(funky music)
I'm Todd Samson,
and I'm on a quest for a better brain.
I've embarked on a unique experiment to see
if science can turn any brain into a super-brain.
I want you to actually do something creative.
After two months of brain training,
I've radically improved my attention and memory
and turbocharged my creative skills.
Yes!
It worked!
But now, I want
to strengthen my mind/body connection.
So in this final episode,
I'll execute a Houdini-like escape,
learn about body intelligence,
and how to visualize and harness emotions.
Mischievous.
But this journey is not just about me,
you too, can do anything you put your mind to.
Fear is the enemy.
Slow things down.
And fear will take your breath away.
Feel comfortable with that?
No.
It's just a case of mind over matter.
(upbeat tech music)
(gentle acoustic music)
I've come to Boston
to witness an extraordinary feat
that demonstrates the power of the mind.
Hello there, you must be Alexandra the great.
I am, you must be Todd.
Pleasure to meet you.
Todd Bill
I'm a manager and trainer.
Okay, and husband.
And husband, yes. Yeah, which makes it
a little bit interesting.
(Alexandra laughs)
I here to witness you do some extraordinary event.
I don't really know what it is,
but I'm assuming it has something to do with water.
It does have something to do with water,
and some other things that I have up my sleeve.
(tense music)
Oh-oh, handcuffs, chains,
I'm not sure I like where this is headed all ready.
We're gonna cuff our ankles.
Oh, that's good.
Then we're gonna do our hands.
Okay.
So do you guys do this often?
We've got three different types of locks.
Also these chains create weight,
so it's much more dificult
to be able to get up from the surface.
Now here's the scary part.
She's gonna use bobby pins These here?
Yup, she's gonna pick the handcuffs,
pick the leg cuffs, get out of the chains,
flip the weight belt, come to the surface.
That would be my worst nightmare.
If you fear, you lose your breath immediately.
So it really is mind over matter.
If I don't mind, it doesn't matter.
Oh, jeez, I mind.
(Alexandra giggles)
You got the keys.
What's that?
Those are the keys just in case we need to get her.
I can't swim!
(dramatic pulsing music)
Actually, I'm not kidding.
I can't swim.
This had better not go horribly wrong.
(water splashing and bubbling)
That is crazy.
So you can see she has a little bit
trouble with the cuff, so looks like
she's going to the other cuff.
I'm starting to get really anxious.
How long is she gonna be under there?
It's up to her.
I see she got one cuff, so that's good.
My heart's about to leap
out of my chest.
Alex has been holding her breath now for over a minute.
And she's still only free of half the cuffs.
She's having a little bit of trouble.
You can see, she's lost her air.
Now lets battle out of the chains,
flip the weight belt, she made it.
Awesome. (applauding)
That is absolutely insane.
I've got to say I'm so happy to see you.
Yeah, it takes a lot of practice.
Like I said, I'm a professional.
I've been doing this for about 35 years.
So, I've trained a lot.
That was amazing and scary, but now it's my turn.
I will attempt an even more dangerous
underwater escape with only four weeks of training
using brain science as my foundation.
(upbeat music)
To discover what
mental skills I need to master,
I've come to Australia's capital, Canberra.
I've come to the Australia Institute of Sport,
where they've assembled some of the world's
leading sports scientists,
to help me with my Houdini escape.
I'm going to see more doctors in the next couple of days,
than I've seen in the last ten years.
(funky music)
My coach will be senior sports scientist,
Dr. David Martin.
He's been training elite athletes for over 20 years.
You've come to the right place.
We get athletes coming into us all the time,
saying I wanna jump this high,
I wanna swim this fast,
I wanna do something like win the Tour de France.
We're not experts in underwater escape,
but we do love challenges,
especially physical challenges like this.
After this, it'll be an olympic sport.
It would be cool if it was,
because you'd be the only guy in Australia
that could do it well. So I'll be the champion.
But before I get too carried away,
178.9
a reality check.
5.0
Oh la la.
We needed to make sure that Todd
was ready for this challenge.
He didn't have any underlying pathology
or illnesses or ailments.
The brain loves a good workout.
Aerobic exercise twice a week
halves the risk of getting dementia.
Tell me that Cadel Evans wore these.
So for physical testing,
we use the Navy Clearance Diver test,
which is arguably one of the toughest
programs to enter into the special forces.
Four miles away from clearance diver standard here.
Fill those lungs up, strong legs.
We wanted an assurance
that he was physically fit enough
to be able to start the training.
Stop, good work!
That's it.
Nose clip off, pop this out.
Nice work, excellent effort.
That was huge, good work.
I hate cycling.
But it's not just my fitness
they care about, there's a little something
they like to call body intelligence.
The first thing we're gonna have to do
for a challenge like this is make sure
that your mind is controlling your body,
and not vice versa.
