30 Amazing facts about your Brain

Amazing Facts About Your Brain
With the help of Tim Brownson
About The Author

Don’t worry, I’m not about to go all 3rd person on you here and say stuff like

“Tim Brownson is a highly sought after Life Coach with clients all over the
world…blah blah blah.”
It is true but I’m not sure you give a damn about that, so let me throw some bullet
points out just in case you are interested in my background.
Feel free to either read or scroll past at your leisure:
• I am a Life Coach and I have been working as one since late 2004.
• I did my certification training in the UK and went full time in May 2005 and
have since worked with hundreds of clients from all over the world.
• I am fairly well known for my work on core values and the process that I
developed to help get clients unstuck.
• I am also a certified Hypnotherapist and an NLP Master Practitioner (twice
over).
• I studied stress management at Sheffield University in the UK.
• I am the co-author of the book How To Be Rich and Happy, which has been
published in countries as diverse as China, Germany, Taiwan, Canada
(Quebec), Netherlands and France.
• How To Be Rich and Happy is self-published in the US because we have
retained the rights and are using the money we make from sales to give free
copies away to good causes.
• At the time of writing we have distributed over $300,000 worth of hard copies
of the book.
• I have a very British sense of humor that hasn’t changed even though I now
live in Central Florida.
• I’ve never met the Queen and no, I don’t know Bob from London or want a cup
of tea, thank you very much.
Thanks for reading, now on with some lovely brain stuff.
Hey today I'm going to share with you about normal human brain facts i hope you will enjoy by reading this article...
Yesterday was my presentation on this topic in my school so now I'm going to share whole material here...

1. You have a finite amount of willpower each day because to exercise your
   willpower you need energy in the form of oxygen and glucose. That’s why it’s
   harder to say ‘no’ when you are tired or not feeling yourself.
   You can artificially boost your willpower by drinking an energy drink packed
   with sugar and caffeine, but a good night’s rest is a much more useful and
   healthy option.
   Well, that and also having enough awareness not to put yourself
   into situation where you will need lots of willpower when you know your
   resources will be low.
   In other words if you’re trying to quit drinking, avoid bars. If you are wanting to
   lose weight, don’t drive down fast food alley every day and if you want to stop
   smoking, avoid people (wherever reasonably possible) who do smoke.
2. A thought is a physical pathway in the brain. The more you have that
   thought, the more you groove and strengthen that path and the easier it is to
   have it again and again.
   That’s why having the thought “Why do I suck?” is never a great idea because
   you start to create a self fulfilling prophecy as it becomes harder and harder to
   shake the belief that you suck.
   Your brain hates holding two contradictory opinions at once because it creates
   cognitive dissonance, so when you tell yourself you suck, your brain seeks out
   information to back up what you are saying. And trust me, it will find it and
   ignore contrary evidence.
   And by the way, you don’t suck
3. Speaking of which, you have approximately 70,000 thoughts per day,
   although many will be the same ones looping round and round on your grooved
   cranial superhighway. And that is why we know that the quality of your thoughts
   is highly correlated to the quality of your life.
   Think great thoughts and you’re way more likely to lead a great life; it really is
   that simple if sometimes difficult to actually implement. As the great William
   James once said, “The greatest breakthrough in my life time is the realization that
   man can alter his life by altering his thinking.”
4. Even if you consider yourself a creative right-brained person, your brain will
   increase blood circulation to the left of your brain side every 90 to 120 minutes,
   giving you a greater ability during those times to think linearly.
   
