30 Interesting Facts about Human Brain

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30 Interesting Facts about Human Brain

Brain is the central organ of the human body. It is extremely complex and sophisticated. The functions of the brain were found by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks in 400 BC. It was Hippocrates who first discovered that brain played an important role in sensation and intelligence. Nowadays, everyone understand the importance of having the brain, but most of us don’t know much about it, so here are some interesting facts for you.

1) There are no pain receptors in the brain, so the brain can feel no pain.

2) The human brain is the fattest organ in the body and may consists of at least 60% fat.

3) Neurons develop at the rate of 250,000 neurons per minute during early pregnancy.

4) Humans continue to make new neurons throughout life in response to mental activity.

5) Alcohol interferes with brain processes by weakening connections between neurons.

6) Altitude makes the brain see strange visions - Many religions involve special visions that occurred at great heights. For example, Moses encountered a voice emanating from a burning bush on Mount Sinai and Muhammad was visited by an angel on Mount Hira. Similar phenomena are reported by mountain climbers, but they don’t think it’s very mystical. Many of the effects are attributable to the reduced supply of oxygen to the brain. At 8,000ft or higher, some mountaineers report perceiving unseen companions, seeing light emanating from themselves or others, seeing a second body like their own, and suddenly feeling emotions such as fear. Oxygen deprivation is likely to interfere with brain regions active in visual and face processing, and in emotional events.

7) Reading aloud and talking often to a young child promotes brain development.

8 ) Information travels at different speeds within different types of neurons. Not all neurons are the same. There are a few different types within the body and transmission along these different kinds can be as slow as 0.5 meters/sec or as fast as 120 meters/sec.

9) The capacity for such emotions as joy, happiness, fear, and shyness are already developed at birth. The specific type of nurturing a child receives shapes how these emotions are developed.

10) The left side of your brain (left hemisphere) controls the right side of your body; and, the right side of your brain (right hemisphere) controls the left side of your body.

11) Children who learn two languages before the age of five alters the brain structure and adults have a much denser gray matter.

12) Information can be processed as slowly as 0.5 meters/sec or as fast as 120 meters/sec (about 268 miles/hr).

13) While awake, your brain generates between 10 and 23 watts of power–or enough energy to power a light bulb.

14) The old adage of humans only using 10% of their brain is not true. Every part of the brain has a known function.

15) A study of one million students in New York showed thatstudents who ate lunches that did not include artificial flavors, preservatives, and dyes did 14% better on IQ tests than students who ate lunches with these additives.

16) For years, scientists believed that tinnitus was due to a function within the mechanics of the ear, but newer evidence shows that it is actually a function of the brain.

17) Every time you recall a memory or have a new thought, you are creating a new connection in your brain.

18) Memories triggered by scent have a stronger emotional connection, therefore appear more intense than other memory triggers.

19) Each time we blink, our brain kicks in and keeps things illuminated so the whole world doesn’t go dark each time we blink (about 20,000 times a day).

20) Laughing at a joke is no simple task as it requires activity in five different areas of the brain.

21) The average number of thoughts that humans are believed to experience each day is 70,000.

22) There are two different schools of thought as to why we dream: the physiological school, and the psychological school. While many theories have been proposed, not single consensus has emerged as to why we dream. Some researchers suggest that dreams serve no real purpose, while other believe that dreaming is essential to mental, emotional and physical well-being. One theory for dreaming suggests dreams serve to clean up clutter from the mind.

23) The Hypothalamus part of the brain regulates body temperature much like a thermostat. The hypothalamus knows what temperature your body should be (about 98.6 Fahrenheit or 37 Celsius), and if your body is too hot, the hypothalamus tells it to sweat. If you’re too cold, the hypothalamus makes you start shivering. Shivering and sweating helps get your body’s temperature back to normal.

24) Approximately 85,000 neocortical neurons are lost each day in your brain. Fortunately, his goes unnoticed due to the built-in redundancies and the fact that even after three years this loss adds up to less than 1% of the total.
25) Differences in brain weight and size do not equal differences in mental ability. The weight of Albert Einstein’s brain was 1,230 grams that is less than an average weight of the human brain.

26) A living brain is so soft you could cut it with a table knife.

27) There are about 100,000 miles of blood vessels in the brain.

28) London taxi drivers ,famous for knowing all the London streets by heart, have a larger than normal hippocampus, especially the drivers who have been on the job longest. The study suggests that as people memorize more and more information, this part of their brain continues to grow.

29) The brain can live for 4 to 6 minutes without oxygen, and then it begins to die. No oxygen for 5 to 10 minutes will result in permanent brain damage.

30) Our brain often fools us. It often perceives things differently from the reality. Look at those pictures. Square A and B are actually the same shade of gray

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How to Heal Anxiety
Anxiety is a condition, just like any other, that can wreak havoc on your life and leave you stressed, lonely, unemployed, and just generally all-around miserable. This is where I found myself when I was struggling with social anxiety disorder (SAD) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). However, again much like any other condition, it is something that can be treated successfully, and you can reach the opposite extreme where you have tons of wonderful friends, fulfilling employment, romantic success, and a general feeling of happiness and well-being.

