RESEARCH STUDY: The Impact of Body and Brain Agility Training on Student Performance
As previously discussed neuro-agility is the way forward in performance optimization. Just like a ballet dancer that needs to be fit, supple and agile in order to execute her skills with precision and beauty, so a company’s work force needs to be neuro-agile and mentally flexible to be able to execute their skills efficiently and with accurately. Neuro-agility, therefore has a significant impact on the ease, speed and flexibility of individuals and team performances. For workers and athletes to out-think, out-learn and out-create their competition, they need to take their neuro-agility and mental flexibility to optimum level.
The brain has unlimited potential in terms of what one can learn, think and create. Sometimes the performance of world class athlete’s and corporate teams may not reflect that of people with unlimited potential, because drivers like brain fitness, stress coping skills, good sleeping patterns, sufficient movement, growth mind-sets or healthy eating habits are lacking. In order to optimize their brain’s performance, it is essential that athletes, coaches, managers and teams know how these drivers influence their brain performance and neurological design and learn the appropriate skills to optimize it.
When an athlete is fatigued, it may lead to a hand-eye coordination problem, or limiting their natural muscle speed for a fraction of a second. Brain agility is as important as physical fitness. Neuro-Link’s research shows that brain agility is the lowest scoring element for athletes and workers in general. Even when an athlete is brain fit, but fatigued (lack of coping with stress, bad sleeping patterns, limited mind-set or incorrect brain foods), it will neutralize their brain agility and cause some brain areas to “switch off” (become less receptive). This also applies to the corporate space. When team members are fatigued, it will lead to a higher risk for human error during stress.
Fit matters. When there is alignment between an athlete’s natural neurological design and how they play their sport, they become passionately dedicated and intrinsically motivated to compete. From a neuroscience perspective, passion is good fuel for the brain and body as an athlete produces vital neurotransmitters that is good for energy health and improved performance. People’s neurological design indicate how they are naturally talented. Doing a sport according to their natural, neurological design will therefor improve their brain health and performance and assist them in being more effective and competitive. When it comes to corporate teams, having alignment between people and the job functions they perform is essential to the motivation and successful outcomes of the given tasks.
When there is miss-alignment between the athletes or employee’s neurological design and how they play their sport or perform their tasks, it will impact their performance negatively. From a neuroscience perspective this will cause them to produce inhibiting chemicals that will act as bad fuel for their brain and therefor negatively impact their immune system and deplete their energy.
When a soccer player for example, is left eye dominant, but right footed, lack of brain agility or fatigue may cause a visual neurological hindrance that will negatively influence his/her performance during the game and may even cause the team to lose.
In today’s competitive world it is mandatory that managers, corporate teams, athletes and their coaches have accurate awareness of how their lateral dominance, expressive/receptive preference, rational/emotional preference, their figurative brain language preferences, their genetic combination of brain hemisphere, eye, ear and hand dominance and their intelligence preferences impact their performance. If athletes, coaches, teams and managers want to out-think, out-learn and out-create their competition, they will have to optimize the neurophysiological components that will improve the ease, speed and flexibility with which they think, learn and process information. At Neuro-Link we believe: “you can’t improve what you can’t measure”. if people and organizations want to improve their competitive advantage, it is highly recommended that they measure their neuro-agility in order to determine their strengths and areas for further optimization.
Written by: Dr. André Vermeulen
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