Binaural beats when you feel anxious: what the trials show

Do binaural beats help when you feel anxious?

In trials, people who listened to binaural beats around the time of an operation rated themselves less tense and worried afterwards than people who heard nothing. A 2025 review by Xiong and colleagues pooled 15 such trials. Against blank audio, silence through headphones, 14 trials with 1,047 people showed a large average difference: 1.38 in standard units, with a 95 per cent range of 0.87 to 1.89. Against other audio, 8 trials with 598 people showed 1.01, with a range from 0.03 to 1.99, wide enough that the true difference could be close to nothing. The trials disagreed sharply with each other, which the review measures as heterogeneity of 91.6 and 95.4 per cent.

Those numbers come from one kind of moment: a person in hospital, lying still and waiting, asked a few minutes later how they feel. Music with no beat at all does well in that moment too. The US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health points to a 2013 review of 26 studies with 2,051 people in which recorded music lowered how anxious people felt while they waited for an operation. So the useful question is not whether a beat does better than silence. It is whether the beat adds anything to the sound it rides on.

Is it the beat, or the sound around it?

Three trials tested exactly that. Each played the same kind of sound with a binaural beat and without one, gave a third group nothing to hear, and asked everyone to fill in the state part of the Spielberger questionnaire, the STAI: 20 statements about how tense, worried or calm you feel right now, scored from 20 to 80, where higher means more tense, as Wiwatwongwana and colleagues describe it.

How far each group's state score fell

Trial and group	Score before and after	Fall
Sunderland, with the beat	reported as a share	26.3 per cent
Sunderland, the identical soundtrack without it	reported as a share	11.1 per cent
Sunderland, no audio	reported as a share	3.8 per cent
Chiang Mai, music with the beat	35.2, down 9.0 points	25.6 per cent
Chiang Mai, the same music without it	33.2, down 7.0 points	21.1 per cent
Chiang Mai, silent earphones	33.8, down 2.9 points	8.6 per cent
Melbourne, field recordings with a beat	43 to 37	14.0 per cent
Melbourne, field recordings without it	42 to 35	16.7 per cent
Melbourne, composed music	39 to 34	12.8 per cent
Melbourne, simulated ward noise	40 to 41	a rise of 2.5 per cent
Melbourne, headphones only	44 to 44	0 per cent

Download the trial numbers (CSV)

In Sunderland, Padmanabhan and colleagues gave 108 adults a soundtrack to listen to before a day-case operation under general anaesthetic. One group's soundtrack carried a binaural beat, a second heard "an identical soundtrack but without these added tones", and a third had no audio at all. Scores fell 26.3 per cent with the beat, 11.1 per cent without it and 3.8 per cent with nothing, and the gap between the two soundtracks was clear, with a p value of 0.001.

In Chiang Mai, Wiwatwongwana and colleagues played an hour of relaxing music, with waterfall, birdsong and river sounds woven in, to 135 adults during a cataract operation under local anaesthetic. In one version a beat started at 20 Hz and eased to 10 Hz; the other was the same music without it. Scores fell 9.0 points with the beat, 7.0 without it and 2.9 with silent earphones. Both music groups did clearly better than silence, but the difference between them was too small to count, with a p value of 0.085. The authors note that "the presence of binaural beats was very difficult to detect" by the listeners who tested the audio. Heart rate came down more than in the silent group only for those with the beat.

In a Melbourne emergency department, Weiland and colleagues gave 169 adults one of four 20-minute soundtracks or headphones with nothing playing, and neither patients nor researchers knew which until it began. Average scores fell from 42 to 35 with field recordings of natural and built places, from 43 to 37 with field recordings carrying a beat, and from 39 to 34 with composed music. Simulated ward noise rose from 40 to 41, and headphones alone stayed at 44. The beat added nothing the recordings without it did not already give.

