Drum Circles bring Resilience, Wellness, and Creativity to the Workplace

This Orange County firm wasn’t sure what they were getting into when they asked to have a drum circle workplace wellness program in their firm in March 2015. The twenty or so employees who attended became highly engaged, creative, and experienced a big boost in their energy.

In the above video, staff can be seen exploring creativity and communications with fellow employees. There was also a genuine willingness to follow Dolle’s instructions to bring what began as a rhythm only with bells, into a fully synchronized drum circle rhythm.

In life & work, innovation comes when you trust your instincts in working with one another. This 8-minute rhythm in this drum circle video began with (4) complimentary gongo bell patterns that involved two senior partners of the firm. Next, hand drums, sound shapes, and small percussion were incrementally brought in to support the bells and beat pattern. The result was an improvisational masterpiece. The video only captured the final two minutes.

The truth is, the same health challenges that affect us at home, can affect your productivity, creativity, and problem solving abilities at work. So this Orange County firm experienced how drumming can be one of the best activities for workplace wellness, how it stimulates employee engagement, and activates key productivity centers in the brain.

As founder, drum circle facilitator, and neuroscientist with Dolle Communications, Stephen Dolle has considerable experience with drum circles and related workshops. He can also offer tips on employee engagement and productivity. Dolle has seen a lot of workplace challenges made more manageable thru drumming. What makes drumming unique, is how it affects both the brain and body, where the vibration of the instruments produces a calming effect on the individual. It results in a happier, more engaged, and connected employee ready to deal with the challenges of the workplace.

Stephen Dolle June 2017 TV Interview on Drumming and the Brain

Drum Circles in the Workplace

There are a variety of ways that drum circles are used to bring positive change, increased productivity, and employee resiliency to the workplace. Three of these include:

Drumming for stress reduction/resiliency, where drum circles allow employees to engage and play/share during the middle of the work day in a fun environment. The benefits include increased productivity and employee health. Typical play times are 30 to 60 minutes.

Drumming for team-building, where drum circles are used to help employees better connect and improve working relationships, critical in team concentric operations. This type of drumming is also ideal at ice-breakers and retreats to get participants to come and and engage with others. The benefits include increased expression of thoughts & ideas, improvement in productivity, and fewer errors and mis-understandings thru improved communications. Typical play times are 60-90 minutes.

Drumming for creativity & problem solving in the workplace. This is an issue in the workplace that is not well understood, where strategies range between compartmentalizing challenges to brain storming sessions. Ultimately, there are two primary forms of problem solving: 1) analytical or comparitive reasoning, and 2) free-thinking where methods are employed to free up worker’s minds. The benefits include increased problem solving ability thru retraining of the mind. Typical play times are 60 to 90 minutes.

Now for some remarkable brain science and workplace development. Employees tend to play much better when not instructed as to how or what to play. The reason is, when faced with unfamiliar circumstances and no punative consequences, employees will usually rely on their innate problem solving abilities, in which case here is the ability to play music and rhythm that is innate within all of us. As such, most groups do very well.

Group drumming in the workplace then builds trust and confidence in one’s innate abilities, where typically people have either been discouraged from trusting their judgment, or have been given strict instruction not to act on their initiatives. It is in this latter regards that strict company structure can leave employees never learning to trust their judgment in leadership, problem solving, or managerial duties. Group drumming can be just what the doctor ordered, and help usher in change towards more healthy group dynamics. Not only is this good for productivity, it’s critical for stress-relief and mental health.

Drum circles help to reduce stress and stimulate the brain for optimal function in the workplace

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) defines “workplace wellness” as a health promotion activity or organization-wide policy designed to support healthy behavior and improve health outcomes while at work. They report that these programs should consist of activities such as health education and coaching, weight management programs, medical screenings, on-site fitness programs, and more.

Notwithstanding living with chronic illness or injury, the biggest challenge to workplace productivity remains employee engagement and maintaining the necessary focus to do your job really well. Dolle says more challenges at work are due to inadequate mental focus. So he says the solutions, then, should be tailored to maintaining mental stamina, flexibility, and executive cognitive skills.

There are a number of organizations today which provide consulting in employee health  as recommended by the CDC. The CDC also offers a free worksite health scorecard and other materials for implementing a health promotion program in your workplace.