So, trying to control parts of your body
that most people don't control.
Your heart rate, the way that the blood
flows through the body.
I've got a couple of people in the lab
who are very good in this area.
Okay, Todd, if you just want
to come over and take a seat--
I'm feeling a sense
of deja vu coming on.
So we'll start by wiring you up
with full biofeedback firstly,
and then we'll get on to the electrodes for the brain.
Dr. Shona Halson and Laura Doliff
are experts in the mind/body connection.
Pass me your hand.
I'm about to get a biofeedback
test to track my stress response.
(whimsical music)
So this just measures your sweat response.
In my fingers?
Yes.
Now this hand.
So this is just a probe for temperature.
And here was me hoping
I was done with probing.
Good, that is it.
You are ready to go.
Let's go test my brain again for the hundredth time.
Body intelligence is the ability
to use the mind to control the body's autonomic responses.
It's a valuable skill for anyone to learn,
and one I need to master for my Houdini challenge.
Pretty much everyone could benefit
if your body intelligence was high,
you could improve all kinds of different
aspects of your life.
You can start to control your emotions,
they way you deal with stress, anxiety,
perhaps the way you sleep.
These responses that we just think are out of control
are actually well within our control.
Okay, Todd, so we'll give you a couple
of different challenges to do.
And we'll be assessing basically the flexibility
of your autonomic nervous system.
So how well you cope and adjust
with the stressful stimulation.
Ready to begin?
I'm ready to begin.
In this first biofeedback test,
my job is to relax.
My heart rate, breathing and sweat response
are all being monitored.
The more relaxed I become, the face turns
from a frown to a smile.
Okay, Todd, so this next one is the Strout Test.
There'll be a series of words on the screen,
and you need to say what color
those word are written in.
All right.
See if you can do this test
and stay relaxed.
Ignore the writing, just say the colors.
Blue, purple, red, brown, green.
Your turn.
(hypnotic music)
How did you go?
Harder than it looks, isn't it?
So it's crunch time.
If I haven't met the minimum standards on my test,
I can't do the underwater Houdini challenge.
What's the summation?
How's my health in general?
If I looked at your heart and its function,
I'd say excellent, your heart health looks really good.
That's good.
One down.
My heart's okay.
Well, the heart is good.
Your muscular fitness was outstanding.
So your pull-ups, your push-ups, tops.
When we did the aerobic testing, good, not excellent.
So from a medical point of view,
the medical doctors are telling us
this guy is good to go.
Great, so big tick
on the fitness test,
but my biofeedback, that could be another matter.
Your autonomic nervous system was really flexible,
which is a great thing,
so you actually have a really good response to stress.
This one is the one that is quite interesting.
Code word for bad news.
Slightly, yes.
So this is your breathing response.
You tend to not diafrenetically breathe,
so you're not getting the really deep breathing.
You tend to more chest breathe,
and breathe through your nose.
So you can see that here by these really short spikes,
even in the relaxation period.
So it's something that I think will be really
important for your Houdini challenge,
will be to learn how to breathe again.
So I don't know how to breathe.
Just a small thing for underwater escape.
So on a percentage scale,
where an elite athlete scores 100%,
I was above average for biofeedback.
My fitness was great, but my overall score suffered
because I don't breathe properly.
In some tests, Todd did
very well, but in others, he didn't do that great.
And it showed us areas that he's gonna have
to really improve, if he's gonna
try to achieve this challenge.
It's Todd, has got to get ready
to start doing some very serious work.
The Australian Institute of Sport
has set me up with a one hour a day training regime,
involving biofeedback and aerobic exercise.
But to improve my body intelligence,
I first have to learn to breath deeper,
so they're bringing out the big guns.
(upbeat rock music)
Ant Williams is a competitive free diver.
He's ranked third in the world
for underwater distance swimming,
and can hold his breath for over eight minutes.
(tranquil music)
Ant can swim to a depth of 100 meters
on one breath of air.
If he can't teach me to breathe properly,
no one can.
So just out of curiosity, how long
did you end up holding your breath for?
It was about 30 seconds.
(chuckles) Are you serious?
That was your max attempt?
That was my max attempt.
You seem really pleased with that.
Well it's good to start from a low base, isn't it?
(laughs)
Low base. (chuckles)
I understand we've got a whole month to work on this.
So by the end of the month, I will teach you
how to hold your breath for at least four minutes.
That seems impossible.
So normally when most people take a deep breath,
they just go (gasping).
Just kinda of sucking air.
Yeah, so I'm gonna teach you another technique
that'll just slow that whole process down.
I'm gonna get you to fill the base of your lungs first.
Then the middle of your lungs,
then the top of your lungs,
and then I'm even gonna teach you
how to fill up through your throat.
Okay, this guy's serious.
Time to get the gear off.
(upbeat rock music)
Sounds like you got the lungs
about the size of a small cat.
