When you’re a star athlete like Tom Brady, you have to stay at the top of your game not just physically but also mentally. Meet Peter Delahunt, the Irish scientist with BrainHQ who helps keep Brady’s brain fit.
When Tom Brady leads the Patriots against the Rams for Super Bowl Sunday, his mind and cognitive skills will be in top condition thanks to a brain training program designed by Irish scientist Peter Delahunt.
Delahunt, originally from Skerries in Dublin, believes that all athletes should train their minds in the same way they train their bodies as a way of improving performance and protecting the brain against injury.
“It changes the way the brain works so that you get a cleaner signal, less noise and a more accurate response,” he said in a recent interview with the Irish Sun.
“As an example, Tom Brady will be making decisions very quickly on the field, typically you have about three seconds to look around you, see the players and make an accurate throw so these exercises would help him be able to make those quick decisions quickly.”
Delahunt, 55, left Ireland in 1986 and earned his Ph.D. at the University of California at Santa Barbara. After graduating, he was hired by the company Posit Science, where he initially started designing BrainHQ as a potential preventative measure against dementia. It consists of a series of 29 exercises developed to maintain and improve attention, decision making, memory, navigation, people skills, and speed.
Brady, who celebrated his 41st birthday last year, happened upon BrainHQ in 2014 when he was looking for ways to strengthen his brain, Delahunt said.
“He is an older quarterback by American standards, so he wanted to make sure his brain was performing at the top level and we have exercises that improve your basic speed of processing.
“We also have a number of exercises which improve your attention, or the amount of information you can take in from a single glance and Tom believes strongly that this is a big factor in his success and longevity.
“He’s in the Super Bowl this Sunday he’s still performing at a top level at 41 so it’s very inspiring to other sports stars out there,” he told the paper.
Delahunt says GAA stars should consider it, too!