Worksite Health ScoreCard

Concentra also offers health program consulting designed to encourage healthier lifestyle behavior in employees, intended to reduce health care spending. A successful wellness program can benefit employers by developing and maintaining a healthier, more productive workforce and community.

Concentra Programs and Services

Drink 6-8 8 oz. glasses of water each day for optimal health, plus it helps ward off migraine headache.

Dolle notes that the two most important things you can undertake for wellness and productivity at work is proper hydration with water throughout the day, and moving about physically. You should also follow these practices at home. These two simple steps, he says, help keep blood flowing to deliver oxygen and needed nutrients to your body’s vital organs, including, to your brain.

Drum Circles and Drum Circle Facilitation by Dolle Communications

Dolle Communications

Dolle Communications provides drum circle facilitation, tips on employee engagement and productivity, learning and leadership, and mHealth design consulting in the greater Orange County, CA area. Dolle provides all the necessary instruments and materials for a drum circle, and facilitates a variety of drumming workshops at your place of business or desired location. Drum circles aid resilience, leadership, creativity, productivity, and wellness in the workplace. It truly is an organicly inspired staff experience!

Stephen Dolle facilitating a Drum Circle on Wellness in 2010 at the Hyatt Hotel in Irvine, CA.

The company puts on a variety of drumming for wellness workshops, which have become recognized today within integrative medicine in offering substantial health benefits to a range of medical conditions.

Dolle also has several startups under his belt, including, DiaCeph Inc., a startup for his 1997 design of an mHealth app (DiaCeph Test) for hydrocephalus. And from 1982 to 1992, he serviced more than 50 hospitals through his medical imaging company, Certified Nuclear Imaging (CNI).

CNI presented Dolle with the opportunity to work with a vast array of medical instrumentation challenges that would be overwhelming for most technologists. He developed workplace methods and discipline that allowed him to excel in complex technical and medical challenges. The result was that he became more productive in performing procedures, while having extra time for sales and marketing to develop new business. He also became astute in client facility workplace challenges and often advised in human resource and medical instrumentation purchase matters, and wrote papers on these topics. Later, he raised money for and helped organize local sports & entertainment events, that could also be very demanding.

Dolle has been involved in the neurosciences since 1992 with his mHealth technology start-up, DiaCeph Inc., and now with Dolle Communications. He describes workplace wellness as being about optimizing one’s energy and mental focus over a period of hours, days, weeks, and months. It is the few, the exception, he says, who truly master these challenges and successfully balance life and work.

5 Sectors make up workplace wellness

Dolle says the keys to workplace productivity is thru employee engagement and staying involved and “entrained” in what is happening around you. As you ascend in your work to higher positions, you will need to develop methods that exert more control over brain wave states and productivity.

“Engage the Rhythms of your Brain”

The four levels of brain wave states are shown in this illustration

Dolle has undertaken research with “brain waves” and brain wave entrainment, and employs these methods in his drum circles and facilitation work.

He describes that we change between alpha and beta brain wave states during our normal day, and that certain tasks and activities are best performed while in a particular brain wave state. Naturally, he says, our brain’s tire and we can become stressed and distracted. The experienced individual learns to transition their brain wave states and cognitive focus to overcome these challenges.

If you’re reading a slow moving book or working on a tedious problem at work, for instance, you’ll want to be in a slower more introspective alpha brain wave state. But, if you are tackling a multi-faceted project, or are working with a team of staff people on a project, you may want a faster more attentive beta brain wave state. And one of the best ways to shape your brain waves is either thru “controlled breath” or “rhythmic movement.” This slide below illustrates some of the mechanisms involved in movement.

Illustration on the proprioceptive mechanisms involved in exercise and movement.

There are a variety of techniques to help you transition between brain wave states. And group drumming, or drum circles, is one of the best. Drum circles utilize auditory driving and spur mindfulness techniques. Drumming also engages body kinesthetics thru rhythmic movement of instrument play. These movements stimulate the body’s proprioceptive memories, which boost cognition. This is why you perform better at cognitive tasks when tapping out patterns or shaking a foot at your desk. Group drumming also enables team brain wave entrainment, helpful in boosting productivity. Kinesthetics come into play in tai chi and yoga, among others.