(cat meowing)
He needs to learn the basics
of just simply how to relax.
How to breathe easily, how to breathe rhythmically,
how to stay calm.
So we're gonna drop the weights,
go down with them right to the bottom,
and then we'll face each other,
and really, it's to get you to get
at least one minute in a breath hold.
So if you stay nice and calm and relaxed,
this actually can feel wonderful.
You just go in your own time
and I'll come straight after you.
I've climbed to the summit
of Mount Everest.
But the idea of sitting at the bottom
of this pool completely freaks me out.
The think I noticed
with Todd is just how shallow he breathes.
On one hand, he gets it, like cognitively gets it,
but then when he's got a wetsuit on,
you say, okay now you've gotta hold your breath,
you just see him tense up,
and really struggle with it.
He just hasn't got his head around this yet.
(gasps) Shit that was hard.
That was a strange feeling.
When you're out of air, you're seriously out of air.
You don't look out of breath.
There's no signs or symptoms on you at all
that you're remotely hypoxic.
You're miles away from being hypoxic.
Really?
Then why am I coming up?
You reckon that's all mental?
It's all mental, yep.
All right, let's do our simulated drowning again.
(tense music)
(chains rattling)
Most of us intuitively
know how to breathe deeply.
Problem is that as soon as you're given a challenge,
we forget tension causes us to lift our shoulders
and tighten our neck.
And then the breathing changes,
and then our performance changes.
Todd has a lot of work to do
'cause he's not comfortable in water.
He has to figure out how to breathe properly,
how to relax properly,
and then he has to combine that
with a much higher level of self-confidence.
(Todd gasps)
That's better.
You did a bit of work for me on that one.
That's good.
That was 53 seconds.
Yeah, sure.
Normally I'd say to someone,
"I can get you to a three minute breath hold,
"no worries, just give me a moment."
Look, I'll be honest.
With Todd I'm not sure.
He just doesn't seem that comfortable in the water,
or that confident,
and the breath holding he did today,
was, for his first breath hold, it was really short.
Yeah, it was very short.
Before I leave
the Australian Institute of Sport,
I have one more mental skill to learn.
Surprise, surprise, another test.
My left arm has been wired up
to a machine that measures muscle contraction.
These eye-tracking goggles will record
my ability to focus on the target.
This time, what you're gonna do,
is you're gonna shoot darts
with your non-preferred hand.
So in that case, it's your left hand.
We're actually tracking where your gaze is looking
as you fixate on the board,
and target where you're gonna shoot the dart.
Your aim, hit the bullseye as often as possible.
And we're gonna measure how far
from the bullseye you are on each throw,
and then you're gonna go away
and do some visualization,
come back,
and we'll expect to see a nice increase in performance.
I would move faraway while I'm throwing with my left.
(tense music)
Okay, round one.
This feels so weird.
I've never played darts in my life,
and I'm a bit skeptical about the whole visualization thing.
I know it's long been used by sports psychologists,
but now it seems there's strong science to back it up.
It's nearly as good to mentally preform a task
multiple times as it is to do the task physically.
Now this may not hold out for all
types of physical activity,
but for playing the piano, playing the guitar,
darts, putting, these tasks seem particularly
adept at responding to visualizing perfection.
4.0, this one--
David and Damian get
an accuracy score by measuring the average
distance of each dart from the bullseye.
Okay, 20.
They also tallied the time
that my eyes stayed fixated on the bullseye,
and the synchronization of muscle contractions
in my left arm.
So the scores are in, and guess what?
They rank on the low side.
But if the science is correct, the score should improve
when I'm retested in four weeks time,
without me even throwing a dart.
Go figure.
All right, Todd, well done, mate.
You've now got a month to go and prepare
for the next time you're gonna throw these darts.
Five minutes a day, five times a week,
for the next four weeks, focus on that dart
hitting the bullseye.
So I'm not gonna practice at all, just think about it.
That's exactly right, Todd, it's an amazing theory.
(funky music)
As Todd gets the hang
of the visualization, we expect that the brain
is going to start to adapt.
And he's gonna start to hard-wire himself
to be prepared to do that task for real.
Seems I've got
some serious homework to do.
It's amazing that just by thinking about something,
the brain will rewire.
Can a thought really have that power?
I'm headed to San Francisco
to meet someone in the know.
(upbeat jazz music)
A new technology exists that allows
people to move objects, just by thinking about it.
This is something I have to see for myself.
Hi Tan.
Hi Todd, how are you?
I'm good. Nice to meet you.
Now, I've been looking forward to meeting you,
'cause I hear you can mind read.
Or you can at least move things.
I can help you move things with your mind.
So how do you do that?
Well, (voice fades)
Inventor Tan Le has created
a headset that can translate thoughts into commands.
So Todd, here it is.
