You Measure Free Will in Milliseconds

The nerves in your body carry impulses racing around at various speeds maxing out at 240 miles per hour. However, once they reach the congested network inside your skull, impulses tend to slow down from two to 20 miles per hour. So, while consciousness is fast, it’s not instantaneous. A minimum of ten to 20 milliseconds (thousandths of a second) is required for any sensory message to reach your brain, and, then, your brain takes more time to formulate a response.

While conducting experiments on free will, Benjamin Libet, found that there was a 200-millisecond delay between becoming aware of an intention and the completion of the action — for example, moving a finger. In this time lag, as brief as it is, is your power of free will.

Now, controversy does exist over what exactly constitutes “awareness to act” and whether it’s an evolving, dynamic process or a sudden state. However, there is little debate over whether humans possess the power of choice in the gap. In this pause, you can intentionally shift the part of your brain that’s in control to your thinking frontal lobe. That pause, that shift is what practicing mindfulness is all about.

Taking a mindful moment allows you to shift the part of your brain that’s in control.