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The Science Behind The Work

The people this work stands on

I like to ground what I do in the people who did the original work.

Each of them studied how the body regulates itself, and each of them made it possible to measure what I measure in a session today.

Here is who they were, what they found, and where it shows up in my room in Dubai Marina.

1873 to 1941

Hans Berger

Psychiatrist, Jena, Germany

In 1924 Berger recorded electrical activity from a human brain for the first time.

He published the work in 1929, and he was the first to describe the alpha rhythm, the slower wave that appears when a person rests with their eyes closed and gives way to faster beta waves when the eyes open.

Before Berger, nobody could see what a working brain was doing while the person was awake.

Where it shows up in a sessionEvery brainwave scan I run starts from the thing he proved was possible.
1881 to 1973

Walter Rudolf Hess

Physiologist, University of Zurich. Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1949

Hess mapped the diencephalon, a deep part of the brain, by stimulating defined points and observing what the body did in response.

He showed that this region coordinates the autonomic nervous system, which manages heart rate, breathing, digestion and the body's internal balance.

The Nobel committee honoured him "for his discovery of the functional organization of the interbrain as a coordinator of the activities of the internal organs."

Where it shows up in a sessionThis is why I treat the nervous system as one regulating system, and not as a list of separate symptoms.
1871 to 1945

Walter Cannon

Physiologist, Harvard Medical School

Cannon described the body's emergency response, which he named fight or flight, in his 1915 book Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage.

He went on to introduce the word homeostasis, the idea that the body keeps its internal conditions steady through constant adjustment, and he set the idea out in The Wisdom of the Body in 1932.

Where it shows up in a sessionThis is the root of what I say about self-regulation. The body already knows how to find balance, and my job is to stop getting in the way of that.
1910 to 1977

W. Grey Walter

Neurophysiologist, Burden Neurological Institute, Bristol

Grey Walter built improved EEG machines that could pick up everything from fast alpha to slow delta activity.

His EEG work in the 1930s led to the discovery of delta waves, which he linked to the location of brain tumours and to epilepsy, and he went on to study how different brainwave states relate to alertness, fatigue and recovery.

He also built the first small electronic robots that seemed to find their own way around a room, and he described his research on the brain and light in his 1953 book The Living Brain.

Where it shows up in a sessionWhen I show a client their delta, theta, alpha and beta before and after a session, I am using the language he helped build.
1907 to 1982

Hans Selye

Endocrinologist, McGill University, Montreal

In 1936 Selye published the work that began his study of how the body responds to stress of any kind, which he later called the general adaptation syndrome.

His central observation was that a stress response which helps in the short term becomes costly when it never switches off.

Where it shows up in a sessionThis is the principle behind the way I talk about beta and cortisol. A short burst helps, and a day with no recovery does not.
1952

Winfried Otto Schumann

Physicist

In 1952 Schumann predicted mathematically that the space between the surface of the Earth and the ionosphere acts as a giant resonant cavity, which lightning strikes around the world keep ringing.

The strongest of these Schumann resonances sits at about 7.83 Hz, with further peaks near 14, 20, 26 and 32 Hz. Reliable measurements of them followed in the early 1960s, once the signal could be separated from background noise.

The physics is established. Whether these natural frequencies have any effect on the human brain is a question that is still being researched, and I do not claim a proven effect.

Set against the brainwave bands, the fundamental at 7.83 Hz sits at the border of theta and alpha, the range where Berger first recorded the alpha rhythm in 1924. The higher peaks fall in beta and low gamma.

That overlap in frequency is a fact. Whether the brain responds to it is a hypothesis, and it is the one I am exploring in my own work.

Delta Theta Alpha Beta Gamma 7.83 Hz 14.1 Hz 20.3 Hz 26.3 Hz 32.5 Hz Schumann resonances (gold lines) over the EEG bands 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 Frequency (Hz) Band edges are the commonly used ones and vary slightly between sources. The fundamental, 7.83 Hz, sits at the theta and alpha border.
Where it shows up in a sessionThe Earth has its own natural rhythm, and I use frequencies in this range as a reference point in my sound work. It is part of my approach of copying nature on a small scale.
My model

Copying nature on a small scale

 

The nervous system regulates itself, and it evolved to do that under a natural pattern of light.

At sunrise the light is low and red-orange. Through the morning it becomes brighter with more blue, and that coincides with rising cortisol and alertness.

At sunset the light moves back towards red, and melatonin rises as the day ends.

My sound and light sessions copy a small version of that pattern, so the brain and nervous system are guided towards natural states inside an unnatural environment.

Sunrise Midday Sunset Night Blue-rich light Cortisol Melatonin A simplified schematic of the daily pattern, to show the idea. It is not measured data. Cortisol is highest soon after waking and falls through the day. Melatonin rises in the evening in the dark.
What is established and what is mine
  • The history above is established science.
  • The link between light, melatonin and the body clock is established science.
  • The existence of the Schumann resonances is established physics. Any effect on people is still an open question.
  • The way I combine sound, light and coaching in a session is my own practice, and I back it with the before and after data I record with each client.
Sources
  • Nobel Prize, Walter Hess biographical and facts pages, nobelprize.org.
  • Britannica, Walter Bradford Cannon and Hans Selye biographies.
  • Science Museum Group, William Grey Walter, report for the Rockefeller Foundation, 1938.
  • Hans Berger, 1929, first publication on the human electroencephalogram.
  • Walter Cannon, The Wisdom of the Body, 1932.
  • Winfried Otto Schumann, 1952, prediction of the Earth-ionosphere cavity resonances. Measurements by Balser and Wagner, 1960 to 1963.
  • Harvard Health Publishing, Blue light has a dark side.
  • Schematic figures on this page are simplified illustrations and are not measured data.
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