   That’s why even left-brained people can have times of the day when they are
   more creative and right-brained people can sometimes get their taxes in order.
   If you want a fascinating tip on how you can tell which side is in control at any
   one time do this (unless you have a cold, in which case it probably won’t work):
   Close your mouth and take a deep breath through your nose.
   Did you notice how your breath flowed up the nasal cavity more easily on one
   side than the other?
   If not, do it again, only this time hold down one nostril and breathe in and then
   do the same with the other. One flows in easily and unencumbered, but the other
   probably feels like you have a bit of a cold.
   That is due to vascular constriction and the side where the blood vessels are more
   constricted will allow air to pass through it much more easily.
   Vascular constriction is controlled by the autonomic nervous system, which is
   one of the few parts of the brain that doesn’t cross over. In other words, if your
   right nasal passage has constricted blood vessels, then so has the right side of
   your brain. Which means you that you are predominantly using the opposite
   hemisphere of your brain.
   Cool eh?
5. Reading out loud to kids under the age of 5 accelerates their brain
   development and helps build neural connections. Those connections can then
   help with further learning as they grow older.
   So don’t throw your kids in front of the TV and turn on Sponge Bob Square Pants.
   Read them stories if you want them to grow intellectually and provide for you in
   your old age.
6. Scientists have proven beyond any reasonable doubt using fMRI’s, that
   reframing negative situations literally rewires your brain by creating new neural
   pathways and can make you a happier, more easygoing person.
   Very briefly and in case you are unaware, a reframe is where you decide to look at
   a negative situation in a more empowering light.
   It doesn’t involve changing the actual event (that would be delusional) just
   adjusting your view of it. If you want to get good at reframing, simply ask
   yourself the following two questions (or whichever is most pertinent at the time)
   when things aren’t going to plan.
   What else can this mean?
   What can I learn from this?
7. Your brain is approximately 75% water, but you should never drink it, even if
   you’re really thirsty, and anyway it probably wouldn’t taste very nice.
8. Your brain only weighs about 3lbs, yet the greedy bastard uses between 20%
   and 25% of your energy supplies each day, so make sure you stay hydrated and
   eat high quality food.
9. There are approximately 10 to the power of 60 atoms in the universe. Your
   brain laughs in the face of that figure however, as it has 10 to the power of
   1,000,000 different ways it can wire itself up.
   That’s the number 10 followed up with 1 million zeroes, which is to all intents
   and purposes (for anybody not called Stephen Hawking), is an infinite amount of
   ways.
10. Speaking of large numbers, there are approximately 1.1 trillion cells and 100
    billion neurons in the average human brain.
11. A piece of brain tissue the size of a grain of sand contains approximately
    100,000 neurons and 1 billion synapses.
12. The slowest speed information passes around your brain is approximately
    260 mph.
13. A child builds up to 1 trillion synapses in his or her first year of life.
14. Your sensory system sends about 11 million bits of information to your
    unconscious brain per second. However, the conscious part of your brain is
    not aware of more than 16 to 50 of those bits and the lightweight can only deal
    adequately with about 3 or 4.
15. You are completely unaware of about 95% of the activity that is going on
    inside your brain. If you weren’t, your brain would freeze up quicker than a
    Windows PC running ME.
16. If you don’t take care of your brain, you can lose up to 85,000 brain cells a
    day and that’s a large part of what causes aging. With appropriate forethought
    however, you can reverse that trend and slow the aging process.
17. Until relatively recently, scientists thought that the brain was the only area
    of the human body that didn’t generate new cells. We now know that’s not true
    and the brain does reproduce shiny new cells for you to use or abuse and lose
    (bearing in mind the last point).
18. If you lose blood flow to your brain, you will last about 10 second before
    you pass out.
19. Your brain has no pain receptors, which is why if I managed to remove the
    top of your skull without you noticing, I could poke around all day without you
    feeling a thing. The skull removal may hurt a bit though.
20. Even though we say the amygdala regulates danger, the cerebellum - motor
    control, and the limbic system - emotions etc, this is somewhat misleading as no
    part operates independently and all need other parts of the brain to get their job
    done to full effect.
21. Leaving aside degenerative brain disease, your brain never loses the ability
    to learn, change and adapt to new situations, because it’s effectively plastic and
    constantly rewiring itself depending on the context.
    Leopards may indeed not change their spots, but you’re not a leopard and you
    can change, if you really want to that is, and your brain is up for the challenge
    whenever you are.
