This article was first published in the August 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online
Before Felix Baumgartner dived almost 40,000 metres through space and back to Earth, he was trained by Red Bull's high-performance director, Andy Walshe. The seven-year project encountered lots of hurdles, and for Walshe that meant the next step was training for the unknown, learning to deal with failures before they arose, whether they be technical glitches such as faulty parachutes or more emotional challenges such as fear.
Walshe's next project, Acheron, involved parachuting four elite athletes into the Australian outback in the hope that enduring physical challenges while outside their comfort zones would challenge them holistically -- body, mind and spirit -- resulting in improvements in their mental and physical performances. Their brains were fMRI scanned while they were tested on resilience, stress and performing under pressure, both before and after the experience. "Even in eight days the shift in the individual is fairly profound," Walshe says.
But these experiences are clearly not scalable. So Walshe is now using neurofeedback headgear to monitor and reinforce positive behaviours in the brain to get the same performance-enhancing effect. "If we can take these lessons from the very best in the world and bring them to the wider community, that would be extraordinary."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