This is the portable multi-channel, high-resolution EEG.
This is like science fiction.
So I put this on my head, turn this on,
and let me see if I can think lift,
and lift the helicopter.
(helicopter motor buzzing)
(Tan laughs)
Nice, nice catch.
Good job.
You're like a magician.
It's cool, right?
That's very cool.
So how does it work?
When I train the system how I think about
the action of lift, I'm visualizing a very distinct
clear thought in my mind of this helicopter
rising up, and that image is captured
by the machine learning algorithms,
and then what it does,
it does basically pattern recognition.
Every time my brain activates those same,
sort of networks, and that same idea,
I can use that as a mental command
to lift the helicopter.
That is phenomenal.
I want to give it a go.
(tense music)
This is where I start to see
if I can collect your brainwaves.
This is like getting shiatsu on your head.
Here's what your brainwaves actually look like.
And this is all streaming in real time.
So it doesn't really seem like
there's a lot going on in there.
I can show you what's actually going on in there.
Oh look at that. Nice trace
of the functional brain areas
that are actually lighting up.
Wow, it's really firing off, isn't it?
Yeah, and so you can see,
there's a lot of frontal cortex activity.
But before I can lift anything,
the computer needs to take a snapshot
of my brainwave pattern as I visualize lifting this cube.
So ready, set, go.
The next time the system
recognizes that thought pattern,
it will activate the command.
Okay, now the cube is live,
and you can try to think lift.
I'll need to move the cube
to the top of the screen if I'm going
to be able to lift that chopper.
Awesome! (laughs)
It's cool.
Well, time for the real deal.
(motor buzzing)
Okay, let's do a liftoff.
Ready?
By maintaining the though of lift the whole time.
(motor buzzing)
That's it! Good job!
Yeah. (Todd laughs)
Every time I look at that helicopter now,
I'm just thinking lift.
Wow, nice!
This mind control thing is so addictive.
If only I could run the whole world this way.
And now I can stop.
Lift?
That's really going.
(funky music)
Okay, Todd, I'm gonna challenge you
to a mental dual with these race cars.
I'm the red Porsche and you're the black Mustang.
So we just think push, and we're gonna drive these
cars to the finish line.
The first to the finish line wins.
Okay.
All right, ready? (giggling)
Ready, count to three.
One, two, three.
(motors buzzing)
(Tan laughing)
Hey, hey!
Oh my god, oh my god! (laughing)
Dammit, dammit. (laughing)
That was so much fun.
Was it, it was amazing.
But you know this, the fact that you can move
things with your mind has far reaching applications.
So imagine someone whose a quadriplegic,
who has been immobilized,
they can use their thoughts,
which they have full power over,
to control an electric wheelchair.
Or imagine being able to just control a smart home,
or smart office, just by being able to will it to happen.
It opens up so many amazing possibilities for people.
(gentle music)
Tan has sold me
on the power of visualization.
And I'll definitly use it to prepare
for my Houdini challenge.
But I still have to learn some escapology skills,
so I've returned to Boston to see the master.
(upbeat bright music)
Alexander the Great holds no less than six world
records for death defying escapes.
Do I really need to warn you?
Don't try this at home.
Hi there. (both laugh)
Whoa, she's sinking me already.
Okay, first thing we're gonna do,
is we're gonna get you out of the first box,
and that's being comfortable.
We're trying to find where your base it.
Okay, I can tell you where my bass is.
It's low.
It's low. (laughing)
That's okay, we can work from there.
We were asking him to push himself to his limit.
Getting him used to feeling that,
even though I think I need to breathe, I'm okay.
(tense music)
you really have to work on your mind.
Well, that felt like forever.
I did see the signs of you getting uncomfortable.
That's okay.
What we're gonna do is we're
gonna take it up another notch.
What I'm trying to do, is I'm trying to get you
to stay in that uncomfortable state,
we call them contractions, where you're body
is gonna say, "I want to breathe, I want to breathe."
But you're gonna say, "No, I'm not gonna breathe."
Doesn't that mean I'm drowning?
No, they're early warning signs,
you have plenty of air, you're not gonna drown.
Now what I want you to do
is go through those contractions,
and try to go through three.
(tense music)
Abdominal contractions
are the body's way of telling you it needs oxygen.
When they hit, it feels like you're
being punched in the stomach from the inside,
and your mind is screaming, "Take a breath."
[Alexandra Voiceover] The one thing
you don't want to have happen is fear.
Fear is the enemy, and fear will take your breath away.
Great job! (applauds)
Awesome.
Great job. How do you do that drowning?
I do 40 of those when I'm doing my escape.
So, that's what you need to get used to feeling.
(tense music)
Todd is going to go beyond what Houdini did.
25 feet of chain, and five combination locks.
So right there, he is doing something
that even the great Houdini has never done underwater.
Geez, you're gonna do them that tight?
