Myths About the Brain

Let’s talk about the scariest concept on the planet…brains. Clearly, I am beyond fascinated with how the brain works, reasons for certain disorders, development of the brain and so much more but for now let’s cover common myths people tend to have concerning the brain.

First and foremost, I have been taught since I was a child that we only have 5 senses which include: sight, taste, touch, smelling and hearing. While these might be the most prominent, inside of our bodies there are so many systems that sense levels of sugars, hormones, pheromones, oxygen, salts, fats, the passage of time (including circadian rhythms), pressure, vibration, dull and sharp pain, and SO much more. In case you don’t get the point, our bodies are insanely capable of way more than 5 senses.

Secondly, alcohol does not kill your brain cells…it does however cause damage conveying messages between neurons. Good news though, the damage is mostly reversible (*only talking about brain damage, not all the damage alcohol does to your body…which is a lot*). Also, drugs do not create holes in your brain, actually the only thing that does create holes is physical trauma (being shot, stabbed, impaired, etc. in the brain). I should make it clear that drugs still leave a pretty detrimental impact on your brain…which will be talked about in a different post.

The human brain has 86 billion neural cells and 86 billion glial cells the brain uses 20% of our daily energy.

Thirdly, while the two hemispheres of your brain are correlated with different purposes, there is no such thing as being more or less right or left brained. Everyone who has their whole brain uses both sides equally, and the two hemispheres correlate with different actions.

Next, we use 100% of our brain…not 10% or any other amount except 100%. More information on this myth here.

Next up, many people have said that they use a certain learning style over others, even to the point where they claim certain learning styles are completely useless. There is no evidence that shows aligning one specific learning style with a teaching method improves learning. In fact, if you are only using one learning style this can cause certain neurons in your brain to not be put into proper use, and to achieve optimal learning, the recommended learning style is a mix of all learning styles.