So one trial in three found a clear gain from the beat over the same sound without it, one found a gap too small to count, and one found none. All three found that something calm to listen to did better than nothing. Other trials compared a beat only with silence: before wisdom tooth removal, Isik and colleagues played 200 Hz to one ear and 209.3 Hz to the other for 10 minutes, and Menziletoglu and colleagues 210 and 220 Hz. Ratings fell with the beat, and in Menziletoglu's trial they fell with 432 Hz music too. Neither can say what the beat itself added.

Why might the beat matter so little?

Partly because it is faint. A binaural beat is made inside your head when each ear hears a slightly different tone, and a review by Chaieb and colleagues calls it "a weak percept". It forms where the signals from the two ears meet, and only when the tones sit below about 1,000 Hz. In the cataract trial, people listening for the beat struggled to tell it was there at all.

The bigger idea behind it is unsettled too. Many claims for binaural beats rest on the brain's own rhythms falling into step with the beat. Of 14 EEG studies in a 2023 systematic review by Ingendoh and colleagues, five reported results in line with that idea, eight contradicted it and one was mixed. Pooled across memory, attention, mood and other measures, a 2019 meta-analysis by Garcia-Argibay and colleagues found an average effect of 0.45 in standard units over 22 studies, and found that longer listening went with larger effects. The guide to whether binaural beats work explains how the beat is made, and the guide to isochronic tones and binaural beats compares the two.

What about listening at home?

The evidence there is thinner. Two newer trials ran online, at home, with adults already taking medication to manage how anxious they feel. In Mallik and Russo's trial, 163 people listened once, for 24 minutes with headphones, to music with a slow theta beat, the same kind of music alone, the beat alone, or pink noise. Among people with moderate scores on the lasting, trait part of their questionnaire, music with the beat lowered worried thoughts more than any of the other three. Among people with high trait scores, the four did not clearly differ. Everyone knew which sound they had been given.

A 2026 trial by Mullen and colleagues with 144 adults found that music sessions of 12, 24 and 36 minutes each did better than pink noise. Every one of those sessions carried the beat, though, so the trial cannot say what the beat added. One author of both trials is chief science officer of the company that supplied the music, a tie both papers declare.

Over weeks rather than minutes, the record is a single small study. In a pilot in Montreal, 15 mildly anxious people listened at home to tapes with slow beats, 10 to 17 times over four weeks, for about half an hour each time. Their own diary ratings fell, but the change on the questionnaire was not significant, and there was no comparison group to show what the tapes did beyond the passing of a month.

What does the Feeling anxious page play?

The Feeling anxious page plays three tones, not binaural beats: 396 Hz, 174 Hz and Venus at 221.23 Hz. Their meanings come from tradition. In the Solfeggio list, 396 Hz carries the words "Liberating Guilt and Fear", from a 2002 list of the tones' meanings, and 174 Hz is linked with comfort. No study has tested any of the three on how anxious people feel. The guide to 396 Hz sets out where the number comes from and the two small studies that have played it to people.

Harmonance measured the page's own sound files. Each holds a single channel, so the same pitch reaches both ears and no binaural beat can form. Their strongest lines sit at 396.00, 174.00 and 221.23 Hz, each with its next line, the octave above, 23.1 dB quieter, so nearly all of each sound is one pitch. Their loudness on the broadcast meter, EBU R 128, lies between -23.1 and -22.7 LUFS, within 0.4 LU of each other. They are steady single tones, with no beat to follow and no tune to catch.

What reaches each ear

Sound	Left and right ear	What you hear
The 10 Hz alpha beat page	108 Hz and 118 Hz	a soft pulse, 10 times a second
The 6 Hz theta beat page	108 Hz and 114 Hz	a slower pulse, 6 times a second
Isik's dental trial	200 Hz and 209.3 Hz	a pulse 9.3 times a second
Feeling anxious: 396 Hz	396 Hz in both	one steady tone
Feeling anxious: 174 Hz	174 Hz in both	one steady tone
Feeling anxious: Venus	221.23 Hz in both	one steady tone

That makes the page closer to the calm, beat-free arms of the trials than to their beat arms. If you would like to try a binaural beat itself, the 10 Hz alpha beat and the 6 Hz theta beat each send 108 Hz to the left ear and a slightly higher tone to the right, and the binaural beats collection holds the rest. Harmonance Studio lets you layer tones and set a timer for a session of your own.