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
The experts devised this challenge
because it's the ultimate test
of all my brain training.
It demands mastering body intelligence,
visualization and fast thinking.
What we're doing is using a brand new type
of combination lock, there's no numbers.
Okay?
And we're gonna give you a sequence,
and you're gonna have to memorize it.
Thank you Mersenek for memory training.
The hardest part of this
is not only remembering all the combinations,
but also getting the locks in the right position
to be able to actually manipulate the combination mechanism.
I think I'm out.
Great job.
So that just took an hour.
(Alexandra laughs)
I will be fine if I had
a scuba diving tank. No, no, that's
just the hands, now you're gonna do your feet.
Oh. (laughs)
(tense music)
But it's gonna be more
than just my hands and feet.
I'm gonna go around.
Right so now we need a second lock right here.
[Alexandra Voiceover] Escapology really encompasses
a lot of different factors.
It's not just getting out of chains or handcuffs.
You know, you have to memorize things.
You actually have to work on determination
and psychologically get yourself
mentally ready for doing this.
So here's where you're gonna be able
to control your mind.
Slow things down.
Obviously, visualization, your steps.
What would you do to be able to get out of this.
It really is get that breath hold down,
use those pushes that we talked about
to try to focus on getting out
of your combination locks on your hands,
on your feet, and being able to come up to the surface.
Okay, feel comfortable with that?
No.
You can do it, I have faith in you.
(gentle music)
Back in Sydney,
with just two weeks left until my Houdini challenge,
I'm still feeling a little out of my depth.
But I found something that may help.
I've heard about the science of emotional intelligence.
So I'm headed to my gym for the brain
to meet with an expert.
(bass music)
Sue Langley applies psychology and neuroscience
to help people improve their lives
by using their emotions in an efficient way.
Hi Sue.
Hi Todd, how are you doing?
Welcome.
Thank you.
So as you know, I have this Houdini challenge coming up.
I've heard. And it's fair to say
my emotions are running quite high.
(Sue chuckles)
And one of the things that was recommended
is for me to train to control my emotions
so I'm able to deal with the pressure
that I'm going to be under.
Okay.
I can definitly help you.
It's not necessarily about controlling your emotions,
it's about managing them.
I think of it as the intelligent use of emotions.
Everyone can learn something from emotion intelligence.
It's the foundation of who we are, and our relationships,
so whether you're doing a Houdini challenge,
or whether you just want to work better with your kids,
or whether you want to lead people more effectively,
understanding all of this stuff can really help you.
All right, so we're gonna do a little assessment now
of how aware you are of your emotions day to day.
All I'm gonna ask you to do is write down
all the emotions you have felt over the last 24 hours.
Please don't censor anything.
Work out how many are positive, and how many are negative.
Got that?
Make a list of all the emotions
you've experienced in the last 24 hours.
I've got happiness, calm, surprise,
frustration, minor anger, aggressiveness,
and indifferent.
Okay, fantastic, so let's do step two.
All right.
All right, so what you'll see on the table
is a whole bunch of emotion words.
I want you to still think about the last 24 hours,
but if there's some words down here
that you have experienced in that 24 hour period,
that weren't on your first list,
collect them up for a second list.
(funky music)
Amused, mischievous, loved.
Wow, I've come up with another 17
emotions I hadn't even considered the first time around.
Two thirds of which are positive.
I hope you did better than me.
So have I just forgotten all the positive things?
Absolutely.
The first one you had seven, which is about average,
so, hate to say this, but you may not be more
than average on the emotional scale yet.
So between five and ten is probably average
for people, for the first one.
Usually, on the second one,
it's about 10 and 15, so slightly more.
So maybe after training, you might get to more than 24,
'cause you'll have become more aware
of what you're experiencing everyday.
So what we're gonna do now is a bit
of physiological element to emotions.
What I'm gonna do, is I'm gonna talk you
through an exercise to see if you can shift
your emotions from one onto another.
So gonna get you to clip this to your ear.
All right.
Okay, comfy?
It's good.
Okay, so close your eyes for me.
So the first one I'd like you to try and create is fear.
(tense music)
All right, so now see if you can
change it from fear to calm.
It's called the emotion physiology test,
and by measuring changes in my heart rate,
it detects how quickly I can transition
from one emotion to another.
In this case, from fear to calmness.
Try it yourself, it's quite revealing.
And when you're ready, open your eyes.
I wanna stay in this one.
(Sue chuckles)
All right, so hang onto the emotion if you like,
how do you feel that went?
That wasn't easy.
I had a hard time going from fear to calm.
Okay, so it's not always easy to move between these.
So what we've looked at here,
is we got your heart rate and the variability
in that according to the times
where you moved from each one.
But we've also got a coherence ratio,
so what percentage of time you spent,
your body and your heart rate in a calm, coherent state.
