How to improve your reaction times
Last updated at 13:10 15 January 2007
If you find it takes you a split-second longer to react when you’re driving, playing sport or catching a falling vase, or you’re no longer quick off the mark with a witty comeback, your reactions might benefit from a little sharpening up.
What’s more, recent research at Edinburgh University has shown that people who have slower reaction times and bad memories are more likely to die from a heart attack, regardless of their age.
The science suggests that human reaction time is an indicator of a body with better "system integrity".
The master control centre for your reaction is, of course, your brain. In a split-second it processes information and then sends impulse signals to your muscles.
Age brings little change in the speed of these impulses. What slows down is the speed at which the information is processed. When you constantly use your brain and push it to its full capacity, it stays more alert.
First, test your reaction time:
Take a thick strip of card 20cm long and 5cm wide and mark it as shown on the diagram to the right (this is not to scale, but use it as a guide).
Now ask a friend to hold the piece of card at the top. Line your fingers up with the bottom edge, and ask your friend to drop the card
without warning.
Try to grab it between your fingers. Check where your fingers are on the card when you catch it — if they are on the 80 mark this means your reaction time is 80 milliseconds (ms).
Watch your score improve with practice using these ratings:
40ms: Excellent.
60ms: Very good.
80ms: Good.
100ms: Average.
120ms: Below average.
140ms: Slow.
160ms: Very slow.
180ms: Keep practising: don’t worry — you’ll get there. In fact, if you practise with the exercises below, you may see results sooner than you think ...
Five steps to quicker reactions
• Stay mentally and physically fit. Just as giving your body a regular workout increases your strength, balance and ability to move fast when you need to, when you constantly use your brain and push it to its full capacity, it stays quicker, more alert and better able to react to new situations.
• Get your eyesight checked regularly.
• Stop poisoning your brain. Steer clear of tobacco and non-medicinal
drugs and consume alcohol in moderation — or not at all. Alcohol can put your mind and body in a state of constant slow motion. Some medicines
can reduce your reaction times. If you are concerned about the effect of any medication you are taking, ask your doctor if there’s an alternative.
• Stop dithering. Inability to make a decision is a major cause of delayed reaction time. Try mentally rehearsing
how you would respond in certain likely situations, so that you are ready to deal with them should they arise. Practise making decisions, so that if the situation occurs you’ll be able to respond with speed and confidence.
• Get more sleep. Regular, good-quality sleep is essential for keeping your brain and body in good shape, so that you stay mentally and physically alert and
are able to react quickly to events.
• Do speed reading. To sharpen your scanning and observation skills, choose any paragraph in this newspaper, set your
timer to one minute and use a pencil to cross out every "t" as quickly as you can. Now, choose another paragraph and cross out every "c". Go back and check. You’ll probably have missed some. Try again the next day and keep practising
this exercise with different paragraphs and letters of the alphabet until you can strike out all the letters you are looking for on your first go.
• Write the numbers one to 16 at random on a chalk board or a large piece of paper. Turn on your favourite music and point to each of the numbers in numerical order, keeping time with the beat. Try it again, this
time working backwards.
• Play games. To improve your mental and motor skills, have a go at a computer game. Or try some other fast-paced activity, such as table tennis or badminton.
A good mental exercise is to play Snap — a fun and simple card game that can help boost reaction time.
• Extracted from SUPER BRAIN: 101 EASY WAYS TO A MORE AGILE MIND by Carol Vorderman (Vermilion, £9.99). © Carol Vorderman 2007. To order a copy (P&P free), call 0870 161 0870.
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