Increasing reaction rate of your brain?

Is it possible to increase the reaction rate of your brain? How can you increase the speed at which your brain signals travel? Also, how can you increase the speed at which you see? I have heard that average human sees at 24 frames per second. How can you increase this rate?

 

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lol

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Science has contributed so much to society, including inter-actions between people. It seems common practice in the west to eliminate variables, and so conversations consist of much silence, as each individual elimates the variables involved (what has been said, who has said what, etc). I think the method you're describing makes one more sensitive, and very slight things become more noticeable. It can help to find truths, however it is becoming a private method, and one the past, but it does hold truths, I think.

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To paraphrase: it open up the soul!

 

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Take speed.

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Seriously, the brain is "wired" by way of electrical and chemical processes. In order to change the speed of these processes, you'd have to change the entire makeup of the brain, which would probably be a million years of evolution, provided humanity lasts that long.

The brain is actually pretty slow compared to electrical things like computers. However the advantage is that the brain is adaptable, while computers aren't nearly so.

 

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Yeah...you could do that. Only problem is that causing such an increase in core brain temperature will result in 'brain a la barbeque'/

Basically, the speed of your brain is controlled by the enzymes and Neurotransmitters in the brain. Also, the thickness of the myelin sheath on your neurons will usually dictate the speed at which signals travel. Now, you can't really do much about the myelin sheath. So forget that one.

The only safe approach to maximum functionality of the brain is a positive attitude and healthy diet - including plenty of exercise. Reasons:

1) You need plenty of glucose, as well as the nutrients needed for prodction of these brain chemicals. Lots of people are deficient these days and as a result can't think straight. --Even the most obese.

2) Oxygen is great. You'll get more than enough from regular exercise, and the more you have flowing through your body, the more clearly you can think.

3) Attitude -- this ones a given. If you tell your brain it's capable of transmitting a signal, it usually will. The results are amazing.

And countless other other points...I hate to preach.

Basically, aside from drugs theres not much you CAN do. Eat healthy, exercise, and always remember that the brain requires exercise, too. Practicing neural pathways has some clear benefits to speed, simply because an impulse has more directories, and can be translated through an number of paths, if not in portions at the same time.

Take for example how a download is sometimes accelerated. The 'impulse' is split up into several sections, and then downloaded at the same time to utilize maximum bandwith as created by the myelin sheath and neurotransmitters. That way, instead of processing a thought in a linear, thin, and long path it travels assymetrically at the most cognitive levels, and not only speed is increased - but also relative coherance. I mean, what's the point of crunching numbers if they mean nothing to you? Bad example, from a scientific perspective, I know, but I hope it answers your question.

Neuro-bio is a really cool subject. If you get the chance - learn as much as you can.

 

cool thx for the input guys

But how is it that those martial artist have those fast reflexes?

 

so i guess sports and excerisze isnt Only for fitness....and appearence.

 

Although the brain has slow conduction times compared to electrical things, it's still pretty darn fast. Even though you can't speed up these currents, one can use their brain more efficiently (in ways like Elbaz posted). Martial artists train for years, and part of this is becoming more efficient and being in good health, but another important part is knowing moves so well, that it all becomes automatic. If someone throws a punch at you, your hand automatically goes up to block it. If the martial artist had to consciously think about every move she/he would be in trouble pretty quick.

 

I think martial artists use reaction arcs (?) kind of like how your leg will kick up after tapping it with the thing. Although I'm not so sure about this one.

One thing I do know is that if you practice a specific movement long enough your neurons will get better at carrying the signal, until it eventually becomes something of a second nature. You probably donn't remember trying to life your arms up (and control them) as a child. These days it comes naturally to you. Same thing with the martial arts. They tend to be very co-ordinated (and not only that, but a higher mental functioning) as they have practiced and practiced. So it comes almost intstinctively. Get tapped on the shoulder - and BAM your arm shoots up. Most trained professionals can control when, and when not to act on instict. Otherwise...well, you wouldn't want to kill someone for asking a favour.

You should read into gray matter and that kind of thing if you'd like to understand it better. The full explanation would take up something like 50 pages of a text book. Plenty on google to look through. I guarantee you you'll love reading about it.

 

The best way of reacting fast is not to doubt.

 

Anders hit the nail on the head. Instinctive reaction is many 100x faster than deductive reaction. If you practice something often enough the repetition causes the action to be ingrained into the subconscious. Martial artists learn to completely trust their learned skills and instinct and dont second guess themselves. The subconscious is immensely powerful and will always give you the right answer first time every time. The subconscious will always provide the truth according to the sensory input it has been given from the conscious mind.
Think of the incredibly difficult maths involved in catching a ball... If you tried to calculate the trajectory + gravity + wind factors etc with your conscious mind there is no way you could do it in time but the subconscious does it in a millisecond! Meditation is the key. Learn to clear your mind of conscious though so you can allow subconscious thought an uninterupted pathway and learn to reconise how the two different types of thought feel different. Trust your instinct. Oh, and play lots of Xbox! Action video games sharpen reflexes no end! Btw... Does anybody know the actual biological process in which amphetimines improve reaction times? Coz they definately do!

 

I agree, the unconscious mind is incredibly powerful. All we have to do is undo or conscious doubts. There's two ways of learning things. One is to question, one is to be open and see.

 

Anderhermansson has it; faith!

 

The human body has (currently identified) two level of reactions:
1)spinal
2)brain

items considered "instinct" are often controlled by the spinal chord. instead of waiting for the signal to reach your brain, the spinal chord send a signal back immedeatly, and then sends the information on to your brain for reasoning. Example- touching a hot object. the nerves in your fingers send a signal "hot!" down your arm, it hits your spinal column. you spine send back a signal which causes you to jerk your hand away form the hot object, before you brain even gets the message. This is not my idea, this is medical fact.