So if we look at these three figures of coherence,
of red, blue and green,
you actually ended up with final figure of 18% overall
was in that sort of that green, that calmer state.
But the interesting thing for me was, is you weren't
able to shift too much from fear to that calm state.
Well, based on this result,
if I panic underwater, 70 seconds to calm myself down
is not going to cut it.
And my 18% emotional coherence score
was also radically improved.
So first of all you need to work out
what calm feels like for you, remember what it was like,
and be able to recreate that,
and practice that physiological response.
Gonna ask you to practice for an hour a day.
Now that might seem like a lot--
No, it is a lot. (Sue laughs)
So that's what we're trying to teach Todd to do.
Using his physiology to change his emotions quite quickly.
So, practice seamlessly moving from emotion to another,
but most importantly, so he can shift from fear to calm
when he needs to.
Emotions are wonderful if we actually use them
to our advantage, it can really help us
live our lives better.
It's time for the last major training
session before my Houdini challenge.
And the Australian Institute of Sport is upping the stakes.
They've asked me to visit a naval base
a couple of hours south of Sydney.
They wouldn't tell me why.
So a controlled ditching is what we're aiming at.
To be able to successfully egress a ditched
or a crashed aircraft.
So I figured this was some
sort of survival exercise.
And then, the penny dropped.
(helicopter blades chopping)
I'm about to undergo helicopter underwater escape training.
Great.
What happens when things don't go according to plan?
Which is a very real possibility
when we're underwater and chained up.
We need to prepare you for that.
So, we need to introduce a common technique
called red gaming into the training process
so that you're prepared absolutely everything,
and can saver yourself.
And I'd like to introduce Jan to you,
who's going to take you through a very, very good
exercise in red gaming.
Hi Todd, welcome to bay.
You look intense.
That's a-- Thank you.
Well, you'll have your helmet on later
and what we're going to do is we're gonna
put you into a simulator,
we're gonna strap you into a chair
into a five point harness,
and lower you down to three and a half meters.
Once we've done that, we'll be rotating you 180 degrees,
and you're going to escape using a five point plan.
I didn't realize it was gonna be upside-down.
It has to be upside-down because helicopters
are top heavy, and they fall upside-down.
You know, one of my fears is being trapped
in a car underwater, while the water's rising up.
If something comes up like a fear,
which we know you have,
it's gonna be a bit of a challenge for you.
(dramatic music)
(workers trading commands)
(motor humming)
(water rushing)
This is my worst nightmare.
It feels like I'm in the back of a bus
that's crashed into a river.
Every second feels like an hour.
(Todd laughs)
You got yourself out, you're alive.
I was surprised how fast the water came up.
And it could be a lot quicker.
We're gonna step it up now,
we're going to put these blackout goggles on
that are going to simulate limited visibility,
so once they're on, you won't be able to see anything.
You'll have to rely on your physical reference points.
I'm like a crash test dummy.
(motor humming)
Doing this blind means
I have to rely on feel to orientate myself.
So, upside-down, I have to switch to a seat
across the cabin to find the escape window.
I don't know if I can do this.
You okay?
It was weird to do it blindfolded
because I couldn't see the water coming up,
and so once the water hit me,
I took my breath, and I remember thinking,
"Okay, I can't get out this window."
Like I had complete disorientation.
Like I didn't know which way was up.
I'm glad I don't have to do it again.
We needed to up the ante, especially with
his breathing and his ability of hold his breath,
and negotiating those locks.
(tense music)
So, chains off the hands, chains off the feet,
emerge to the top with your live intact.
This will interesting 'cause
I've never actually done both.
So I've practiced visualizing hands and feet,
but I've only actually escaped hands.
Scary good.
Okay, Todd.
Today is the day that we break through
the two minute barrier.
Let's do it.
There's no way that Todd
will be able to complete such an extreme
activity like this without all of those things
that he's been addressing throughout
the entire training process.
If things start to go wrong,
you don't have the necessary composure and calmness,
then I think that is the biggest single enemy
for Todd being able to complete this thing,
and to basically get away with his life.
So far, so good.
But now I have to stay underwater for another minute
to allow for time it will take to escape
the locks and chains that will be on my chest.
Come to the side left when you're ready.
How long was that?
One minute eleven.
It felt so much longer than that.
I have to double the time I can spend underwater,
but I've only got a few days of training left.
(upbeat music)
I've completed my month of training,
and feel more confident in body and emotional intelligence.
Now it's time to see if visualization
really does enhance performance.
So I'm sure you remember these from last time.
Yep.
Once again, I'm being fitted
with eye tracking goggles to record my gaze.
And my left arm is wired up to a device
that measures muscle contraction.
Now he's looking the part.
(tense music)
There's my first double tiny.
He's honing in.
Okay so, first one, we'll say 2, 12, 15.5.
