You can hear these beats best with a pair of good headphones. When each ear picks up a slightly different pitch, the brain tries to compensate and finds a frequency somewhere in the middle. This supposedly causes both hemispheres of the brain to harmonize their brainwaves, a phenomenon called neural entrainment.

Brainwaves are the regular patterns that firing neurons create in our brains, so binaural beats could be bringing these rhythmic patterns into alignment (some research still debates this).

Many companies are making daring affirmations that binaural beats work like “digital drugs” to “biohack” your brain, that have the power to unlock your memory and creativity while keeping away stress, headaches and insomnia. An entire industry has sprung up around the concept.