This music and the brain illustration depicts the areas of the brain involved in listening and playing music

Group brain wave entrainment in drumming allows “entrainment” of the group to a rhythm played over 5-10 minutes. When sustained, members entrain to a common brain wave pattern, and thought intent. Rhythms vary from slow to fast, from primal to contemporary, corresponding to activation of hindbrain vs frontal lobe function. This principle is why you should not listen to contemporary music while meditating, as it will help awaken conscious memories and activate the frontal lobe, which will interfere with breath entrainment with your hindbrain.

Drumming for basbetball workshops aid movement, timing, and on court communications

Sports play uses entrainment to for connectedness and success on the field or court. My in-depth basketball blog details the brain science and sports science mechanisms involved in play. Entrainment allows you to anticipate your teammate’s actions.

Another example of entrainment is when women work or live together, when they achieve syncopation of their menstrual cycles. Rioting is yet another example of group entrainment, though based on negative thought and intent. Entrainment occurs in animals too, and is widely seen in pack hunting. Entrainment occurs more often in real life than you might think.

There has been quite a bit of recent research with drumming and brain wave entrainment, which has led to drumming being used more often in stress reduction, cancer therapy, and treatment of chronic illness. Dolle undertook earlier research in sensory processing disorder or SPD, with this 2002 Sensory Processing Study. Two years later, he became involved in drumming.

Dolle spoke on brain wave entrainment and trance states in STEM3 education at Wright State University in 2011. Below is his power point via SlideShare.net.

Dolle believea trance heightened states are in fact a functional cognitive state you can achieve each day, and it is reported to occur in playing music, meditation, religious studies, fasting, and several other disciplines. Trance heightened states is mostly likely what athletes achieve when “in the zone” in sports.

Dolle speculates on the role of trance states in this popular blog, Sports Science vs. the Brain Science of Basketball: Where does the Shot come From?

Trance states could bring amazing new expert proficiencies to a variety of occupations. As an individual employee, your workplace goals in productivity should be in learning to better shift between alpha and beta brain wave states, and maintain optimum engagement so to get the most out of your work day.

Stephen Dolle speaks on drumming for the brain at Wright State University

 

Perhaps some of the most exciting research being done today with rhythm and the brain is at the Gazzaley Lab at the University of California San Francisco, in collaboration with the Grateful Dead’s long time drummer, Mickey Hart.

Rhythm and the Brain Project – A Gazzaley – Hart Collaboration

The Gazzaley Project is described as “Unlocking the power of rhythm to understand and enhance brain function.” Rhythm is a fundamental aspect of the universe at every level, and serves as a critical foundation for life on this planet.

They’ve created a new video of some of their music and brain research in an effort to make it more fun and informative.

Gazzaley Project Video on Drumming

The goal of the project is to advance an understanding of rhythm in higher-order brain function and how we influence brain rhythms through interventions like neuro modulation, rhythm training, video games, and neurofeedback. The ultimate goal of the project it says is to improve cognition and mood in the healthy and impaired, and positively impact quality of our life.

Here is a fun related article about rhythm and the brain.

Your Brain on Rhythm: Where Freud, Nas, the Grateful Dead and Neuroscience Meet

This article on drumming by Dave Robertson lists the top ten (10) reasons why you should play in drum circles. No. 5 is perhaps most identifiable with drumming in the workplace.

Ten Reasons to Drum for Your Health

Drum circle shakers come in all sizes and flavors, such as these fruits and vegetables

As for new trends in workplace wellness, the article below discusses a list of 12 U.S. companies with impressive workplace wellness programs. The list includes IBM, Aetna, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Virgin, Google, American Express, Johnson & Johnson among others. I am unsure on their standing with drum circles though.

12 Companies With Seriously Impressive Corporate Wellness Programs

To learn more about the use of drum circles in the workplace and tips on employee health and workplace learning, contact Stephen Dolle at Dolle Communications. Feel free to also CLICK and SAVE the JPEG contact card below.

Email: contact[at]dollecommunications[dot]com
Web site: Dolle Communications

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Tips on Making you Smarter and more Focused at Work and School

The brain and sensory system during cognition.

I am writing this post largely in response to the New York Times story on abuse of psychostimulant drugs like Adderall & Ritalin, which are used to treat ADHD and ADD learning disabilities. In recent years, however, college students and others under pressure to perform at work and meet deadlines, have leaned towards taking psychostimulant drugs to stimulate cognitive performance, overcome tiredness, and avoid brain drain. The problem is, as many have learned, is that what goes up, must come down. And now there are reports of many young college students and workers becoming “addicted” to psychstimulant drugs.