(trainers groan)
Wow.
43.8
Divided by 30.
That felt so much easier
the second time around.
But I wonder what the technology recorded.
It's quite amazing the power of visualization.
You're earlier performance, you had a fixation time.
You're last look before you threw the dart
was very short, it was 150 milliseconds in length.
You've almost doubled that.
You're around 250 milliseconds,
which correlates quite closely with better shooting
accuracy in these types of tasks.
So, fantastic.
You've basically taken 50% off your score.
(upbeat music)
My previous scores were low
because my brain wasn't wired for playing darts lefthanded.
But through visualization,
it seems my brain has rewired.
And my accuracy has doubled.
My gaze is twice as focused,
and my arm muscles are more coordinated.
So it's official.
Visualizing a perfect action
improves your chance for success.
And this applies to any task.
Try it and see for yourself.
But has my body intelligence score improved?
And will it be good enough for
the Australian Institute of Sport to give
the go-ahead for the Houdini challenge.
Ready?
Okay, off we go.
This time, I am amazed
how effortlessly I could relax and control
my heart rate and breathing.
Okay, thanks, Todd.
Green, brown, yellow--
Even the Stroup test
didn't phase me this time.
Okay, we're done.
Time to get my results.
If the haven't improved, this will torpedo
my hopes of doing the Houdini challenge.
Well, we got the results for biofeedback.
And some of it's looking pretty interesting.
So you wanna tell him, Shona,
what you actually found? How'd I do?
You actually did really well.
We actually saw some good improvements.
Okay, so how did I do on the breathing tests?
'Cause I know you got really concerned
that I had some issues, maybe asthma or something.
Yeah, well there's definitly been some big improvements.
Completely different from the first time that we saw you.
Which is really good for, obviously,
what you're about to do.
We can put it in perspective.
When you started and did these tests,
we would have said for your biofeedback
you'd probably rank at 65%.
After I've seen these results,
I'd put your result just over 90%.
Give you 91.
So nice work, that's very good adaptation.
My original body intelligence
scores were good, considering only an elite
athlete can score 100%,
but my shallow breathing let me down.
My new scores show an increase in fitness,
and a big improvement in biofeedback control.
I am now convinced that we call all benefit
from the science of body intelligence.
(gentle music)
And thanks to the training,
See if you can move it into calm.
Even my emotional
intelligence scores have improved.
This time, during the emotions physiology retest,
I was able to easily and quickly
transition from fear to calm.
The first time, it took me a massive 70 seconds,
and my coherence rate was an embarrassing 18%.
But after a few weeks of practice,
it's taken me just 9 seconds to make that transition,
and my emotional coherence has doubled.
Three months ago, my brain was scanned
while I performed dozens of cognitive tests.
Let's go.
Now I've finished the training,
my brain is being scanned, once again,
to record the changes.
This is the most advanced testing that science has to offer.
And the first time on television that anyone
has been scientifically monitored
before and after brain training.
(hypnotic music)
So have the experts redesign my brain?
Todd has changed as a consequence
of what he's gone through.
There's absolutely no question that we've
turned Todd into a substantially smarter Todd.
He has indeed, changed his brain for the better.
Now the results are in,
I'm amazed.
The thinking part of my brain
works faster with more focus.
The region for sight responds
to motion more rapidly, with greater accuracy.
There's a sharp improvement
in the fluency of my movement.
My brain is much quicker at understanding
and producing speech,
and there's a stronger connection
between all the working parts.
The brain has the capacity to change,
to rewire, to reconfigure itself at any age.
Todd's brain underwent a kind of revolutionary change.
And all of these things occurred
because of intensive effort on his part
in training his brain.
Micheal assigned a score,
where 100% is a perfect brain.
Three months ago, my scores were above average.
Now, my thinking speed and attention are off the charts.
My motor skills skyrocketed,
and my memory is operating flawlessly.
We know the rules that control plasticity,
and basically we apply them drive changes
that are not only the most rapid,
but also that are the most enduring.
And it's a great privilege to be able to see
this happen to someone like Todd.
(suspenseful music)
It's d-day for my final challenge.
It's not just the last four weeks
of training I'm relying on,
I'll be bringing together the full
three months of intensive work boosting my brainpower.
Everything is prepped and ready,
and I mean, everything.
For this particular challenge, we know it's dangerous.
If he blacks out, or if he loses oxygen
and collapses on us, he will take on water,
and it will not be a pleasant scenario.
We've got the chief medical officer,
nursing staff, paramedics on standby.
We've got the lifeguards.
We've gone through the full rehearsal,
how to pull him out, how to resuscitate him,
how to get him to the emergency room.
We're not in the business of watching someone die.
To assist in the recovery back to the surface...
Since the last we were with Todd,
he looks like a different guy.
Like his body has changed as a result of the training.
In such a short time, he's looking a lot more physical.
