It can be fun and useful to test your cognitive abilities, giving insight to the efficacy if them or ‘quantifying’ the abstract concept of cognitive performance, and after all, clarity and knowledge is everything. Cognitive functions like reaction time and visual processing speed extend though the Body, Nerves, Brain, and Mind, which naturally relates to these subjects here, and the myriad of affecting factors and activities where these apply or improve. To expand and elevate is to express and exercise after all, and seeing yourself get better is key to inspiration and consistency.
HumanBenchmark.com
HumanBenchmark.com is a series of small tests or activities to test some general cognitive functions. It is most famous for the Reaction Time clicking test, which has been used for many years in gaming as a general way to test your performance, compete with others, and have fun challenging friends. The Visual Reaction Time applies most to mechanics like parrying in Dark Souls and other games, where the action is largely facilitated by visual cues, as well as sequencing or memory (i.e. learning patterns and ‘feel’ for the game or rhythm/timing). According to humanbenchmark.com, the median reaction time is 273 milliseconds. Pro eSports players typically get between ~120-180 milliseconds, with ~150ms being a target for being in the ‘top 1%’ of gamers.
These tests or minigames are useful for getting a benchmark of your cognitive functions, giving an idea of how good you are relative to the average person and how much you can improve, or, how close you are to a ‘superhuman’ capacity. They are themselves also an excellent way to improve your cognitive function, in the way that ‘puzzles’ or ‘brain games’ like sudoku, jigsaw puzzles, and more do, being fun, reciprocative, and engaging which is the key to doing anything consistency and deeply really. The Sequence, Visual, Verbal, and Number Memory tests are my personal favourites, and which I excel at.
Kovaak’s
Kovaak’s is an aim training application that trains your aiming for FPS games. This means it trains and tests a variety of cognitive functions that facilitate aiming, such as reflexes, reaction time, hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, and more.
Other Games
Although this doesn’t quite align as objectively with the previous applications, playing various games can always give you an idea of how good you are or perform mentally, as well as other sports or ‘physical’ games.
Classic eSports Games:
- League of Legends
- DOTA 2
- CSGO (2)
- Overwatch
- Call of Duty
Video Games:
- Dark Souls I-III
- Rust
Classic Games:
- Chess
- Checkers
Personal Challenges
There are memes of something many people used to do in their childhood, where their internal monologue would tell themselves something bad would happen or that they were worthless if they didn’t do this one thing in their game, sport, or something like tossing garbage into a bin from far away, in the way of a ‘bet’ or dare that one might get from their friends. I would often make bets against myself to perform things in increasingly challenging or skillful ways.
You can and should always be challenging yourself, because it is fun; If you play video games on a setting other than story mode, you are challenging yourself, just as if you play any sort of competitive game. Challenge is engaging; Exercising is expressing (yourself). Like a dance or hunt, an artwork with which to paint your existence onto the world, your life and being onto the canvas of existence.
For instance, one time I just stood and watched my dryer dry my clothes for 50 minutes or more before bed, just to see if I could and how ‘in control’ I was of my mind and body.
Apex of Men 