Basic Time
Controls
1. Listen for 1.5 to 2 hours per day (adults). A child (5 years to 12 years), listens for 1 hour per day.
2. The sessions can be divided in half: two 1-hour sessions for teens and adults; two ½-hour sessions for children (5 years to 12 years).
3. Log your listening time in your Focused Listening™ Log. Listen daily for at least
2 to 3 weeks and — depending on your age and on the severity of your condition — for longer.
4. NEVER use headphones for longer than TWO HOURS PER DAY. Kids and teens and adults are making themselves deaf by using earbuds and by using headphones for too long. And with the volume set TOO LOUD
AND WITH TOO MUCH BASS (LOW FREQUENCIES).
You can also create learning problems, speech problems, and mental problems, including psychosis, by using headphones the
wrong way.
.
Feeling stressed
or panicky?
Sound is a form of energy. Opening your ear and brain to more sound energy than it is used to receiving can feel over-whelming for some people. If your Focused Listening™ is making you feel uncomfortable, set it aside. You may need to start again later in the day or the following day with shorter sessions, like 15 minutes, and gradually increase your listening times.
You might find the music less overwhelming if you turn down the volume or if you switch from Vivaldi to Bach. Start gently and work up to the more vigorous compositions. You are moving muscle but it is very small and may need to be coaxed gradually into stronger workouts.
You should not use headphones for listening to music for longer than two hours per day for any reason because your stapedius muscles can become too tired, which at the least may cause you to fall asleep but also may cause longer-term damage. And that could cause a worse condition than the one you are trying to treat.
How long
is enough?
The window of treatment is from about 15 minutes, to be of some use, up to an hour and a half or two hours maximum for a full workout.
Your daily repetition gradually creates new neural networks, according to the Hebb’s law that nerves that fire together become “wired” together. You may not notice changes at all for several days or even for weeks, depending on the initial condition of your ear muscle. You may experience sudden “breakthroughs” that make you feel euphoric. However, if you push over the time limits, you can feel an unhealthy kind of euphoria as your right-brain becomes too dominant.
The research on time intervals for treatment were done with binaural methods tested by Dr. Guy Bérard while collaborating with Dr. Alfred Tomatis. Laurna Tallman experienced personally and observed in others the effects of that program in the Tomatis Method. Over the 20 years of her mentoring and monitoring the same time scheme for Focused Listening™
it has held up well. It can be viewed somewhat flexibly as long as it is not exceeded in length. You can undo the success of patient exercise by overworking the little stapedius muscle.
What risks
are involved?
This website is designed to teach you as
much about your ears as you already
know about your eyes. You don’t do risky
things like look directly at the sun! You should
not do risky things like exposing your ears
to sound that is too loud, too low-frequency,
for too long, and too close to your ear drums. However, those are the risks people are taking when they decide to buy and use some kind of amplifiers of their hearing. Focused Listening™ involves using over-the-ear headphones, which is one such category of hearing amplifier.
Focused Listening™ in some people alters a neurological pattern of hearing that they have been using all of their lives. In other cases, Focused Listening™ is returning a person to a neurological pattern of hearing that they were using all of their lives until they suffered some kind of assault. The changes from one state of hearing to a different one can feel pleasant or unpleasant, welcome or frightening, as a relief or as shocking. During the changeover from one neurological pattern to another, a period of instability is possible or even likely. That is why certain cautions are advised.
This program is not for infants and children under 4 years of age.
People with more severe audio deficits (such as autism or schizophrenia) or with lifelong conditions (such as bipolar II that has segued
into dementia) need Focused Listening™ Level 2 or Level 3 Apps (under development).
Ideally, children would be tested for hearing problems in childhood and treated while they are in protected environments at home and in school. However, the causes of ADD and ADHD, of depression and bipolarity, and of autism and other problems still have not been generally recognized as treatable ear problems. The evidence is massive. Millions of children have been treated successfully for ADD and ADHD with the Tomatis Method or some similar program and many autistic children have been helped or healed by those programs, yet medicine and education institutions in North America have largely ignored that evidence. Why? Possibly because the otolaryngologists who invented their methods, treated people, and collected data also lacked an overarching neurological paradigm to explain their successes and failures. The Tallman Paradigm™ provides that scientific framework.
You should not do Focused Listening™ while driving a vehicle of any kind until you have become an experienced listener. Sudden feelings of joy or a burst of energy should not be allowed to happen on the road.
Some people experience mood swings during treatment. Family members and close associates should be aware that mood swings (shifts away from left-brain dominance) will become less frequent as you persist in your Focused Listening™ music therapy.