If you ask my opinion, I think the answer to optimum cognitive performance  and brain health, is proper rest, proper nutrition, and learning how to engage your brain while undertaking various activities. Unfortunately the latter, is a lifelong adventure of many different types of learning methods, philosophies, and trial and error to see which ones serve you best. For me, the most effective ones were those that challenged my belief system and learning biases. Obviously, these fans below at the Ohio State foolball game were highly engaged, though likely also with the aid of alcohol (that helps get you out of your shell).

Ohio State football fans go crazy during 2015 Championship game.

Rest is a must for optimal brain performance. Remember what your mother told you? Get some exercise, work hard, and you’ll fall right asleep in the evening. But today, there are a myriad of supplements like melatonin to help you sleep without prescription drugs. Exercise is critical because it improves blood flow in the brain, and helps lower stress. And a glass of (preferably red) wine and a boring TV program, or nice book, will help you get to sleep at bedtime.

Brain health and mental health is the biggest challenge of the 21st Century.

On nutrition, I say don’t overeat. Don’t eat junk food. Don’t drink too much alcohol. And don’t smoke! Drink plenty of fluids. Spend some money on good vitamins, maybe $30-50/month. There are many designer brain vitamins today too such as fish oils. And don’t think you’re going to find a solution in one or two vitamins. You have to try different supplements, and possibly find one or several that really works for you.

These food groups provide nutrients for the brain and body.

Next, exercise is key in managing stress, boosting blood flow in the brain, and workplace wellness. And sex is very good for you too. If need be, find an XX budy or two to serve those needs, unless you are strong willed and spiritually minded enough to overcome these human drives. Aerobic exercises with “rhythmic” movement core are the best for bringing oxygen into the brain, and for relieving stress. “Rhythmic” activities like walking, running, swimming, tennis, DRUMMING – help to balance the forebrain & hindbrain brain waves, and reduce stress.

Exercising helps body and brain health.

Now, what I can tell you from my experiences with engagement and learning, is that it is a skill that must be learned. Some people develop this at a very early age, and can excell in school. For me, it started in junior high and developed slowly thru high school and college. But, it wasn’t really until I was about age 30, when I reached a point, where I could read something once, and completely absorb it. I somehow learned how to learn efficiently. It’s like anything you do, it’s in the “technique.” For you, you will have to figure out your own course and best methods. There are workshops and courses to improve learning. I’d go for established workshops and courses that challenge your “belief system” and the manner in which you learn, espicially if you are struggling with learning. You need a change in your beliefs & biases.

Artificial intelligence can train our brains to accomplish great feats

For me, after my 1992 brain injury and development of hydrocephalus, life and learning took on an entirely different meaning, especially in navigating through all my various shunt malfunctions and changes in cognitive performance. I think mostly it was my new learning methods utilizing my intuitive reasoning, and then analytical reasoning, that eneabled me to overcome my learning challenges. Analytical thinking allows you to reason and recall based on the “probabilities” of the most likely answer. To access your intuitive reasoning, do this by not pressing for an answer, rather, calmly ask your brain for an answer, a give it little time. You can get some amazing results when you learn to use your intuitive reasoning.

Knowledge is where spiritual enlightenment meets wisdom

As for stimulants, I took “No Doz” in college. And as an adult, I’ve used coffee, vitamin stimulants, and potions they sell at check out of most stores. One of my favorite stimulants I’ve come to like in recent years, has been Green Tea capsules by Jarrow. You just need to find the number of, and time frame, for the capsules to optimize your brain state.

Drum circles help stimulate the engage your brain in the workplace

Drum Circles in the Workplace

And lastly, you must learn how to “jump start” your brain avoid “brain drain” while studying at home, or busy at work. The answer is a combination of optimum learning methods and employee engagement, where you “engage” your brain in activities that put you in the optimum “brain wave state” for performing your task at hand. There are several brain wave sensors available today that you can couple to your computer or mobile phone. But I’m not going to promote these here.

