Ecclesiastical Ireland

You know how everyone has a friend who says they could catch a fly in midair? But would they pass a reaction speed test? You have to either put up or shut up. Your reaction time is a crazy mix of nerves and synapses, a ballet between your senses and your muscle memory. Some days you’re as quick as popcorn, and other days you fumble like you have butterfingers. Have you ever missed the button for the elevator by a hair? Same thing.

You may test your reaction time online or even with that classic ruler-drop game from school. You probably remember it: a friend holds a ruler over your fingertips. They drop it at random, and you get it as quickly as you can. The lower the number on the ruler, the faster you should respond. Easy. Funny if you have friends who are prepared to scare you. Clicking on a dot that appears out of nowhere on your phone counts as well. There are a dozen strange techniques to find out how quickly your brain tells your muscles to “move!”

Milliseconds are everything to competitive players. They can virtually read your mind with their mouse clicks. A little lag and it’s all over. What do you think? The same split-second cosmos is home to commercial pilots, race car drivers, and even table tennis players. They need quick reflexes to do their jobs. But here’s the twist: you don’t have to wear a jumpsuit to care about how fast you react. Have you ever tried to swat a fly? That’s your own test of how quickly you can react.

The distance between seeing and doing gets bigger as we get older. Think about old-fashioned remote controls: there is a small delay between when you press the button and when the TV changes channels. That’s how bodies work. But doing reaction drills can help you keep your mind sharp. Add some mental challenges, coordination exercises, or even video games to the mix to keep things interesting. Quick hands and a quick intellect.

What things affect the results? A lot. Not getting enough sleep makes your reflexes slower. Stress does too. You can even lag if you’re hungry. It’s like running with sandbags on your shoes. Some athletes meditate to rid their minds of the noise that gets in the way of quick judgments. They eat properly, sleep well, and some even meditate. Want to cut those microseconds? Before the next round, try some contemplative breathing.

A reaction speed test can reveal more than you might think. Can’t quite get your keys before they hit the ground? That’s feedback right now. But don’t let a slow score get to you; everyone can get better. A little bit of progress produces stronger connections in the neurological system. Go after that “aha!” moment when your hand moves before you even know what happened.

You should try testing your reflexes if you’ve never thought about it before. You might be surprised. At the very least, you’ll have a cool party trick to show off. Or a reason for why you couldn’t catch the remote—blame it on the results of your response speed test!