Is 375 ms reaction time good?
A 375 ms average on a simple visual reaction test is well below average, big room to improve. That's 102 ms behind the average adult — noticeable in a duel, and very fixable with a few weeks of short daily practice.
Human reaction time to a visual stimulus follows a bell curve with an average around 273 ms and a standard deviation of about 60 ms. Plug 375 ms into that distribution and you land ahead of roughly 4.5% of the population — the verdict: slow — but trainable.
How 375 ms compares
| Who | Typical reaction time |
|---|---|
| Pro esports player | 170 ms |
| F1 driver (start lights) | 200 ms |
| Average gamer | 230 ms |
| Average adult | 273 ms |
| Average at age 60+ | 330 ms |
| You — 375 ms | 375 ms |
The gap to the average adult (273 ms) is 102 ms. That sounds like a lot, but untrained reaction time responds quickly to practice — the first 30 ms are the easiest you'll ever win.
What 375 ms really means
A 375 ms average is well below the adult mean of ~273 ms. Before worrying, rule out the boring explanations: device touch latency, reacting to the wrong cue, testing while tired, or simply not being warmed up. These routinely add 50–100 ms.
If the number holds up across ten focused rounds on a decent device, it's still not fixed in stone — reaction speed is one of the most trainable basic abilities, at any age.
What affects your reaction time
- Warm-up. Your first three attempts of a session are reliably your worst. Never judge yourself cold.
- Caffeine. One coffee speeds you up 3–7% for a few hours. Three coffees make you fast and wrong.
- Attention. Reacting while half-watching a video costs more than any hardware upgrade saves.
- Sleep. One short night adds 20–40 ms. It's the single biggest day-to-day factor and nobody wants to hear it.
How to get faster from 375 ms
Start with the fundamentals: full attention on the stimulus, finger resting on the screen or mouse, react on the change of colour and nothing else.
Short daily sessions compound quickly from this starting point — improvements of 20% or more in the first month are common for untrained beginners.
The full training breakdown — session length, warm-up, measurement — is in our guide: how to improve your reaction time. To see where a specific number lands, check what it takes to reach the top 96%.