Keep calm and improve your putting stroke
A secret weapon from neuroscience appears to be capable of boosting the performance of amateur golfers.
The technology uses a brain monitor to help people to control their thoughts and clear their minds of distraction. It can increase the accuracy of putting by 43 per cent.
The basic principle of neurofeedback has been around for at least 50 years. Scientists use an electrode cap known as an electroencephalograph (EEG) to identify patterns of brain activity linked to different mental states. When the brainwaves suggest that the subject is agitated, he or she hears a brief bleep as an instruction to try to calm down.
Since Nasa first tested the system on its trainee astronauts, neurofeedback has spent a long time on the fringes of psychiatry. Today, though, there is a steady trickle of evidence that it can help people to slip into the state of unhurried tranquillity that is thought to characterise the top players in many ‘‘precision’’ sports such as darts, shooting and archery.
Scientists have been trying to apply the technology to golf for some years and it seems that one team has finally succeeded.
Ming-Yang Cheng, a doctoral student at the University of Bielefeld in Germany, and his colleagues in Taiwan have been looking at a phenomenon known as sensorimotor rhythm (SMR), a type of brain signal that gets jagged and noisy when we are learning a new physical action such as bowling a cricket ball.
As the action becomes more familiar, the SMR quietens down.
The scientists are investigating whether playing a brief bass tone to amateur golfers when their SMR readings become too high can sharpen up their game. The answer, in short, is yes – dramatically. Mr Cheng and his team gathered 14 young men and two young women, with an average golf handicap of zero, and split them into two groups on an indoor putting green.
Half of the players received real SMR neurofeedback in eight training sessions. The other half wore all the same paraphernalia but had the bass signal pumped into their ears at random intervals.
At the start of the course, the SMR group were leaving their putts an average of 30cm from the hole. By the end, that had improved to 17cm.
The placebo group showed almost no improvement, according to findings published in the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology.
The technology may be rivalled by an even stranger piece of brain gadgetry, neurostimulation, where electromagnetic fields are passed through the skull to influence the chatter of neural circuits. Some companies are now looking to take ‘‘stimming’’ into the world of sport. My daughter, who bears a Korean name and inherited Korean genes from her father, and Irish and English genes from me, gave birth to her first child in Auckland Hospital on December 20.
Her new baby has an Irish name, less Korean DNA but more Celtic DNA than her mother, thanks to the reintroduction of Celtic genes from my son-in-law who is Irish.
The midwives who assisted the birth were of European descent, though their youthful white faces gave no hint of the exact admixture of their genetic heritage.
The doctor who supervised the birth had a trace of an Eastern European accent. The anaesthetist who administered the epidural was Asian, and so was the paediatrician with the elaborately pierced ears who examined the baby after her arduous birth. Both of them spoke completely accentless New Zealand English.
The ward receptionist was Indian. The cleaners were Filipino. A groaning and very pregnant woman was wheeled into a birthing room by a handsome young Polynesian man.
A hundred and twenty languages are spoken in the Auckland suburb of Mt Albert where I ampresently staying with a friend.
In the Mt Albert shopping centre there are more signs in Chinese characters than in English and although there is a coffee-shop that serves Westernstyle food, it’s run by Indians.
The local MP is Korean. A neighbourhood hardware shop is staffed by Muslim men in tunics and skullcaps. When I visited a nearby park with my daughter and new grandchild, a Muslim woman in a headscarf asked kindly about the baby.
An elderly Chinese couple moved slowly and gracefully through a Tai Chi routine under the trees, while Indian and Chinese and Pakeha children ran about and clambered on the play equipment together.
At the French cafe and deli just cross the road, the staff chatted to each other in French, and delivered omelettes and croissants to the table with Gallic suavity.
A short though time-consuming drive away (this is Auckland after all) there are halal butcheries, Indian sweet and sari shops and the dairy windows are wallpapered with adverts for cheap international phone cards. In cramped, hole-in-the wall joints you can get a massage, your phone fixed or transfer money overseas.
At the supermarket on Christmas Eve the turbaned Sikh checkout operator, in an act of cross-cultural magnanimity, enthused about the yuletide festivities he was sure we were about to enjoy. It seemed churlish in the face of such enthusiasm to confess that this pair of whey-faced New Zealanders actually hate Christmas.
My friend (Maori/Irish/ Scottish) who speaks German and Samoan, often hosts foreign students. Her fridge and pantry contain six different kinds of rice, five types of noodles and twenty-
New Zealand is now more ethnically and culturally diverse than it has ever been.
There are more ‘‘coffeecoloured people’’ in the world, but the song’s ‘‘recipe for a get-along scene’’ hasn’t yet resulted in ‘‘a beautiful dream.’’
Ultimately, the genetic melting pot might mean it is harder to hate other cultural or ethnic groups – we will be more like each other than different from each other.
It might mean transformative personal and business relationships, the influx of valuable new ideas and positive synergies between the old world and the new. But for the present, at the very best, it’s a recipe for indigestion accompanied by varying degrees of discomfort.
At worst, it’s a formula for simmering resentment born of misunderstanding, fear, competition, suspicion, and anger.
Donald Trump got himself elected to the United States presidency by arousing the xenophobia and racism that often lies dormant in us until a ‘‘foreigner’’ becomes our neighbour, our boss, our prime minister, or heaven forbid, the father of our grandchildren.
That’s when the truly hard work begins and we must figure out how to live and work together without resorting to violence in word or action.
I hope that the New Zealand my new grand-daughter grows up in manages to cook up a uniquely tasty and satisfying dish from the best of the indigenous and exotic ingredients we have to hand.