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8. Mental Athletics

Matthew Syed hears from a former US memory champion. Can anyone be a mental athlete with brain training? From 2021.

American science journalist Joshua Foer was a perfectly normal guy with a perfectly normal memory.

Then he entered the USA National Memory Championships - and ended up giving the country鈥檚 brain power prodigies a run for their money.

How did he do it?

Matthew Syed takes a deep dive into the heady world of brain training - where ordinary people challenge themselves to reach new peaks of mental athleticism.

Journeying from the methods of the Ancient Greeks, to the showbiz hacks of the 1960s, to the Manhattan competition hall where Joshua competed for the title of memory champion in 2006, Matthew learns that the desire to push the limits of our cognitive capacity has been around for thousands of years.

But do these techniques work?

In his effort to understand what鈥檚 possible when it comes to improving our minds and memories, Matthew examines the impact of nature and nurture on our brains - asking whether environmental inequality, or genetics, is the deciding factor in determining whether anyone could become a mental athlete.

Producer: Eleanor Biggs.

A Novel production for 大象传媒 Radio 4, first broadcast in March 2021.

Available now

29 minutes

Last on

Tue 20 Feb 2024 21:00

Broadcasts

  • Wed 31 Mar 2021 16:00
  • Mon 5 Apr 2021 00:15
  • Tue 20 Feb 2024 21:00

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