MY
NAME
IS:
Dr. TORBJÖRN
VESTBERG
Bridging Neuroscience and Performance Through Time Flow Adaptation, Quantum Awareness, and Phenomenological Reconstruction
I am a licensed psychologist, consultant, and researcher with a doctoral degree in cognitive neuroscience, based in Stockholm, Sweden. My work is deeply rooted in understanding how cognition shapes real-world performance whether in elite sports, business leadership, or talent development.
Applying Cognitive Science to Performance
As a consultant and researcher, my primary focus is the brain’s executive functions and their impact on decision-making, adaptability, and performance optimization.By integrating the principles of:
• Time Flow Adaptation – Regulating time perception to optimize focus and stress resilience.
• Quantum Awareness – Expanding cognitive flexibility to process multiple scenarios simultaneously.
• Phenomenological Reconstruction – Transforming subjective interpretations to enhance problem-solving.
I help both elite football teams and global corporations develop a science-backed approach to recruitment, talent management, and leadership optimization.
A New Approach to Recruitment and Talent Management
Success in football and business is not random it emerges from the brain’s ability to process, adapt, and execute under pressure.
Through cognitive testing tools and neuropsychological analysis, I measure the brain’s capacity to regulate time, manage uncertainty, and reconstruct mental models. This unlocks critical variables behind successful behavior, providing:
✔ A predictive model for recruitment and talent identification.
✔ Data-driven strategies for developing high-performance teams.
✔ Insights into executive function capacity, which governs adaptability, leadership, and strategic decision-making.
Bridging Neuroscience and the knowledge of how Default Mode Network, Salience Network, and the Central Executive Network affect each other, recruitment becomes free from traditional biases and instead focuses on cognitive potential and real-time decision-making skills.
Predicting and Enhancing Performance in Football and Business
Football is played in real time, and business decisions happen in dynamic environments. The ability to process complex scenarios, switch perspectives, and maintain cognitive control is what separates elite performers from the rest.
By measuring the executive functions that drive perception, decision-making, and adaptability, I help teams and companies:
✔ Identify role-specific cognitive profiles—a striker's scanning ability and working memory vs. a playmaker’s creativity under pressure.
✔ Optimize cognitive training—ensuring that the brain’s processing speed and decision capacity align with high-performance demands.
✔ Develop strategic adaptability—so players and leaders can anticipate and adjust in rapidly changing situations.
A company’s top executives and a football team’s best players share a common trait: their ability to handle uncertainty and act decisively under pressure.
Cognitive Training for Resilience and Long-Term Growth
In addition to recruitment and performance development, I regularly give lectures and training on:
✔ Mental hygiene and cognitive self-regulation techniques.
✔ How to strengthen cognitive flexibility in high-performance teams.
✔ The neuroscience of adaptability and elite decision-making.
By applying Time Flow Adaptation, Quantum Awareness, and Phenomenological Reconstruction, I teach how to optimize brain function for peak performance, whether in football, business, or personal resilience.
Global Experience and Expertise
I have lived in China for six years, working as a consultant for Volvo Cars, H&M, Essity, and Atlas Copco, focusing on management development and recruitment.
In football, I have collaborated with U.S. Soccer, IK Sirius, and multiple other professional teams, helping them integrate cognitive neuroscience into player development and tactical training.Whether in global corporations or elite sports teams, my approach is built on a scientific foundation of cognitive optimization, enabling sustained excellence and future-proof performance.
📩 Let’s discuss how we can integrate neuroscience into your team’s success.
My latest lecture in Stress Management & Prevention
Varför blir vi stressade? Hur hanterar vi det?
Powerpoint
Keynote
Feel free to download
Home assignment
When you are my client in psychological treatment you will get home assignments.
A change in your life starts when you take action outside the treatment room. My role in that change is to equip you with tools to make the change. However, you need to use the tools.
To give you motivation and courage to make the change, I give you a clear understanding of the brain functions and how the cognition works and influence your whole body. With this understanding you will find your own ways how to get thoughts, feelings, and physics working together for you and your goals, not against it.
Changes is a combination of how you receive information, how you handle the information, and what you do about it.
Success is not always reaching the best, the goal of one's dreams. It's more about finding what is possible, the combination between your abilities, effort and the environment around you.
The fight is ”eternal”. Therefore, it's about how you can adapt now, to be able to move forward, and experience the satisfaction of making life bigger, not smaller.
The questions are: what do you want? Is that reasonable?
Let's find out!
