Holosync Review

Can a CD Meditation Program Like Holosync Help You With Stress?

What is Holosync?

It is a CD meditation program created by Centerpointe Research Institute founder Bill Harris. Essentially, you put on a pair of headphones and listen to the CD tracks and it's supposed to put you in a calm, relaxed state. In fact, one of the letters Bill sends with his product states "Meditate Like a Zen Monk at the Push of a Button..."

How It Helps You Relax

Holosync is based around the concept of binaural beats. According to the literature that comes with the Holosync product, one of the first scientists to describe the concept was Dr. Gerald Oster, of Mt. Sinai Medical Center, in the October 1973 issue of Scientific American. Oster discovered that by playing two different tones to a subject's ears through stereo headphones, the brain became "entrained" to a frequency that was the difference of the frequency of these two tones. The brain wave frequency produced by this entrainment is what is known as binaural beats.

The Holosync technology capitalizes on this discovery by entraining your brain to frequencies which are associated with relaxed states. The first part of the program, known as Awakening Prologue, takes your brain from the alpha state (associated with relaxed focus/meditation) down to the delta state (associated with dreamless sleep). By continuously repeating this program over a period of months, Bill Harris claims you are literally changing the structure of your brain which will help you become more relaxed and able to deal with life's challenges.

The Benefits

Some of the touted benefits of Holosync include (I took these right from some of the literature they sent me with the demo CD):

• Increases in the production of beneficial brain chemicals, including pleasure-causing endorphins--as well as others that slow aging and increase well-being...
• The letting go of dysfunctional mental & emotional patterns (such as anger, fear, anxiety, depression, sadness, substance abuse, self limitations, etc.)
• Increased learning ability, enhanced creativity, improved concentration, greatly increased self-awareness...
• Lower stress levels, and an increased ability to deal with whatever happens to you in life, calmly and clearly.
• Taking the risks to achieve success doesn't seem so scary anymore. Good things begin to just "happen" for you...
• The need for sleep decreases, yet aliveness, vitality and energy increase!

The Most Interesting Benefit, Especially If You've Suffered Childhood Trauma

In the literature he sends, Bill Harris says that everyone has a threshold for what they can handle coming at them from the world. When that threshold is exceeded, Bill says we attempt to deal with being pushed over it through a variety of coping mechanisms, including anger, depression, overwhelm, sadness, drug abuse, etc.

Bill says that when a person has trauma during childhood, this threshold ends up being lower than if the trauma had not happened, and the person is "more often bothered by things in their environment that might not bother other 'normal' people." This means they exhibit, and suffer from, the coping mechanisms described above more often.

Note: Bill is not a psychologist by training to the best of my knowledge. But having experienced some of this as well as reading some psychological research, I do agree that child abuse victims suffer more from depression, sadness, drug abuse, etc.

Bill explains that Holosync raises this tolerance threshold higher, which means that your dysfunctional feelings and behaviors happen less and less often because it becomes less and less likely that your environment will push you over the threshold and trigger these feelings.

The Real Question: Does this really work?

I tend to be skeptical of products that say "Meditate Like a Zen Monk at the Push of a Button." It sounds a little too much like clever marketing to me. So I did contact Holosync and ask if they knew of anyone who had done a controlled scientific study and had the results published in a peer-reviewed, scientific journal. The lady who answered was very nice and stated she was pretty new and referred me to their FAQ page because she did not know herself. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a controlled scientific study.

Also, there does tend to be some controversy on the Internet surrounding Bill Harris and Centerpointe Research. For instance, an article by Tori Deaux at MindTweaks questions the marketing tactics of founder Bill Harris*. However, for the most part, the controversy seems to surround the actual price and the marketing tactics used to promote Holosync, as opposed to the results of the product itself.

Now that said, on their testimonials page Centerpointe has notable people such as Jack Canfield (co-creator of the Chicken Soup For the Soul series books) singing its praises. In addition, they have testimonials from folks like you and me talking about improved confidence and the increased energy to do things. Anecdotally, it appears to deliver good results.

In my own humble opinion, the main drawback of this program is that it is a little expensive. It costs $179+shipping and handling for the first level, Awakening Prologue. Subsequent levels cost roughly between $200-$300. If you pay for the entire program you end up spending around $2000. The other slight drawback is that the first level of the program takes about an hour to do each day, so if you're pressed for time, it might be hard to fit it in.

After trying the first level of the program, I can honestly say...

I really feel like it did help me become more relaxed and think more clearly. I bought the first part of the program in June 2009 and have been using it regularly ever since. Because of time constraints, I've been using it at bedtime and I feel it has definitely helped me fall asleep (Centerpointe claims that to get the full effect, you have to be doing it while awake, but you can still benefit while using it if you're asleep). Granted, it took a while to get used to the headphones, but that was fine after a while.

During the time I've been using Holosync, I've been able to resolve some old issues and I feel like I've become calmer. Now, anecdotal evidence is not the same as a controlled, scientific study, but for the skeptics Holosync has a yearlong money-back guarantee (it's January 2009 as I write this). Although, I have no plans to return it because I feel like the product has helped me in ways that reading numerous self help books have not. Take a look at one random user I found on YouTube had to say:

Holosync Support

One of the nice things about Centerpointe is that they offer unlimited free telephone and email support. You can actually call (or email) them Monday-Friday 9 am -5 pm Pacific Standard Time if you have questions. No doubt offering this telephone support probably adds to the price of the program. I hadn't tested the support out before I wrote this review, so I decided to give it a try. When I called, I spoke to someone who had just been recently hired. Here are some answers I received to my questions (Note: some of the employee's answers are not exact to the last word because I was typing slower than she was speaking):

Adam: If I use it when I'm asleep, will it be as effective?
Holosync support: You won't experience the full benefit if you're asleep.

Adam: Are there any controlled studies that have been done that have been published in scientific peer reviewed journals? How do I know I'm not experiencing a placebo effect?
Holosync support: I'm pretty new so I'll have to refer you to the FAQ page. I started answering calls and the customers were telling me some impressive things. It's how you learn to use the tool...I've heard some amazing things from customers that just left me absolutely speechless.

Adam: What are some potential negative side-effects of using Holosync?
Holosync support: Overwhelm...you're at a threshold, you're right on the verge of a shift. It could be headaches, tummy aches, crankiness, anxiousness...it manifests itself in different ways for all different kinds of people. One lady got a rash. Once she figured out what she was trying to push through, the rash went away. It's like a little kid raising his hand in school, and saying "I'm ready I'm ready, what are you going to do with me?" Holosync creates new neural pathways and creates new capacity for awareness. Awareness is when you become so acutely aware of an activity that is not to your benefit that you can't do it again. And that's the goal, to be able to identify the things in your life that aren't to your benefit, and then you can't consciously choose to do that.

Adam: How do I know when I'm ready for the next level?
Holosync support: #1: You stay awake during the whole thing. #2: You're not going through a bunch of overwhelm #3: The impact of the program will feel different than when you first started.

You Can Try It Risk Free

The great thing about the Holosync meditation program is that you can obtain a free demo CD to try it for yourself. If you like it, then you can order their first level, Awakening Prologue. This has a one-year money back guarantee. Part of the reason for the lengthy guarantee is because Centerpointe says it takes a few months for you to really notice the benefits. I purchased mine in the summer of 2009 and I feel like it took a few months to start to notice that I was becoming calmer and able to deal with life's challenges a little bit better.

I'll be trying some other products and posting reviews of those as well. So stay tuned. Click here or on any of the banners on this page to try the Holosync program.

~Adam

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