His breath hold is up to three and a half minutes,
so I think he's gonna nail that part of it.
Okay, well here we go.
Todd, I heard you got this down pat by now.
Yeah, right, we'll see.
But today there's going to be an audience.
He's gonna have to work really hard
to maintain his composure.
So this will be the spot, then?
I'm going straight down.
The enemy is complacency, the enemy is stress.
He needs to stick to what he's been doing well,
utilizing all those tools that he's been taught.
If he sticks to the basics,
goes through his process,
and listens to his body, emotionally intelligent,
visualizes all of those things,
then he'll get through just swimmingly, at least.
Well, with that vote of confidence,
time for one last run through of my visualization.
Really stay super relaxed.
The more you relax, stay calm, the better it'll feel.
[Alexandra Voiceover] Fear is the enemy.
[David Voicveover] Slow things down.
[Alexandra Voiceover] And fear will take your
breath away.
Mind over matter.
What would you do
to be able to get out of this?
[Damian Voiceover] Let the pattern,
let the process unfold.
Speed of thinking is critical.
Acute attention to detail.
Go through it methodically.
Get the job done.
Okay Peter, I'm ready, let's do it.
(tense music)
You're just getting all the chains on,
just as is per normal?
Absolutely.
And you'll be ready to go, Todd.
As per normal. As per normal.
So, nothing out of the ordinary.
This is usually when people think,
"Oh, I'll try something a little extra,"
just as per normal.
I'm not gonna try anything extra.
I'm definitly sticking to the plan.
With my training, I have faith that I can do this,
but I'm not taking anything for granted.
We had a bit of an accident last week.
We were training for this escape
for the first time in a three meter pool,
and when I got to the bottom,
I actually couldn't get the locks off my hands,
so I was stuck.
It was scary.
It was the first time in my life
I could say that I nearly drowned
and had to be rescued.
Hopefully, that's not gonna happen today.
Todd's certainly done the preparation.
He has definitly done everything
that's been asked of him.
But the thing about big challenges is
one little thing that goes wrong,
starts to complicate everything.
If he jumps in the pool, and he just doesn't center himself,
or he starts to get stressed halfway through,
you start burning up oxygen really quick.
He's done all the brain training,
and it's just whether the challenge overwhelms him,
or whether he can hold it all in control
and get through this very elaborate
sequence of events before he runs out of air.
Can you tell me if that's tight enough, Todd?
That's tight.
Look at that, that's great.
Am I mentally prepared? Yes.
Am I physically prepared? Yes.
Am I shitting myself? Absolutely.
The only thing that's going to get
me out of here alive is my brain.
Todd has landed on his bum,
and is reeling backwards.
It's potentially a huge problem.
So he's just collecting himself.
He's on his bum now, that's good.
He's got those wrists off, terrific.
Okay, so he got that one off perfectly.
That's beautiful.
He's up to the upper body locks.
And that one's proving difficult.
Out of the middle?
Three down now, getting the middle one, number four.
Looks like that's clear.
Okay, off goes the upper body.
Weight belt off.
Up he comes.
Blindfold off.
And he's done it, brilliant!
(crowd cheers and applauds)
(upbeat music)
Fantastic.
Smooth as silk, that was great.
All done, man.
I'm glad that's over.
He's the man with the lungs.
It worked, I mean, it all actually worked.
And for those of us that know where Todd has come from,
a guy that can't really swim,
and a guy that really can't hold his breath,
and a guy that doesn't like to be confined,
he has really overcome a major series of obstacles,
so job well done.
Right now I'm just busting to go to the toilet.
Huge relief on both their parts.
He's done something pretty special.
Fantastic.
(gentle music)
Todd is a wonderful example
of what brain plasticity can do,
but it's just the tip of an iceberg.
A very big iceberg.
This is a revolution.
We can drive the brain correctively
in almost any condition you can think of.
ADHD, obsessive compulsive disorder,
autism, or a hundred other things.
Brain plasticity medicine will become
the major player in the future.
This revolution is in its infancy.
And we're going to see wonderful things
that are coming from the scientific
and medical area in the immediate future.
I'm delighted the brain training has been so effective.
The experts have scientifically proven
that the brain can radically transform
in only three months.
This is the frontier of brain science,
and has something in it for all of us.
'Cause if I can do it, you can too.
Random documentary making.
It's my judo outfit.
Wait a second, my finger is super glued to the mousetrap.
It's to help me with my Houdini escape.
My voice is going. (laughs)
He's the champion sitting beside me.
I'm gonna intimidate him by going tadunh, tadunh, tadunh.
Does this seem normal to you?
That is Yoda.
There's his ears, his little outfit. (laughs)
I could play chess if I had Yoda in my head.
Do I always remember your birthdays?
Yep.
(crowd cheering and laughing)
That's a wrap.