Four major Brain Wave States of the Brain

As for brain wave states and brain wave entrainment, there are certain times of the day, and specific activities, where certain states of beta vs. alpha brain waves are going to the most optimal for your task. You can actually alter your brain wave patterns thru music, drumming, rest/meditation, exercise, or any activity that allows you to synchronize your body movements and tempo to a given signal. The goal is to find the optimum brain wave state that will make you the most productive for any given task. And it also is denpendant upon time of day, and your state of mind/rest at that time. Brain wave readers can be helpful in letting you know your state. But you can also sort of sense this if you do it as an everyday practice. My concern with brain wave readers, is that you could end up getting neurotic over controling your brain waves. There is no simple solution. Companies must be more attentive today in workplace wellness, employee engagement, and any abuse of psychostimulants. The natural course of best learning methods, and learning to better use intuitive reasoning, and analytical reasoning, in solving complex challenges at work.

Mindfulness Activities: The Science of Basketball

Basketball Tactile Sensation

If you haven’t already done so, you should take a look at what I’ve written on the brain science of “basketball,” specifically relating to mindfulness. I have a good 7 years now utilizing basketball in this fashion, and I can attest it provides a tremendous buzz in mindfulness and stress relief.

Stephen Dolle speaks on drumming for the brain at Wright State University

The solution is to do ALL of the above, and develop a system for yourself and within your company that works best for you.

Below, is the New York Times article that appeared on April 18, 2015:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/us/workers-seeking-productivity-in-a-pill-are-abusing-adhd-drugs.html

The Brain Science of Fan Behavior in Football, Basketball and Team Sports

Seattle Seahawks prepared for Super Bowl.

This is that time of year we football fans go into withdrawal. First it was college football ending its season. Now, we await next Sunday’s Super Bowl with the NFL’s final game. I love it too for its brain science, brain wave entrainment, and the inspiration it provides in our modern lives. Team sports can bring the best and worst out of its fans too. Whether it be your child’s little league team, local high school, or favorite college team, many fans act out an alter-ego of their personality and have been found to dress up in team colors, and even commit acts of violence (usually with the help of alcohol). Where group viewing enhances brain wave entrainment, alcohol depresses cognition. And a natural consequence of decreased cognition is frustration, anger, and sometimes violence. However, most fans are very civil and games like the College Championship Game between Ohio State & Oregon two weeks ago, brings the best out of viewers. This game was a super-charged brain wave entrainment experience, and it broke ESPN’s previous viewership record of two years ago. The sub-stories were inspirational too.

Ohio State football fans go crazy during 2015 Championship game.

Next Sunday, we finish up NFL football with the Patriots vs. Seahawks Super Bowl. But it won’t mean as much to me. These two teams, it seems, are playing more for bragging rights than community and love of the game. There’s an emptyness in their rhetoric too, severing our entrainment built up over the season. For me, the brain science I find most enjoyable in team sports is the connections you develop with players and teams. I love the personal stories of overcoming odds, and relate it to my adversity with illness and everyday life. I draw upon that inspiration and use it as teaching tools to help better myself and those around me. Still, I yearn for truth.

The brain and sensory system during cognition.

Football is perhaps the best brain science sport because it is so team-concentric and detail oriented with instant replay, and affords considerable brain wave entrainment via television, news, and social networking. The resulting connectedness along with enumerable opportunities for discussion via news and local conversation, heightens the connectedness around a common interest. The connectedness, the repetition, the extraordinary use of statistical information – is very healthy for the brain, especially if you suffer from any form of cognitive disfunction. Though the Super Bowl is still to play, I have already turned my attention to NBA basketball, where I am following the league ambassadors. I was watching LaBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers this week, and was reminded that basketball play, the “it,” is not about basketball. It’s about a group of people coming together in pursuit of a common good, a “Pay it Forward” paradym, for team, family, community, nation, and game. Enjoy your emotional roll-a-coaster as we shift our attention from the ending of football, to basketball, hockey, or whatever fires you up.

How the Internet is like one big DRUM CIRCLE

Have you ever viewed the Internet as a big DRUM CIRCLE? Think again.

Drummers play and perform at this drum circle every Sunday at Pier Plaza in Huntington Beach, CA

In this TED talk, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Internet gives his view of a world-wide & open Internet, with free and open participation on the web. I’ll take the Internet a step further, and equate it as one massive “drum circle,” where each user freely makes their own contribution, and then the whole is more than the sum of the individual parts. Some of the TED Talk comments here support my reasoning. Still others describe the Internet further as an integral part of the “noosphere,” the collective thought of all people on Earth.