So if you want to move faster, train your body to do this more often. practice until your spine knows to block/sweep punch given the stimulus of "am being attacked"

The human brain runs at a certain speed, based on electrical charge speed, chemical reaction speed, and the speed with which chemicals can physically travel through and between the nuerons in the nervous system. You cannot easily increase the speed at which any of these things occur (that are already going pretty damn fast). However, alot of what your brain does is noise filtering and other busy work. Noise filtering=determining what information you don't need, and discarding it from your consiousness. You can, through training, re-educate those parts of your brain so that while you can't think faster, you can think about more at one time, allow you to more accuratly predict the possible outcomes of a situation. This allows you to "see" events before they happen, simply because they are likely to happen, based on all the information you have. Given training, and an increase in the amount of "information you have", the more accurate, and more far reaching your predictions will become.

Don't bother trying to re-wire your brain. you don't have neough time in life to really do it. instead, learn to more effectively use the wiring you already have.


And that is IM-not-so-HO. good luck!

 

yep

 

Brain size vs speed of thought

Somewhat related to increasing the reaction rate of your brain is the proposition of increasing brain size. If you could double the size of your brain would it double the reaction time? By doubling the size of your brain you also increase the distance that signals must travel. If the speed of brain signaling remains the same then the reaction time for a thought process must increase.

Does that mean that the larger the brain the slower the reaction time? What about a larger body? Does a 7 ft tall person react slower then a 5 ft person because of the distance that signals travel?

I would say the best reaction times for a thought/reaction event would be from a short person with a medium size brain.

It just so happens that I'm short with a medium size head.

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A human can use no more than 10% of his brain (you dont really need to double the thing!) Now is it possible to use more than 10%? How?

 

The Ten-Percent Myth

 

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AHHH! *running to corner, red to the tail*
So, pardon my ignorance, in terms of physical actions of the brain, what's the difference bw the person w a high IQ and a low IQ?

 

Well, it's surprising that this is actually a new (more or less) scientific discovery...or shall I say 'conclusion' (it's been theoretical for quite some time)...but the difference in IQ is mostly brain density. The more branced your dendrites are, the better as not only can impulses travel on a faster path, but also because they have greater access to other useful impulses. Damn simple, but it took scientists ages to confirm this. Some people are born with highly branched dendrites. Others (almost anybody who is not retarted,) can practice their brains enough to reach a genius level IQ simply by making the dendrites efficient.

One of the few components of IQ not related to density (as I think I've already mentioned) is the thickness of the myelin sheath. It basically correponds to how fast a thought travels. So I guess this is a minor setback to anybody looking for a genius IQ. Although I'll note that many great thinkers are 'slow'.

I wasn't going to put much more effort into this debate, but...your statement doesn't have much truth (if any) to it. Sure -- we all have our limits. But I'll say it again -- almost anybody can become a genius, and it isn't all that hard. A fine example would be this European girl (somebody help me on her name) who was born with a normal intelligence. Her father wanted to disprove the notion that IQ was purely hereditary, so he taught her chess, made her learn many languages, and basically study ALOT. She is now a worldwide chess champion with a genius IQ - a once normal little girl with an average intelligence. Imagine - 1/4 of that effort could easily produce high intelligence in almost anybody! Look at Japan. Hell - look at fish in the wild vs those in captivity. (I get the feeling I've used some of these examples already.)

Another thing is that training your strengths alone for efficiency ...is... very inefficient. Why? Because with something like intelligence, balance is the key. Who wants one giant ear beside a minnie one? Learning to use all parts of the brain effectively is more conducive to profound thought. One indication of this is how computer science (something difficult for me, at first) had made other subjects a lot easier. I don't think this really needs explaining. You all know what I'm rambling on about..

>Oh and Gfrontier, I'm gonna get back to your PM really soon...

 

aren't you agreeing with me here? making your brain work more efficiently, not altering how your dentrites are set up?

I don't know her name, but thankfully, it is widely agreed that IQ does not test the innate inteligence of a person. However, it seems to test a combination of being practiced/ability at pattern matching and the individuals education.
Evidenced by people's IQ test scores changing as they age. Also evidenced by the tests of students who score low, living in a "low IQ" area (most often inner-city or ultra-rural areas where money is often scarce), moving to a different area or a better school, becoming "more intelligent" after a few years.

YES!! a very, very good point! and one of my main issues with western teaching methodologies. To focus on math, and ignore art because it is "not important" Yet many times it has been shown that music and drawing skill (not *ability*, but practice-honed skill, even if the final output is crap) can significantly improve comprehension of mathematical theory. We seem to have forgotten that while individuals who changed the path of scientific thought often were gifted in other areas, and many of the most profound scientific discoveries of the past 3 hundred years occured while the scientist was doing non-scientific things. sleeping, running, having sex, drawing. Einsteins GR ideas formed while he was riding an elevator at work, from what I have heard.

I didn't mean to give the impression that training only your strengths was a good idea. quite the opposite, I have found that my strengths improve nearly as much while I am focused on working on my weaknesses. figuring out how to add numbers (one of my bigest weaknesses) significantly helped my ability to understand abstract algebra, and vise versa.

My weak side is my left. by working katas and forms on my left side, I have to really consiously take them apart and see how they work, and how they feel. that way, when I learn them on my right side, I know what itis supposed to look/feel like, so I am less likely to fall into bad habits.