Behaviour of EEG Alpha Asymmetry when stress is induced and binaural beat is applied

Stress can be perceived as the reaction of the body towards observed mental, emotional and physical distress. It is highly curable if it is detected and managed early. There are various methods in relieving anxiety and stress such as meditation. However, to some people, this act is hard to perform. Therefore, they switch to another therapy which is easier and simpler but deliver similar side effects as meditation i.e. brainwave entrainment. Binaural beat is one type of such brainwave entrainments, in which two signals with different frequency are presented to each ear simultaneously. In regards to this, our research work focuses on studying the effects of binaural-beats to people with stress, specifically the effects to their EEG signals. In such context, this paper presents the results collected from the experiments performed on a number of participants. EEG signals of the participants are recorded in three different states namely the initial state, after stress induction and after binaural-beats entrainment. The Alpha Symmetry method has been employed in analyzing the results especially to study the effect of stress induced and binaural beats entrainment on the participants' alpha waves.