20 Milleseconds - Can your child score this low?

Dan Feldman, from the UC Berkley,  recently discovered that rats brains synchronize for optimal learning at about 20 milliseconds.  Early in my IM career, I discovered that when students work the ms average down to about 20 milliseconds (ms), magic occurs.  Not real magic of course, just mental processing becomes extremely efficient, high quality, in the elite range on the IM charts and most of all, it feels great! People love to get into the teens in IM.

Actually, a few children, once they've hit the teens, they only want to do those 'easy' tasks. They will balk and not want to do the tasks that are at 25 or 30 ms because those tasks at 25 ms feel so bad in comparison. You wouldn't think just 5 or 10 ms would make that much difference, but it does! In fact, below 20 ms is often when I first hear comments from parents of increased initiative, faster completion of tasks, better emotional regulation, and increased confidence. These gains do happen earlier in training, but there just seems to be a burst of gain that simultaneously occurs when the child can predictably be in the teens. 

This week, one of my IM students, a very talented 13 yr old male reached the teens. He had experienced a lot of sensory issues earlier in IM (he itched and swayed a lot.) He didn't like IM much this past week, before he hit the teens. Though he was always positive, IM was not  as much fun as earlier in training. I kept encouraging that he would be in the teens in a day or two and things would settle down (the sensory overload he was experiencing); just keep working hard (he was a very hard worker!). That's exactly what happened; yesterday he did 1500 reps (30 minutes of non stop intense focus) at about 16 ms, very low! And he didn't itch or sway hardly at all. His sensory system had settled. Afterwards he was amazed how much he loved it, how it made him feel so good. There is a chemical burst of positive energy that is hard to describe unless you've been IM trained - like hitting the lottery. He had never expected to be here, but he was! The change was instantaneous and related to getting under 20 ms. Don't get me wrong, there's a difference between 100ms and 50 ms, very much so, but it's not the magic that happens at 20 ms! That's my goal for your child, 20 ms in as many different tasks as possible. 20 ms is mental magic!

So- why this post? I just watched a scientist, Dan Feldman, from the UC Berkley, talking about his research on timing in the brain, a rat's brain. He had discovered that when a group of neurons fire in synchrony with in a 20 ms window of each other, the sensory information seems to be useful for the brain. The rat used that information. With out synchrony with in various regions, the information is less useful.  That's how the body, in this case a rat's, turns sensory information into useable knowledge in the brain - a group of neurons fires in synchrony with in a 20 ms window!!!! A famous Neurologist saying is "Neurons that fire together, wire together." I think it's connected to the burst of gain and positive emotions that I see when individuals score that low in IM.


Twenty milliseconds - the  magic number for IM students. Twenty milliseconds, the synchronization of the brain that makes sensory information useable in a rats brain. Any connection? I don't know, we are comparing rats and people here, and only the sensory input of rat whiskers! But 20 ms is still magic for human mental processing functionally in life for so many of the individuals I see, all ages, all issues and it's always the same. Across the human experience that I've observed (and that's A LOT of individuals) 18 - 20 ms is magic! I throw the 18 ms because for most people, it's under 20, more like 18 ms that the magic occurs. 20 ms exactly isn't quite there and never at 22! In reality, it's about 18 to 19 ms is the earliest people start to enter the' zone', this level of unconscious sensory processing  -automaticity. I would liken it to a deep stage of mediation if I had to describe the feeling myself. Very relaxed, focused, harmonious, empowering.