Air Force and NASA research on pilots has revealed the secrets
of peak mental performance...
Peak Achievement
Training uses these secrets to give you, your team or organization an
opportunity to excel...
Recent Air Force and NASA research has
found that the brainwaves of expert pilots demonstrate this
concentration and relaxation cycle. The better pilots concentrated more
intensely and took shorter microbreaks,
relaxing deeply for a short period of time between focusing on each
task. The briefer the relaxation break, the better the pilot.
The Peak Achievement Trainer™
builds on the foundation of this research to train you to concentrate
and to relax, via neurofeedback.
Lessons From Peak Performers: The Air Force
Pilots
When Dr. Sterman examined the brainwaves of
pilots doing simulated landing tasks, he found that the idling rhythms
were suppressed in the parts of the brain that were being used at the
time. He was able to fine-tune his findings by looking at these
brainwaves in various control conditions, in which the pilots did only
part of the task. To make a long story very short, Sterman concluded
that in the back of the brain the processing of sensory inputs was
associated with decreases in the idling rhythms from 11-15 Hz., while
more complex thinking decreased idling rhythms from 8-12 Hz. The harder
the task was, the more that these rhythms were suppressed.
In fact, Dr. Sterman was able to pick the best 6
pilots--those who were eventually selected as B2 bomber instructors--by
measuring how well they suppressed the idling rhythms in the parietal
lobe. This approach turned out to be more accurate, by itself, than all
the other measures that the Air Force used in making this selection.
The Concentration and Recharge Cycle
Studies of pilots in the cockpit, as they
actually flew their planes, showed that there was a short burst of
idling rhythm between the individual tasks that they performed in the
cockpit. The better pilots needed a shorter rest period before starting
to focus again. We’ll call this recharging period a microbreak.
In fact, there is evidence that this kind of
cycling between concentration and the microbreak is a basic way
in which the brain functions. For example, there are studies that show
that when we read, there is a brief idling rhythm in the visual cortex
when we come to the end of a line and move on to the next.
Dr. Sterman performed a
study which showed that these idling rhythms decrease right after a
person is presented with a target to respond to, and then increase again
when they finish processing their response to the stimulus. In the back
of the brain, this idling rhythm was an 8-12 Hz. (alpha) burst that
increased as they became more familiar with the task. As he looked at
sites that were further forward in the brain, he saw that there was also
an idling rhythm at 5 to 7 Hz.
There are also good, common sense reasons to
believe that the brain is set up to cycle between concentrating and
taking a recharging microbreak. Even the best of us cannot concentrate
forever. We need our breaks. They are built in to our work and school
day. The concept that each of us has an “attention span” that
increases as we mature from child to adult, and then decreases in old
age is a clear reflection of this well accepted concept. People who
fail to regularly take these necessary microbreaks between tasks set
themselves up for stress-related diseases because they accumulate the
tension and anxiety from the continuous effort in their minds, brains,
and bodies.
The most fundamental lesson
of Peak Achievement Trainingä
is that we all need to cycle continuously between concentrating and
taking a recharging microbreak in order to consistently be at our best
without overtaxing our brains.
The Prefrontal Cortex and Executive
Attention Network, New Learning, and the Cycle
The prefrontal cortex is also capable of
alternating between concentration and idling. When things are familiar
to us, it can idle, and let the other parts of the brain carry out their
habitual ways of processing inputs, turning on and off in well
established sequences. When they are unfamiliar, the prefrontal cortex
and the Executive Attention Network get turned on. They have the role
of bringing these new experiences into conscious awareness and figuring
out how to process them by activating other centers of the brain. Dr.
Sterman’s research indicated that the brainwaves of the frontal lobe,
including the sites near the Executive Attention Network, also shows
cycles when the individual is continually involved in detecting a series
of targets. Right after a target is presented, the idling rhythm is
suppressed, only to return in about half a second. After an event, the
frontal cortex finishes its processing and goes into idle before the
back of the brain does. The frontal lobe idling rhythm is primarily in
the mid-theta range, between 5 to 7 Hz. Japanese researchers have
detected this increased theta after doing other kinds of tasks, and
called it the “frontal midline theta rhythm”.
By using the multiple displays of the Peak
Achievement Trainerä to examine
the brainwaves of my students, I have been able to see their patterns as
they concentrated and did a number of other things. At first, I looked
for the relationship between concentration and the decrease in 5-7 Hz.
rhythms at the midline site close to the hairline. I found that this
was the clearest indicator of concentration that I had observed in my
clinical experience. The Slow Bars display permitted me to look at the
voltage output at each frequency from 1 to 40 Hz., and a special feature
of the program permitted me to look more clearly at the higher
frequencies, which are usually so low in output that they are hard to
see. I saw clearly that as I and others concentrated, the voltage
output decreased across the board, at all frequencies. This difference
is shown in Figure 4, which is taken from the same record as Figure 1.
The left side is concentration, while the right side is recharging.
Dr. Sterman had actually noticed the same thing,
from about 5 to 15 Hz—all the frequencies that he measured—at virtually
all the brainwave recording sites he tried. Technically, this is called
“event related desynchronization”. In the frontal lobe, this
suppression is followed by the return of the theta (5-7 Hz.) idling
rhythm in about half a second, particularly after we see a target,
rather than an unimportant control stimulus.
When
people learn to suppress the idling rhythms, their attention problems
clear up. Several large studies, now being submitted for publication,
show that the suppression of theta and or alpha (depending on age and
recording site) is largely responsible for the success of other
brainwave training protocols in treating people with attention deficit
disorder. Most all of the brainwave training protocols for treating
attention deficit disorder have rewarded students for decreasing theta
and/or alpha at central or frontal sites. These decreases were much
more consistently related to successful treatment than the changes in
higher frequencies that were also evaluated. Using a protocol that
teaches the student to enhance beta may actually slow down training,
because the feedback is less precise and more confusing than that
provided by the Peak Achievement Trainerä.
It takes about ten sessions for a typical student to understand that
type of neurofeedback; almost everyone will understand this type
of neurofeedback during the first session.
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