Home assignment to download
Tidsresor
Tänk om
Negligera
Medveten närvaro
Acceptans
fysisk träning
Debatt: Vägra Kokain
I got so tired of eight years of fruitless debate about the increased gang violence. So I wrote a reply to Svenonius, Fjellner and Sokolnicki. It is now published in Dagens Industri. Link >>
Exekutiva Funktioner
In this Spotify podcast I am interviewed together with Dr. Predarg Petrovic. The focus is on my dissertation and our five studies in the subject of executive functions. For one hour you will learn about what executive functions are, their significance in football, for the national task force, and in professional life. Executive functions and their relationship to sick leave as well as the importance of adaptation and building compensatory strategies for success are also addressed. You can find it on Spotify. Link >>
Soccer players have the highest ability to adjust
Lately I visited Malou von Sivers talk show Malou efter 10 on TV4 and talked about my research. Link >>
Hjärnboll
My book, "Hjärnboll fotbollsspelare okända intelligens” , written together with Predrag Petrovic and Thomas Learner was published spring 2018. There we explain the unique ability of information processing which distinguishes top elite soccer players. We also give a brief introduction about the executive function and how the cognition works in soccer. The book is in Swedish but is also translated into Dutch. Link >>
The best brains win the World championship
Here is a link to a very good article made by a local parish newspaper in the Church of Sweden. It highlights the relationship between faith and science and the importance of anxiety, struggle and compensatory strategies for success. Link >>
My meeting with professor
David Sumpter
DO NOT MAKE FOOTBALL TOO INTELLECTUAL!
Math professor David Sumpter, who wrote the book Soccermatics, makes very fresh reflections about our meeting with his football team. The article is in English!
Hottest projects
”Större hjärnflexibilitet – resultaten är slående”
Our Latest Study - A fantastic article signed Thomas Lerner
Striking findings on the brain’s executive functions – and how we can actually train them.
What if mental flexibility, focus, and decision-making weren’t fixed traits… but skills we can develop?
Our latest research, now featured in Svenska Dagbladet, reveals just that. A blend of neuroscience, cognitive testing, and elite sports – with powerful implications for learning, leadership, and performance.
Let’s talk brains, potential, and the future of cognitive training.
Read the article (in Swedish):
Decoding the elite soccer players psychological profile
Together with some colleagues I explore the psychological profiles of elite soccer players, revealing that success on the field goes beyond physical ability. By analyzing a sample of 328 participants, including 204 elite soccer players from the top teams in Brazil and Sweden, we found that elite players have exceptional cognitive abilities, including improved planning, memory, and decision-making skills. They also possess personality traits like high conscientiousness and openness to experience, along with reduced neuroticism. Using AI, we identified unique psychological patterns that could help in talent identification and development. These insights can be used to better understand the mental attributes that contribute to success in soccer and other high-performance fields Link >>
Executive function measures of cognitive flexibility are associated with days off sick leave
In this project I'm looking on the relation between the executive functions and sick leave. The study is made on 111 individuals. Their amount of sick leave the last five years is compared with their creativity and cognitive flexibility. The data shows a negative significant correlation between EF and sick leave. The capacity of EF does not prevent from sickness but seem to help the individuals for a faster recovery.
My dissertation
Here is a link to my dissertation, "EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS AND SUCCESSFUL BEHAVIOR". Adele Diamond professor of neuroscience at the University of British Columbia was the opponent. Link >>
Executive Functions of Swedish SWAT-team
together with the "Swedish SWAT-team" I made a study focused on the cognitive capacity of the executive functions when a person is under heavy stress. The study is made on individuals related to special forces and the test group was in a very good physical shape. The results showed positive correlation between the baseline results of fluent creativity and flexibility and the repeated test results the subjects made when they were under extreme stress. The physical shape of the individuals did not influence the result. However, the individuals with the best result on baseline dropped most in capacity when they were under heavy pressure. Could it be because of an "overdose" on dopamine? Link >>
"FOTBOLL SPELAS MED HJÄRNAN"
An interview on TV 4, Nyhetsmorgon, about the Executive function/Game intelligence, and why the brain's ability better assumes success in football than what the foot does.
"SÅ TRÄNAR DU DINA BARN PÅ BÄSTA SÄTT"
A good article on four pages in Dagens Nyheter, which is based on our new book and our research.
MY LATEST FOOTBALL RESEARCH
You will fined my latest soccer research in Scientific Reports (Nature).
Level of play and coach-rated game intelligence are related to performance on design fluency in elite soccer players. Link >>
HOLMGREN MÖTER....
Here I been interviewed for one hour about my life and my research on football and business. It is Niklas Holmgren the best sports commentator, operating on Viasat's Sport Channel, which make it to "Rock and Roll".
THE BARCELONA PROJECT
In february 2014 I was in Barcelona to assess Xavi and Iniesta, FC Barcelona and the world's best midfield pair. Here you can see a glimpse how I made the assessment and hear me talk about the result. Link>>
THE BOOK OF FOOTBALL AND EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS
Here's a link to my book I co-authored with one of FC Bayern Munich's coaches, Matthias Nowak.