Prosperity is based on sound information.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee TED Talk

Additional resources on his vision

Description of the Noosphere

Internet controlled drum circle at Calit2, University of California in Irvine

Drumming is based on brain science!

This music and the brain illustration depicts the areas of the brain involved in listening and playing music

Drumming in the Workplace

Drum circles aid productivity and stress reduction for employees at this area Orange County firm.

Drumming for Wellness

Seniors came alive in this 2010 drum circle for wellness and movement.

Drumming Case Study in Autism

Drumming with Children aids Movement and Coordination

Contact me for more information.

Stephen Dolle
Drum Circle Facilitation
Dolle Communications
Email: contact[at]dollecommunications[dot]com

Drum Beats can help NFL Teams overcome Crowd Noise at Football Stadiums

Taiko Drummer sets the Time, Rhythm, and type of Movement

Neuroscientist and percussionist Stephen Dolle says drums & drum beats can be used in practice drills to help NFL football teams with timing, on-field communications, and snap count, and overcome some of the effects of crowd noise at NFL football stadiums, like the Seattle Seahawks, New Orleans Saints, Kansas City Chiefs, and Denver Broncos. Today, many stadiums help create a scientific home field advantage, or 12th Man, design and amplification of fan noise in their stadiums.

The Challenges of Sound Sensory Processing in Football Stadiums Today

Humans (and animals to varying degrees) are effected by sound through the brain’s sensory processing. Sound affects in both positive and negative ways, depending on the type, loudness, and patterning of the sound. As music, sound was shown to create favorable health effects in the earlier reported study of the “Mozart Effect,” where cognitive function improved after listening to classical music. It’s effect is largely based upon entrainment of the listener’s brain waves to the waveform of classical music.

But on the opposite end of the spectrum, sound can create disruptive and harmful effects upon the brain when it becomes too loud and disordered and interferes with healthy cognitive processing. And in sports stadiums for football, fan noise is used to both disrupt on-field communications, and interfere in the cognitive focus of the visiting team. Given the right mix and decibel of sound, you can essentially incapacitate players on the field. Or at the very least, make it very difficult for them to communicate and focus.

On a team level, players must be able to execute a certain amount of verbal or audible calls and dialogue. And it is more than just communications, it helps the team get into a tempo of plays and team connectedness, termed brain wave entrainment, or BWE. Groups typically rely upon audible communications to establish BWE. In many cases music is used , i.e. fitness classes, team practices. When participants are able to play an instrument, such as a drum, their engagement tends to have a more dramatic effect in the entrainment process. Of course, any intervening sounds or lights different from the communal BWE pulse or sound, becomes disruptive to the group connection and BWE.

However, this BWE disruption can be offset by training/playing to rhythmic pulses or rhythms, while engaging the body in rhythmic movement. In this way, “movement” is used rather than sound to establish the BWE and tempo. If a football team can establish their BWE during a game without the need for sound, they become much less dependent on audible sound.

A schematic showing how brain wave entrainment occurs.

The U.S. military for many years has used chants, drums, and recorded sounds during training to help syncopate on-field operations and communications. Football play is similar in that on-field timing, syncopation, and communication is critical to proper execution of play. In football, the physiology of play and movement is also described in terms of “proprioception,” or memory of muscle movement. And there are cognitive factors too to consider in play execution, where crowd noise can interfere with communications and cognitive reasoning. But rhythmic cues can be used in place of audible sound for communications. And once a team has established its BWE and tempo, rhythmic cues as communications would be much easier to utilize.

The four levels of brain wave states are shown in this illustration

There are also “brain wave states” to consider during on field play. Typically, a player’s brain wave state would be at a faster “Beta” rate as can be seen in the image below. However, the offset to this would be to remain more calm and focused, and this type of mental or cognitive reasoning is more commonly seen during the “Alpha” wave state of meditation. In this state, an individual’s memory and recall is more enhanced, and it would be safe to say that athletes who get into a zone are undoubtedly more in a Beta wave state than their player counter-parts. A great deal of research has gone into being able to moderate one’s brain wave state for optimal cognitive performance. I’ve also written quite a bit about this in my blog on Drumming for Employee Engagement.

