Improving reaction speeds can do a lot of positive things for you.

Faster reaction times can save your life, improve your sports or hobbies and even help you help others!

It’s a big deal and yet we tend to take for granted that our speeds will always be there and yet, they actually won’t. Unless we do something about it.

Cognitive motor decline has been shown to start around the age of 24. Don’t panic, this may be a bit of a shock but it is a slow process.

There has been debate around whether we can slow the decline or even stop it completely for decades and so here are a few things we can do, rather than give up and go along with it:

• Play computer games.

Action oriented computer games especially

• Practice a skill based sport regularly.

Tennis, surfing, football… for obvious reasons these types of sports enhance the nervous system and help improve and challenge cognitive motor abilities.

• Sleep.

This is obviously a no brainer. There’s a reason why the advice is not to drive when tired. When we sleep, our brains repair and improve, which includes the brain stem and medulla which plays a huge part in reaction time improvements.

Your coach,

Rupert Hambly