Brain Floss: Auditory Stimming for the Algorithm Age
Monday, May 12, 2025.
Why Gen Z Is Meditating with 8D Rain Loops Instead of Journaling About Their Childhood
Welcome to the Sonic Spa of the Soul
Brain floss. No, it’s not a dental hygiene metaphor. You are not scraping plaque from your prefrontal cortex (though wouldn't that be nice?).
Brain flossing is what happens when TikTok collapses centuries of spiritual acoustics, New Age sound healing, and auditory stimming into a trending audio ritual that feels both deeply ancestral and weirdly techy.
It’s not music. It’s not meditation.
It’s something in between: an immersive audio experience that cleans out the mental static, like a sonic bidet for your limbic system.
And yes, brain floss works—at least better than most wellness trends that involve supplements named after Norse gods and a $75 eye mask.
What Actually Is Brain Floss?
At its core, brain flossing refers to the use of 8D audio, binaural beats, or layered ambient soundscapes to create a felt sense of movement and spaciousness in the brain.
Popular brain flossing tracks include:
Whispered affirmations in alternating ears layered over ambient rain
Lo-fi beats that sweep in a 360-degree arc
Theta-wave sound baths with names like “Forest Moon Alpha Cleanse”
AI-generated Gregorian chant remixes (yes, really)
Listeners often report feeling as if sound is traveling inside their skull—a gentle oscillation between hemispheres, like someone cleaning out the emotional cobwebs with a sound-based feather duster.
“It feels like a chiropractor for my brain, but without the existential fear of cracking something.”
— User comment on a 3-hour YouTube theta track with 9.3 million views
A Brief History of Sound as Psychic Mouthwash
Let’s not kid ourselves: this isn’t new. Humanity has been brain-flossing since the caves echoed back.
Gregorian Chant (9th Century Onward)
Long before TikTok, Gregorian monks were perfecting monophonic chant that elicited transcendence via vocal resonance, uniform tempo, and reverent repetition. The effect? Trance, stillness, inner clarity.
Several studies in various disciplines found that listening to Gregorian chant slowed respiration and heart rate while increasing theta activity in the brain—suggesting that monks may have been early pioneers of brainwave entrainment (Bernardi, L., Porta, C., & Sleight, P. (2006).
Himalayan Singing Bowls and Shamanic Drumming
Indigenous cultures have long used repetitive rhythmic sound for altered states. Tibetan sound healing and Amazonian ayahuasca ceremonies rely on vibrational resonance—the body literally syncing with patterned waves.
That’s not far off from what 8D audio attempts to recreate via AirPods and an algorithm.
ASMR and the Rise of Digital Stimming
Jump ahead to the late 2010s. Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) emerged as a YouTube subculture, combining whispers, tapping, and ritualistic sounds to induce a euphoric “tingle.” Sound became stimulation, but also soothing.
Brain flossing builds on this logic but replaces the tingles with spatial immersion and neurohacking intention—it’s ASMR with a therapist’s blessing and a slightly improved noise floor.
But Does It Actually Work?
Yes—and no—and it sorta depends.
Binaural Beats and Brainwave Entrainment
A foundational study by Wahbeh et al. (2007) demonstrated that listening to binaural beats in theta or alpha frequencies can entrain the brain to mimic those states. That means relaxation, mental clarity, and in some cases, improved focus or meditation depth.
More recent neurofeedback research confirms this: audio entrainment can facilitate transitions from high arousal (beta) to low arousal (theta) states, reducing anxiety and promoting sleep onset (Orozco Perez et al., 2020).
Auditory Stimming in Neurodivergent Communities
For many neurodivergent souls—especially autistic and ADHD folks—auditory stimming is a natural regulation behavior. It’s not a hack; it’s a survival tool.
Cage and Troxell-Whitman (2019) found that auditory stimming helps re-establish sensory control in overwhelming environments, reduces stress, and increases self-perceived safety. Brain flossing, then, is simply neurodivergent wisdom entering the wellness mainstream.
“You’re just now realizing that listening to the same ambient rainstorm on repeat is good for you? We’ve been doing that since Napster.”
— Anonymous Redditor, r/ADHDmemes
It’s a Tool, Not a Treatment
Let’s be clear. Brain flossing will not resolve your attachment trauma. It will not fix your executive dysfunction. Brain floss is not a replacement for actual therapy, human connection, or a proper sleep schedule.
But Brain floss is a valuable intervention when:
You’re emotionally flooded and need a re-entry ritual
Your nervous system is stuck in hyperarousal
You’re dissociating and want gentle sensory anchoring
You need something to do with your ears that isn’t doomscrolling
It’s like an emotional reset button that doesn’t require talking, journaling, or pretending to be grateful when you're clearly burnt out.
Sound as Self-Regulation in a Hyperstimulated World
We live in a culture where silence is rare, noise is endless, and mental rest is often considered laziness.
Brain flossing reclaims sound as sanctuary.
Brain floss replaces overstimulation with immersive repetition. It honors the body’s craving for rhythm, pattern, and control. It’s a passive ritual, yes—but sometimes, that’s all you have capacity for.
In a way, brain flossing is the hacked remix of ancient auditory medicine, disguised as an aesthetic playlist.
And in that remix is a simple promise:
You can close your eyes, put on your headphones, and give your brain a brain floss. The world will still be there when you come back. But you’ll be better buffered for it.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Bernardi, L., Porta, C., & Sleight, P. (2006).
Cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and respiratory changes induced by different types of music in musicians and non-musicians: The importance of silence. Heart, 92(4), 445–452. https://doi.org/10.1136/hrt.2005.064600
Cage, E., & Troxell-Whitman, Z. (2019). Understanding the reasons, contexts, and costs of camouflaging for autistic adults. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 49(5), 1899–1911. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-03878-x
Orozco Perez, H. D., Wong, Y. Y., & Schlee, W. (2020). Modulation of brain oscillations via binaural beats: An EEG study. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 14, 77. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2020.00077
Gao, J., Xu, Y., Liu, W., Zhang, Y., & Ren, J. (2024).
Religious chanting modulates self-related brain regions: A multi-modal neuroimaging study. Human Brain Mapping. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.26456
fMRI and EEG study showed increased activity in the posterior cingulate cortex and delta waves during chanting.
Peng, C., Chen, Y., & Jiang, C. (2019).
The neurophysiological correlates of religious chanting. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1963. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01963
Chanting stabilized heart rate and engaged emotion-regulation brain networks.
Perry, G., Polito, V., & Thompson, W. F. (2022).
Chanting and well-being: A survey and analysis of psychological and contextual factors. International Journal of Wellbeing, 12(2), 118–140. https://doi.org/10.5502/ijw.v12i2.804
Survey of global chanting practices found associations with mindfulness, mood improvement, and altered states.
Schäfer, T., & Leventhal, M. (2021).
Vocal chanting as an online psychosocial intervention during COVID-19: A pilot study. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 647632. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.647632
Chanting improved affect and parasympathetic activation, even in digital/remote formats.
Wahbeh, H., Calabrese, C., & Zwickey, H. (2007). Binaural beat technology in humans: A pilot study to assess psychologic and physiologic effects. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 13(1), 25–32. https://doi.org/10.1089/acm.2006.6196