Employees at this firm in Orange County, CA, experienced employee engagement in this drum circle for workplace wellness

In 2014, the NFL fined the Atlanta Falcons for their role in piping in stadium noise. Today, stadiums are designed to redirect crowd noise toward the playing field, that create adverse conditions for the visiting team. This has since been named the “12th man.” Visiting teams have found the noise levels so loud as to interfere with on-field communications, snap count, syncopation of play, and cognitive focus.

This diagram of the brain reveals the key areas involved in music, cognition, and basic function

In military combat, sound is regularly used to break the will of prisoners to obtain sensitive information. Is it torture? Depends who you ask. In ordinary life, individuals who suffer from neurological disorders, post concussion syndrome, PTSD, hydrocephalus, and related sensory processing disorder are uniquely susceptible to the ill-effects of high decibel, repetitive, and white noise type of sound. For me, it was a 1992 brain injury that left me with hydrocephalus, that led me to undertake brain and music research. For me and many others, sensory dysfunction occurs at lower sound levels.

My earlier research with sound and sensory processing disorders involved a Metronome sensory processing study I published on my web site in 2002. I discovered how rhythmic patterns in sound determined largely how we process and assimilate it, and that repetitive and unstructured sound could trigger neurologic sequela, referred to today as sensory processing disorder, or SPD. Conversely, I showed how “melodic patterns” in sound such as in music or drum beats, could improve one’s intolerance to sound. These SPD neurological sequela are said to be quite common in post concussion disorder, and accordingly, I would speculate also in the developing stages of CTE. In fact, I’d go so far as to state that SPD with sound is likely the No. 1 trigger of mental health behavioral meltdowns in persons suffering from post concussion and CTE disorders, with stress due to PTSD induced health challenges, as No. 2. I published my blog below detailing my findings and solutions for managing sensory processing disorder in 2014. And continue to update it with new developments in SPD and brain health.

New Insights in the Management of Sensory Processing Disorder 

The U.S. military has been training special forces by subjecting them to high levels of disorganized and repetitive sound, and instructing them how to find a syncopating pattern within the mix of the noise, to maintain their cognitive focus. They probably use electronic & recorded audio, but this could be done with drum beats and musical instruments as well. The brain science behind this compensatory mechanism is, if you can connect with a pattern or rhythm in the sound, you’ll better withstand its ill-effects, drop in cognitive function, mental focus, and breakage of your will and psyche. The same mechanism is applicable in pain management, where the role of the psyche is critical.

Read my study at:

2002 Study on Sensory Processing and Rhythmic Pattern of Sound

Boss BR-8 includes a full 50 selection Metronome

There is considerable supporting research for how our brains & bodies are well adapted for rhythmic patterning as seen in all movement, athletic skill, verbal & non-verbal communications, and cognitive reasoning (analytical & relational reasoning). Researchers established the benefits of listening to melodic music in the Mozart Effect.

Drumming is a great tool in teambuilding and in engaging those around you

We’ve noted that drumming and playing percussion instruments (drum circles) can help offset the ill-effects of loud repetitive sound and white noise in persons who are sensitive to sound. NFL teams could use these methods to help players suffering from sensory processing disorder & PTSD complaints associated with repeat concussions. From our research and experience with neurological disorders and sensory processing sequela, we created the slogan, “ENGAGE THE RHYTHMS OF YOUR BRAIN.” Why engage the rhythms of your brain? How does is it all work?

Stephen Dolle speaks on drumming for the brain at Wright State University

 

Drum play during football practice would help teams with timing, sensory processing, communications, brain wave entrainment, and noise challenges during actual games.

Dolle Web Site on Drumming for Football

Drum circle beats can help timing and communications in NFL & College football

Blog on Drumming for Basketball/Brain Science of Basketball

Drumming for basbetball workshops aid movement, timing, and on court communications

SEE also my fundraising blog below with a lookalike photo collage with Houston Texans defensive end JJ Watt, entitled:

Cause Marketing Web Site for Hydrocephalus uses Super-Hero Theme

I’ve used drumming in a variety of ways to improve movement, balance, coordination, cognitive focus, sound sensitivity, non-verbal communications, confidence, and overcoming adversity. I write about mobile sound apps in another blog.

Please contact me per the information below.

Stephen Dolle
Neuroscientist, mHealth Inventor & Drum Circle Facilitator
Email:  contact[at]dollecommunications[dot]com

DolleCommunications.com