22. It’s another self development urban myth that we only use 10% of our
    brain’s capability. I once saw somebody on Twitter try to explain the Law of
    Attraction based on this faulty and quite frankly ridiculously outdated premise.
    He suggested that if we can do what we can now using 10% of our brain,
    manifesting should be a breeze when we tap into the other 90%. Now he may be
    the exception that proves the rule and indeed may have only been using 10% of
    his brainpower, but he’s not normal in that respect.
    If you have any doubt whatsoever that you do indeed use all of your brain, cut a
    bit out and see what happens. Just don’t sue me afterwards if you lose the ability
    to plan, forget how to tie your shoelaces, can’t remember what your name is, fall
    over a lot or get angry for no apparent reason.
23. If you were to measure your brainwave activity you wouldn’t see any drop
    off whatsoever when you’re asleep.
    You may be napping, but your brain isn’t. It’s still working hard pumping your
    heart, digesting your food, maintaining your blood pressure, processing the day’s
    events, and much more to make sure you don’t wake up dead
24. Research has shown that the hippocampus, which is the part of the brain
    that deals with visual-spatial awareness, is larger in London Taxi drivers than
    normal people. London ‘cabbies’ have to spend months, sometimes years,
    learning literally every single street in the UK’s Capital before they are granted a
    license to rip off tourists.
    This process is known as ‘The Knowledge’ and it literally enlarges that part of
    their brain. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help them with anger management issues
    when cyclists get in their way or stop them saying “South of the river at this time
    of night? That will be double guv’nor”.
25. Speaking of scientists getting things potentially wrong, there was a
    common belief that yawning was the body’s way of getting more oxygen into the
    bloodstream when it felt fatigued.
    That may still be true; however, research conducted at Frontiers in Evolutionary
    Neuroscience suggests that yawning may also help cool the brain when the air
    is cooler outside the body than inside. Apparently this was based on studies that
    showed people in Tucson, Arizona yawned almost twice as much in the winter as
    they did in the summer.
    This may seem like research to file under the “WTF are they wasting money
    on that for?” until you realize it may give an insight into diseases like multiple
    sclerosis and epilepsy that are accompanied by frequent yawning.
26. You have something in your brain called mirror neurons. If you see
    somebody stub his toe for example, the same pain area will light up in your own
    brain causing you to flinch.
    Mirror neurons weren’t even known to exist prior to the early 1990’s, but now
    there is a growing belief in the scientific community they are responsible for us
    feeling empathy toward others.
27. When somebody takes cocaine, the pleasure center (nucleus accumbens)
    lights up and dopamine and serotonin are released. Fortunately, you don’t have
    to blow your life savings, act like a dick and lose your nasal lining to get similar
    results
    Giving to charity or helping people in need also activates the nucleus accumbens.
    Okay so maybe not quite as intensely but who cares because you’re creating a
    real win/win and have no wish to spend most of your life in a bathroom?
28. The reason it’s uncomfortable when people stare hard at you is because
    your brain automatically perceives it as a threat. A smile breaks that discomfort
    though, as long as it’s a genuine, warm smile.
29. Your brain can usually tell the difference between a real smile and a fake
    one (which is why people that fake smiles a lot often look slimy) because there
    are muscles that you cannot control consciously and only come into play when
    you are truly smiling about something that makes you happy or warm and fuzzy.
    Having said all that, you actually CAN fake a smile if you are skilled enough to
    fake the emotion behind the smile first so that even your brain thinks you’re
    happy. Method actors and some politicians are adept at this, beauty competition
    contestants, not so much.
30. Multi-tasking is largely a self development urban myth and you probably
    cannot do it efficiently no matter what manufacturers of smart phones and
    tablets want you to believe.
    Actually that’s not technically true because according to the University of Utah,
    there are a few people (about 2.5% of the population) who can do two things
    consciously* at once without seeing any degradation in performance. The term
    super-taskers has been coined for such people.
    However, for most people all the brain is doing is going backwards and
    forwards very quickly and giving the illusion of multi-tasking. The reality is that
    performance is inhibited by this approach, not improved and doing just two
    things at once can reduce the performance of a Harvard Professor to that of an 8
    year-old child.

• I do appreciate that you can do multiple things unconsciously at once such
  as driving and talking. (Not texting though, which is why you’re 27 times more
  likely to have an accident if you are texting at the same time - don’t do it, ever!)