So, how do you heal anxiety? Unfortunately, for many the solution is to visit the doctor and see which type of medication he prescribes. This is one possible step that you can take, but like any other condition, using a more comprehensive approach enhances the level of success you experience. If clichés make more sense to you, “you get out of it what you put into it.” Besides taking a few steps, there is an additional point to keep in mind: what works for one person may not work for another; it is up to you to build your own plan based on what experience teaches you.

Here are some of the techniques that I have learned:

1. Accept help from a professional counselor or psychologist

This is very scary for people in Western society where we are taught to live independently, but life works differently. Using the aid of knowledgeable others can be incredibly helpful. Counselors typically have very gentle personalities and an open, calm, and accepting manner. Their goal is to make it as comfortable as possible for you to interact with them. Attempting to recover from anxiety on your own does work, but working with a counselor is like strapping on a jetpack – it helps you to grow at an incredibly rapid pace. One caveat is that not all counselors or psychologists can work with all people. If things simply are not working between you and your counselor, feel free to move on to another one.

2. Exercise regularly

Not only is exercise good for you physically, but it is also great for reducing anxiety and stress. Exercise releases endorphins which cause you to experience a general sense of happiness and well-being. All you need to do to gain the benefits is 3 sessions per week of 20 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise.

3. Regular journaling

For me, I have found it incredibly helpful to journal in order to collect my thoughts at the end of the day. I typically spend 15-20 minutes writing about what happened. It helps me to gain clarity and focus, and there is something about putting words on paper that helps to remove the anxious thoughts from my head. While helpful for me, I have heard of many people who completely hate writing. If this is the case for you, this is one of those things that seems to be optional. But, it is always good to at least have the awareness of another tool to reduce your anxiety.

4. Avoid foods that cause anxiety

There are a few different foods and substances that will increase your anxiety if consumed. Caffeine and alcohol, which are difficult to avoid in American society, are two of the chief aggravators of anxiety. If you are like me and you really enjoy drinks which contain these two substances, the good news is you do not have to completely eliminate them from your diet. Instead, you just have to minimize your intake. “Minimizing,” in this case, means like 2-3 caffeinated and alcoholic drinks in a week. Of course, if you are willing to live with more anxiety, you can consume more, but this is the general guideline.

5. Eat foods that help to reduce anxiety

Be sure to stay well-hydrated. Dehydration can cause fatigue, and one of the body’s responses to fatigue can be anxiety. Foods rich in complex carbohydrates such as pastas, brown rice, sweet potatoes, corn, peas, and beans are excellent for maintaining your energy levels and keeping anxiety down. Another anxiety-reducing substance is tryptophan, and foods high in tryptophan include milk, oats, nuts, and peanut butter. Finally, one vitamin to make sure you have in your diet is vitamin B-6. This vitamin helps to regulate serotonin, a neurotransmitter which is responsible for managing your anxiety levels.

6. Maintain a supportive social network

A supportive social network is one that makes you feel okay with having your struggle with anxiety. Additionally, people who are supportive will offer to help you through the difficulty, or perhaps to find a new way to understand situations that are causing you anxiety. If people are trying to make you feel guilty, embarrassed, or simply do not want to acknowledge your anxiety condition, the best thing to do is to distance yourself from them. Of course, if they begin to show an understanding of anxiety, feel free to bring them back into your lives. You do not have to remove them from your life completely, but you will find that conversations about anxiety will end up going nowhere. This may be the second most difficult part of getting better from anxiety.

7. Continue to take risks

Without a doubt, this is the most difficult step in recovering from anxiety. For a while, it may be necessary to retreat from the outside world, find some help, think things over, and figure out how you are going to approach life now that you have recognized anxiety’s effects. But, eventually, there will come a time where talking and thinking must translate to action. Action means that you are actively putting yourself in situations that make you anxious. Most people are surprised when they do this because they actually experience more anxiety! But, never fear, because that is completely normal. You are moving outside of your usual comfort zone, and anxiety is a natural response for all people; the difficulty for people with anxiety disorders is that they experience too much anxiety in comparison to the average person. As you continue to take risks and work through the difficult situations, you will find that eventually you begin to grow in confidence, and people or situations that used to cause you anxiety now cause you little or no anxiety.

8. Use medication

For many, this is the first step to recovering from anxiety. However, medication is a short-term false fix to a long-term real problem. When you take medication, it simply reduces the intensity of the physiological effects of anxiety (shaking, sweating, tingling etc…) and the accompanying emotions. If you have social anxiety, you do not suddenly become a confident and competent extrovert; you still have to take risks and do the work. Additionally, it can take much time and thousands of dollars before you find a medication and dosage that is right for you. A certain medication may work for most people, but not all people. And finally, the side effects of medication may end up outweighing the benefits. All that being said, medication does have its place, but it has its highest level of effectiveness when working in combination with the other factors given before.


There are many more methods for healing from anxiety; however, with the exception of journaling, these are the most critical. Other creative methods for healing from anxiety include playing Nintendo Wii, getting a pet, and using biofeedback, but those require separate articles in themselves.

Overall, the most important point to draw from this article is that anxiety is a challenge that requires a comprehensive, rather than singular approach. The more of these solutions you use, the lower your anxiety level will be. If you feel confused or frightened, hopefully this article has helped you to discover which direction to go in the future.

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