How much of our brain do we actually use?
So first of all I want you to swallow and then breathe. Take a deep breath in and out. Now I want you to think about what you did yesterday and how you felt yesterday. I want you to read what it says on the presentation right here and now I want you to Solve this math question, you can do it mentally. Now I am going to give you a problem and I want two of you to raise your hands and tell me how you would solve it. Imagine I got a bee sting and it hurts a lot. How do you help me? What if I tell you that you just used 100% of your brain? They’re having myths all around the world with tv and scientists that you only use 10% of your brain, but this is 100% false because you 100% use 100% of your brain. I just solved the answer to a question going on for centuries, and I could just leave, but I want to tell you all about how humans came to this conclusion, the myths and truths all about the brain, and how to use your brain to the fullest. Now don’t get me wrong, you’re already using all of the brain, but I can show you how to trick your brain into being more efficient. My name is Victoria Merchan and this is my Brain talking about my Brain.
In 335 BC, Greek philosopher Aristotle thought the brain was simply a radiator that kept the heart from overheating. Around 170 BC, Roman physician Galen suggested the brain’s four ventricles were the seat of complex thought, an idea that first suggested this is where our memories and personalities are stored. In the 16th century, Belgian anatomist Andreas Vesalius created a detailed map of the nervous system and argued against the ventricles as the site of brain functions. In 1848, American railroad worker Phineas Gage had an iron rod strike his head, passing through his left frontal lobe. He survived, but aspects of his personality changed, suggesting that specific brain regions were important for certain functions. This was after the myths about a part of your brain were not used giving a perfect argument for Pierre Flourens’ ideas. This idea grew stronger after studies in the 1860s by physicians Paul Broca and Carl Wernicke showed that specific parts of the brain were dedicated to different components of speech.
The brain is the crown jewel of the human body, and the most complex as well. The brain can be divided into three basic units: the forebrain, the midbrain, and the hindbrain. The hindbrain includes the upper part of the spinal cord, the brain stem, and a wrinkled ball of tissue called the cerebellum. The hindbrain controls the body’s vital functions such as respiration and heart rate. The uppermost part of the brainstem is the midbrain, which controls some reflex actions and is part of the circuit involved in the control of eye movements and other voluntary movements. The forebrain is the largest and most highly developed part of the human brain:When people see pictures of the brain it is usually the cerebrum that they notice. The cerebrum sits at the topmost part of the brain and is the source of intellectual activities. It holds your memories, allows you to plan, enables you to imagine and think. It allows you to recognize friends, read books, and play games. I hope this helped with the realization of the importance of every piece of your brain.
Your brain is always working. The human brain can process 11 million bits of information every second. 100 trillion synapses a second. Clusters of sleep-promoting neurons become active as the sleep approaches. In the day it receives, processes and interprets information while storing memories and controlling your body. The brain is a non-stop machine for every human being, even doing nothing is a cause for synapses for the brain.
For some as-yet-unknown reason, nearly all of the signals from the brain to the body and vice-versa cross over on their way to and from the brain. This means that the right cerebral hemisphere primarily controls the left side of the body, and the left hemisphere primarily controls the right side. When one side of the brain is damaged, the opposite side of the body is affected. For example, a stroke in the right hemisphere of the brain can leave the left arm and leg paralyzed.
Let's solve some recurring myths in a couple of seconds. Your brain is not gray, alcohol only makes brain cells a bit redundant, listening to Mozart doesn’t make you smarter, you can recover from brain damage and after you’re 40 you won't suddenly be stupid. When scientists start using animals as human clones in experiments, they often seem to alternate the truth, which is what happened with the brain. A French neurophysiologist named Pierre Flourens conducted a series of studies with pigeons and rats where he removed larger tissues of the brain and they seemed to complete tasks with ease.``One can remove,” he wrote in 1824, “from the front, or the back, or the top or the side, a certain portion of the cerebral lobes, without destroying their function.” he said, thus the start of the 10% myth. A conception very laughed at nowadays; however, it seems to be immortal. Neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield's discovery in the 1930s of "silent cortex" - brain areas that appeared to have no function when he stimulated them with electricity. We know today that these areas are functional.
How can I argue that the previous paragraph is true? Evolution does not allow any wastefulness. Wastefulness causes an exclusion of the gene pool. Our brain is 2% of our body weight and it utilizes 20% of our energy which is the most energy used from any animal on earth, hence our mentally created superiority. With its high cost, it’s improbable that all that energy is used for only 10% of our brain. Losing any part of our brain can have a mental or physical deficit which concludes that everything is used on a daily basis.
Another rising myth is that the “left brain” is supposedly logical and detail-oriented, whereas the “right brain” is the seat of passion and creativity. These kinds of certain asymmetries are very truthful, yet both sides are more similar than different. Both hemispheres work to do most tasks in body function. The media has also created a concept where you can either be a left or right brained person creating a certain personality around these hemispheres. Nobody can have the personality trait of only one since we use them both.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention touts exercise as a way to “boost brain health,” while the World Health Organization suggests that about 2 hours of moderate activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week can help improve thinking and memory skills. “The best exercise scientifically proven to this day is aerobic exercise known to improve heart rate which counters with all the oxygen flow easing into your brain.” -Dr Wendy Suzuki. Somewhere between walking to doing your regular sportive activities is already excellent; however, 3-4 days a week of aerobic exercise gets you a better brain efficiency increase. “As your body moves, your brain grooves” Jim Kwik. He also referenced that moving throughout the day is a simple enough exercise for your brain. It’s easy to be confused with all the quantities given by different sources, so an easy conclusion is to say that you should just move your body.
A daily occurrence for most humans is the feeling of anxiety. This feeling gives the right side of your brain overpower making the left side less used for the duration of your anxious stroke. Doctors are now starting to believe that an exercise can reboot both sides equally, hence we’ll all try it out right now. Try to lift your right side thumb with the left side pinky and vice versa alternating both movements. Both hemispheres are now controlling their sides of the body meaning that the overpower of the right side is now lost. People have seen results with this exercise so I would love for any of you to ever try it when the feeling starts to kick in.
People believe in myths like the silent part of your brain because it could explain how some people are smarter than others in representation of the movie “Lucy”. This can be explained by genetic influences making intelligence one of the most heritable traits. I would like to further such an argument by doing a little experiment to play with your brains. How many of you hear Yanny? Now how many of you hear Laurel? Your brain has so much stimulus at all times that it uses existing information and precise neurological pathways to focus its attention. It’s all about the experience created by each individual that alternates the result. We all use our brain in different ways that can change the perception of how smart we are in comparison to others; however, one thing that we all have in common is that we use all our parts of our brain in our own way. The world keeps evolving and so do brain discoveries. Every single new statement makes its way so that we can improve ourselves and reach our maximum potential. Now that your brain has officially learnt more about your brain I would like to leave you with some wise words. “Cogito, ergo sum” or universally known as “I think, therefore, I am” -René Descartes
