Peak Performance

There is a valid point about “peak performance” training that says that ALL neurofeedback is just that.  Unless you happen upon a perfect brain, whatever that might look like, everyone, even high performers, have issues of anxiety or low energy or obsessiveness or lapses of attention of impulsive behavior or whatever.  If you start by looking at the client’s brain and determining what is KEEPING him from performing even better, then training that, you will often make your greatest gains in performance right there.

Athletes and Peak Performance

In my work with athletes, we have always discussed the process of performance in three interconnected areas:

The Plan:  the golfer looking over a putt, reading the green, planning the line of the putt; the hitter deciding what pitch he’s looking for in this situation from this pitcher and how he’ll recognize it, etc.

The Visualization:  the golfer visualizing in detail herself standing over the ball, the stroke, seeing the ball follow the line and drop into the cup; the hitter seeing the pitch he’s looking for and seeing/feeling himself driving it where he wants it to go.

The Zone:  no thought, no trying, just absolute presence in time and place, letting muscle memory take over and performing the task at absolute best.

A few sales people I’ve worked with found this model to be useful as well.  Planning what they want from a contact, “reading” a client or knowing from history and research what the “line” of the contact might be; visualizing themselves in the situation (or perhaps several different potential ones), asking good questions, listening for key points, connecting with the client, answering objections, etc.; and then actually going into the situation and staying loose and present, riding where it goes.

The first state I would usually train with beta/smr vs theta/delta, often at the C3 and C4 sites.  Of course, if the assessment identifies other activation issues that I would consider more basic (temporal reactivity, disconnect, reversals, blocking, etc.), then those will block successful outcomes and should be trained first.

The second state I would usually train with 7Hz percent uptraining, probably at P4 or O1, while actually having the client practice visualizing in detail.  The trick here is to get into the state quickly (you can’t stand over a putt for 20 minutes while you drift down to alpha/theta crossover), so triggering and anchoring techniques are often useful.  You can see these at work in the rituals of free-throw shooters in the NCAA tournament.

The third state I would train with alpha coherence, probably at P3/A1 and P4/A2.

Coherent Alpha and Performance

Zen meditators and B2 bomber top gun pilots I guess would qualify as peak performers. Both produce lots of coherent alpha.

In order to do so, neurons in the cortex need to “loosen up” and allow themselves to “go with the flow” from the thalamus. That’s how you get coherence in alpha. People who can’t release cortical neurons when they aren’t processing waste a lot of energy, hence they are unlikely to be able to perform late into the “game” in stressful situations.