Report by Harald S. Harung (2026)
supplemented with with display panels by Margot Süttmann
I was aware of extensive research showing that the Transcendental Meditation – TM technique develops the brain and mind and also contributes to higher performance. That was why I thought, if we turn it around and look at people who perform at a high level, what do we find then in terms of self-development? The question I asked myself was therefore whether top performers have more than ordinary people of the mind and brain traits that TM develops? Human development has two major ranges: First to self-actualization, as defined by the American psychologist Abraham Maslow, and second – beyond this – to higher states of consciousness, as described by Maharishi Mahash Yogi, based on the ancient Vedic knowledge of India.
Research on the Inner Experiences of World-Class Performers from Many Countries
The first study I conducted was to investigate only subjective experiences of higher states of consciousness. Glimpses of this advanced development were by Maslow called peak experiences, moments when you feel an intense inner joy, you experience a lot of good luck, you use minimal energy to perform an activity, and your level of performance is very high.
Maslow described peak experiences as "the most happy and fulfilling moments in life."
The research was conducted on such world-class performers as the renowned Swede Janne Carlzon, the former CEO of SAS – Scandinavian Airline Systems and the world-renowned former conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Mariss Jansons. I found that those who performed at a world-class level in over 10 different countries had much more frequent peak experiences than ordinary people. In fact, the top performers had at least 10 times more frequent experiences of one of the categories of peak experiences than the control subjects.
Mind-Brain Research on Norwegian World-Class Performers in Sports, Music, and Management
Extensive research has been performed on the brain and mental features of people who have enjoyed self-development through the TM technique. Maharishi International University – MIU in the USA, which is accredited up to the doctoral level in areas such as management, health, and education, has been a pioneer in this research. My idea was to expand the research in Norway and investigate the brain and moral development – in addition to the frequency of peak experiences – of world-class performers. In that context, I got in touch with the brain researcher Dr. Fred Travis at MIU, and he joined the research.
A. World-Class Athletes.
In the first study we conducted together, we tested Norwegian elite athletes in collaboration with the National Olympic Training Centre and the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, both in Oslo. In all 33 elite athletes were tested and they had on average won 11 medals in Olympic Games and World Championships, and they had an average of 10 individual victories in the World Cup. Those who participated included (1) Thomas Alsgaard, a male cross-country skier who won 11 gold medals in Olympic Games and World Championships, (2) Ingrid Kristiansen, a female long-distance runner who set six world records from 5000 m track to marathon, and (3) Hege Riise, a female soccer player who was part of the Norwegian national team winning one Olympic Games championship, one world championship, and one European championship (a more comprehensive list of names is given in the book Excellence through Mind-Brain Development). We compared the top performers with matched control athletes who were active in sports but did not normally place in the top 50 % in the Norwegian Championship. Here are the measures we used:
1. Using EEG—Electroencephalography, we measured brain integration, which has three components:
How coherent the brain wave activity is from different parts of the brain. This is a measure of the extent to which the different parts of the brain – which carry out different tasks – communicate and collaborate. It's somewhat like in an organization where the different employees, who have different responsibilities, communicate and collaborate well or not. If the different employees collaborate well, it becomes a strong organization. Likewise, we thought that high brainwave coherence would create a well-functioning brain and therefore be the foundation for high performance.
The next thing we measured was the ratio of the strength of Alpha1 brainwaves (inner wakefulness, 8-10 cycles per second) over Gamma brainwaves (strong focus or concentration, 30-50 cycles per second). This is a measure of how relaxed and alert you are, which is important for the level of performance in all forms of human activity.
The third component we measured was how effective or economical the entire brain is. It assesses to what extent the brain mobilizes when it should mobilize and relaxes when it should relax.
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2. We also measured how frequently the research participants had peak experiences. Here are two highly interesting examples of the peak experiences that were reported by the world-class athletes:
Thomas Alsgaard: “When everything is at the very highest level, then I feel invincible. The up-hills are not long enough nor steep enough; extremely good sensation.”
Hege Rise: “I always am where the ball falls down. The right place at the right time. A pass comes that I ‘know’ will fall down on my foot – and I shoot a volley and score.”
We then combined all these data into a single measure of mind-brain development which we called The Performeasure Assessment® and found that the top-performing athletes scored approximately 3.5 times higher than the control subjects.
B. World-Class Managers and Musicians.
Then we conducted the same research on Norwegian top executives who were very successful over time and whose organizations showed social responsibility. The top executives were compared to managers at lower levels such as project managers and department heads. We also conducted the same study on classical musicians. Here, we tested professional classical musicians in the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Norwegian Opera in Oslo, the Harmonien Orchestra in Bergen, and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra in Sweden. We compared these high performers with people who played in amateur orchestras in the Oslo region. Both groups had played an instrument since they were children.
When we compared the numbers from all three projects, we found that the top performers on average scored almost twice as high as the control groups on our measure of mind-brain development.
Unified Theory of Performance.
The conclusion from our research is that mind-brain-development provides a very good picture of a person’s performance level. On this basis, I have formulated a Unified Theory of Performance. The figure illustrates the four dimensions of this theory: The three individual dimensions (brain integration, psychological development, and higher consciousness) and the collective dimension — the level of development of the social context in which the performance takes place (The figure is from the book World-Class Brain).
In the books listed below we also reviewed research on factors that contribute to mind-brain development – such as practice, education, work experience, and methods for mental development. Based on this research, our conclusion is that Transcendental Meditation (www.tm.org) clearly is the most effective method for developing the high level of mind-brain development we found in top performers in sports, management, and music. And TM is also very simple and enjoyable!
More information about our pioneering research on the mind and brain features of world-class performers can be found in the following books:
Excellence Through Mind-Brain Development: The Secrets of World-Class Performers (Routledge, Harald S. Harung and Fred Travis).
- World-Class Brain: The Edge that Helps Top Performers Succeed, and How You Can Develop It (Springer, Harald S. Harung and Fred Travis – a short, readable book). Also in