How do you try binaural beats when anxious?

• Use headphones. A binaural beat needs one tone in each ear. Through a speaker the two tones mix in the air, and the beat made inside your head is gone.
• Choose a calm sound you like. In two of the three like-for-like trials, the same sound without the beat did nearly as well or better, so the sound matters at least as much as the beat.
• Give it 10 to 30 minutes. The trials ran from 10 minutes before a wisdom tooth removal to an hour of music in the operating theatre, and the 2019 meta-analysis found longer listening went with larger effects.
• Keep it quiet. A 2024 review by Mirmohamadi and colleagues found that no study had reported side effects, and advised keeping the level below 85 dB. The World Health Organization puts safe listening at 80 dB for up to 40 hours a week, and suggests keeping your device at no more than 60 per cent of its maximum volume.
• Stop if it feels wrong. The same review notes that some people find the repetition uncomfortable, and that anyone with epilepsy should check with their doctor before trying binaural beats. Never listen while driving.
• Test it yourself. Rate how tense you feel from 1 to 10 before and after, on a few days with the beat and a few with the same music without it. That is the trials' own test, done at home.

Where can you find support if worry will not settle?

A few quiet minutes with a sound can be part of a day, and it is far from the only thing worth trying when worry is hard to live with. In England, adults registered with a GP can refer themselves to NHS talking therapies for worry, low mood and panic, without a GP appointment first. The guide to what sound healing research shows looks at the wider evidence on sound and how people feel, and the guide to music and sleep covers the nights.

Sources and limits

The trials here measured how people rated themselves minutes after a single listen, mostly in hospital, against silence or against similar sound. Only three compared the same sound with and without the beat, and they disagree. The two home trials were open label and share an author tied to the company that made their music. No study has tested 396 Hz, 174 Hz or the Venus tone on how anxious people feel. The percentages for the Chiang Mai and Melbourne trials were worked by Harmonance from the published scores, the Melbourne ones from the rounded group averages in its abstract. The tone measurements come from the site's own audio files; how loud they are in your room depends on your device and its volume.

1. Padmanabhan, Hildreth and Laws, a binaural beat before day-case operations: the same soundtrack with and without the beat.
2. Wiwatwongwana and colleagues, music with and without a binaural beat during cataract operations.
3. Weiland and colleagues, composed soundtracks in an emergency department: five groups, 169 adults.
4. Isik and colleagues, binaural beats before wisdom tooth removal.
5. Menziletoglu and colleagues, binaural beats or 432 Hz music before wisdom tooth removal.
6. Xiong and colleagues, binaural beats around operations: a meta-analysis of 15 trials.
7. NCCIH, music and health: what you need to know.
8. Mallik and Russo, music and beat stimulation at home: a randomised trial of 163 adults.
9. Mullen and colleagues, how long to listen: a randomised trial of 144 adults.
10. Le Scouarnec and colleagues, binaural beat tapes at home: a pilot study.
11. Garcia-Argibay, Santed and Reales, a meta-analysis of binaural beats across 22 studies.
12. Chaieb and colleagues, auditory beat stimulation and its effects on cognition and mood.
13. Ingendoh, Posny and Heine, binaural beats to entrain the brain? A systematic review.
14. Mirmohamadi and colleagues, a review of binaural beats and the brain: side effects and safe levels.
15. World Health Organization, safe listening.
16. NHS, talking therapies: how to refer yourself in England.
17. Hulse, the Solfeggio scale frequencies (Internet Archive copy): the 396 Hz meaning.