We often hear our brain is a muscle.
When we learn new things, our brains grow & change. Do you know how fast this can happen? Extremely fast! Studies have shown, if you learn to juggle - your brain can change in as little as seven days!
What other facts we should know?
Here are 20 quick facts about the brain.
Blinking. Every time we blink, our brain keeps things illuminated so the whole world doesn’t go dark. This happens about 20,000 times a day.
Laughing. Laughing might feel effortless, but it's actually a really complex task that requires activity in five different areas of our brain.
Thoughts. It's believed humans experience 70,000 thoughts a day.
Imaginary friends. A psychological study in Australia showed that kids with imaginary friends between the ages of 3 and 9 were most frequently the first-born child.
Water. About 75% of our brains are made of water.
10% myth. If you've heard we only use 10% of our brain, you should know this is a myth. Scientists can attribute a function to each part of the brain.
Weight. The human brain weighs about 1.4 kilos.
No pain. The brain has no pain receptors, so it can't feel any pain.
Neurons. About 100 billion neurons make up the human brain.
Yawns. It's believed that yawning sends more oxygen to the brain, therefore working to cool it down and stimulate it.
Purpose of Yawning. Yawning often promotes yawning in others nearby. Scientists believe that yawning may have been an ancient social behavior that signaled an event, with others yawning in response. Today, we still hold on to the response, even if we don’t need it.
Albert Einstein. Looking at a known genius it's interesting to understand how his brain differs from ours. Einstein’s brain was similar in size to other human brains except in the region that is responsible for math and spatial perception, where his brain was 35% wider than average.
Brain growth. The human brain continues to grow until about age 18.
Learning new things. A study shows that when people are learning new things, their brains change very quickly. Those learning to juggle showed a change in the brain in as little as seven days.
Music. Children who take music lessons show a considerable increase in the ability to learn.
Bilingual brains. Children who learn two languages before the age of five have a different brain structure than children who learn only one language.
Handedness. Those who are left-handed or ambidextrous have a corpus collosum that is about 11% larger than those who are right-handed.
Food and intelligence. One study looked at students in New York and showed those who ate lunches that didn't include artificial flavors, preservatives, and dyes did 14% better on IQ tests than the students who ate lunches with these additives.
New connections. Each time a memory is recalled or a new thought occurs, a new connection is created in the brain.
Sleep. The brain consolidates memories while you sleep. On the other hand, a lack of sleep may actually decrease your ability to create new memories.
