Possible Effect of Binaural Beat Combined With Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response for Inducing Sleep

Sleep is important to maintain physical and cognitive functions in everyday life. However, the prevalence of sleep disorders is on the rise. One existing solution to this problem is to induce sleep using an auditory stimulus. When we listen to acoustic beats of two tones in each ear simultaneously, a binaural beat is generated which induces brain signals at a specific desired frequency. However, this auditory stimulus is uncomfortable for users to listen to induce sleep. To overcome this difficulty, we can exploit the feelings of calmness and relaxation that are induced by the perceptual phenomenon of autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR). In this study, we proposed a novel auditory stimulus for inducing sleep. Specifically, we used a 6 Hz binaural beat corresponding to the center of the theta band (4-8 Hz), which is the frequency at which brain activity is entrained during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) in sleep stage 1. In addition, the "ASMR triggers" that cause ASMR were presented from natural sound as the sensory stimuli. In session 1, we combined two auditory stimuli (the 6 Hz binaural beat and ASMR triggers) at three-decibel ratios to find the optimal combination ratio. As a result, we determined that the combination of a 30:60 dB ratio of binaural beat to ASMR trigger is most effective for inducing theta power and psychological stability. In session 2, the effects of these combined stimuli (CS) were compared with an only binaural beat, only the ASMR trigger, or a sham condition. The combination stimulus retained the advantages of the binaural beat and resolved its shortcomings with the ASMR triggers, including psychological self-reports. Our findings indicate that the proposed auditory stimulus could induce the brain signals required for sleep, while simultaneously keeping the user in a psychologically comfortable state. This technology provides an important opportunity to develop a novel method for increasing the quality of sleep.