our impulses and conscious decisions. The subconscious is always working. In fact, some of the world’s greatest innovators and thinkers intentionally use it to uncover creative solutions.
By learning how to achieve a theta state, you can focus your subconscious mind on your most pressing problems. At theta state, your mind is primed to unlock solutions.
As you’re about to sleep, ask yourself, “What steps do I need to take to achieve my goals?”, “What information I’m I missing?” Your mind will effectively work it out.
In the morning, as you’re about to wake up and be fully conscious, when your creative brain is at its best, focus on your problems and jot down the solutions that come to mind.
Mental creation precedes physical creation. By learning how to reach theta state, you’ll access profound learning, influence your subconscious mind, and create change in the material world.