Dad reflexes are a real thing and could help your gaming as a dad.

Being a parent implies a responsibility that gets the best of ourselves as is celebrated with video compilations, gifs, tags and memes talking about or depicting dads saving their offspring of domestic accidents or even dangerous situations. If you make a quick search you’ll find a lot more situations where the dad is the quick savior, this leads to the question. “Do dads have better reflexes?” Or “Dad reflexes are a real thing?” 

Yes. Generally parents appear to have better reflexes as they are constantly anticipating anything that could happen to their children, but dads do have and show better reaction times and also response to fight or flight situations is stronger in males. Although let’s not ignore that dads tend to put their children in more careless situations in the first place, unlike mums who are better at preventing.

1. How fast a dad can react

The average reaction time of a young male is around 240 ms or 0.24 seconds for a visual stimuli and 220 ms or 0.22 seconds for a sound stimuli. Some of the best reaction times recorded are around the 120 ms mark, which is extremely fast and rare. This frame of time can make the difference between life and death as a baby is falling head first to the ground from the second floor (as is shown later in this post). The average reaction time tests taken on this website are around 280 ms, but this is due to computer latency reasons.

2. Male v/s female reflexes

According to a study realized by The department of physiology of Punjab University the reaction time of women is around 15 ms slower than male for visual stimuli and 13 ms slower for auditory stimuli. Although every millisecond adds up, 15 ms is largely insignificant, this partly supports the thesis mentioned in the second paragraph of this article “dads tend to put their children in more careless/dangerous situations”.

In the literature it is documented that muscle contraction time is the same in females and males, the ~15 ms difference lies in the time it takes to start moving after seeing or hearing something. Males have strong motor reactions.

It is thought that male advantage is getting smaller with women engaging in fast response activities. With enough training and good routines both male and female can beat most of the population.

3. The science behind a father's brain

Fatherhood increases neural plasticity in the 4 months postpartum as is presented in a study conducted at Yale University. The most affected regions are those which are involved in parental motivation, including the ones about manipulation of the infant’s body. It is important to note that fathers also showed a decrease in other areas of the brain not associated with fatherhood.

These changes in the brain are not automatic after you become a parent. You must be present and realize it is an incredible responsibility and you must be up to the task. Parents are automatically anticipating every move of the child without even consciously thinking about it.

The way men and women respond to a fight or flight scenario is fundamentally different. In contrast to women, men react to stress by releasing large amounts of norepinephrine into the bloodstream, which provokes a primitive response heightening blood pressure and motor activity. This means the reaction time in a dangerous situation might be faster than those measured in laboratory conditions and explains the lightning fast reaction dads are famous for on the internet.

4. Is it only dads that have good reflexes? Do moms have fast reflexes too?

Yes, moms are constantly anticipating what their children do. Keep in mind that a part of the videos you see online the fathers themselves put their kids in careless or not safe situations in the first place, ranging from having the child at a height to water skiing with them (true story). Conversely moms tend to not put their children in danger, this statistically makes less videos about “#momreflexes”, but if you look for it, you will still find, for example, this mother saving her child from a serious accident:

Or this mom saving her child from a not so serious accident:

This mom is too strong

This mom tried her best

5. Dads and mums anticipating v/s reacting

If you are told to “look out” you will be more alert and ready to react to any danger or stimuli, this is exactly what happens with parents, they are not only anticipating, but they are used to anticipate unconsciously. This makes for a faster reaction that otherwise wouldn’t happen, for example, if a ball is thrown at you when you are not with your children, you will not be as fast to respond as you are when your children are present. You might get hit by it, but it is not as important because you won’t take much damage and it is not your children's health at stake.

6. Gifs about dad reflexes

• • Dad anticipates and prevents crash:

• • Dad saves child while sleeping:

You can see mom is very impressed with this dad’s performance, better check our advices for improving reflexes to impress your co-parent too.

How to improve your dad (or mom) reflexes

• Sleep well when possible: I know this might be difficult, but if you have the opportunity to sleep, take it. Social events can be done during the day. A study from The American Sleep Disorders Association and Sleep Research Society showed that sleep deprivation can slow down as much as 80 milliseconds the reaction time of a person.
• Do plenty exercise: Exercise increases blood flow to the brain and improves overall health, weight training is particularly good for this as it has been published in The American Geriatrics Society that lifting weights twice a week can have an impact on slowing the aging process of the brain as we get older. Oxygen in the brain is important.
• Eat well: Eat more fruits, cut fried foods. Try blueberries, this fruit contains anthocyanins which helps you sleep and improve your brain function. If you are like me and frequently indulge in what you’d call not healthy food, then all you need is to add fruits and vegetables to your diet while still eating whatever you want for the rest of it.
• Keep your brain active: Read books, play videogames, try not drinking too much alcohol and relax as much as possible, fatherhood and work is challenging, take a break whenever you can.