Amazing facts about Your Brain

My Thinking Skills workshops discuss the brain and how to use it to read faster and accelerate learning.

human brain

The human brain has often been described as the most complex and refined physical structure in the known universe. Did you know that nerve impulses travel at up to 240 km an hour? The brain uses the same amount of power as a 10 W light bulb. I reckon that during meditation it probably uses even less. Holding many times more information than any encyclopaedia it uses 20% of the oxygen in the bloodstream, despite making up only only 20% of body mass.

Apparently the brain is even more active at night than during the day. That doesn’t surprise anyone that’s been using a computer at night. Did you know that this practice is really really not recommended? Like what I’m doing right now. Ayurveda says using a computer at night creates deep-seated Kapha imbalances that are hard to treat.

People with high IQs are supposed to dream more than others… And did you know that braincells – neurons – continue to grow throughout life? These building blocks of the brain were thought to be not capable of regeneration after destruction by substances such as alcohol in the bloodstream. Nowadays brain cells are thought to be capable of being regrown from scratch. The evidence, obviously, is to be found in animal studies.

There are many types of neurons and data transmission rates along these differs. Although you can have a headache it turns out the brain itself does not have pain receptors. So it’s the tissues, nerves and blood vessels surrounding the brain that have pain receptors and can give you the headache. Like the rest of the body most of the brain is water. And it’s not necessarily grey, more likely to look like oatmeal porridge, squishy, pink and jellylike.

There are a ton of other fascinating facts about the brain and body to be found in this incredible blog by Eric Allen Bell. The web is saturated with this post and very good stuff it is.

For more on the brain and how to use it – contact us using the form on the right. We run regular Thinking Skill workshops to boost your productivity and accelerate your learning.