Entrainment: How Our Brains synchronize to the Environment & other Brains

Reading time: less than two minutes

Introduction

Entrainment in biological systems is “the process of making something have the same pattern or rhythm as something else.” (The Cambridge Dictionary). According to biomedical, neurological, and neurorehabilitative research, entrainment occurs in physical and organic systems; such as brainwaves and clocks. What this means is, non-living systems and living systems can affect one another. We don’t think about it much, but this fact, that we affect one another, is remarkable.

Entrainment occurs when an audience has a communal experience listening to live music. Entrainment occurs between people and their brain waves when they are in conversation together.

Entrainment even applies to orgasm. The theory is that couples orgasm when their neural systems and networks become entrained.

Research by Deco & Kringelbach in 2016 showed that entrainment is likely to have positive impacts on cognitive and affective functioning.

How to Create Entrainment-Rich Environments

Ancient civilizations did not have the idea of entrainment, yet, they still used it. People working together in the field, or weaving, have long used songs and rhythms to create entrainment to increase productivity and happiness during manual tasks. Entrainment can be promoted at the task level (hundreds of people working in unison in manufacturing, for example), through music, or directly through the use of relaxation and mindfulness techniques.

Why Mindfulness at Work?

In 2019, research showed that mindfulness practices in the workplace decreased the likelihood that one’s mind would wander. In a 2020 study, mindfulness, coupled with entrainment, positively impacted motivation and performance. Further studies indicated that mindfulness seemed to increase employees’ intrinsic motivation for work. Again, the fact that we can positively impact the intrinsic motivation and level of happiness is a very remarkable thing, especially that impact can be made with something as simple (simple, but not easy) as mindfulness at work.

Creating Entrained Experience

The quickest, most reliable way to create an entrained group is presence. The Term presence is very old, yet it was popularized in the early 2000s by leadership and management experts such as Peter Senge, Joseph Jaworski, and Otto Scharmer. Presence, simply put, is the ability to be here and now without any prior baggage. Presence is the ability to relax into the body. Benefits of the practice include increased performance, productivity, and creativity, as well as increases in the sense that experience is meaningful. When presence is practiced by a group or team, for prolonged periods, the team will entrain at more productive brain frequencies, create novel solutions to long-standing problems, and simply put; they will get more done with higher degrees of happiness.