Perform at your peak

There’s a buzz around the idea of zapping your brain through your scalp to enhance its abilities – according to Pubmed, more than 6,900 scientific papers on transcranial electrical stimulation (TES) have been published since 2011. One common target of TES machines in labs is the motor cortex, located at the top of the skull. In studies, researchers have stimulated this area to boost motor learning and help recovery after brain injuries. So, inevitably, companies are now claiming you can strap a stimulator to your head at home and, say, improve your running. Be wary.

Neuroscientist Dr Murali Doraiswamy cautions that home TES devices aren’t calibrated well enough, and aren’t sport-specific. ‘Every part of the brain is precious territory,’ he says. ‘If you’re off by even a millimetre, you may be stimulating a wrong circuit with unintended consequences.’ Those range from burned skin to seizures.

A better option would be a product that uses your own mental effort to improve performance, like a meditation app that encourages focus, or a training enhancer such as Rewire (rewirefitness.app). This app-and-button system is based on research by the scientist Samuele Marcora, who has shown that both physical and cognitive fatigue exhaust the same circuit. By training them simultaneously – say, by identifying different sounds with buttons while running – it’s thought that you can strengthen your sports performance.