Brain and Nervous System 101 - Pain & Posture Wellness Centre

Find Out How Your Brain and Nervous System Work – Part 1

Published on 13th July 2016

Part 1: The Top Twenty Fun Facts about the Brain

Roger Sperry, 1981 Nobel prize winner for brain research, stated that the human brain spends more than 90% of its energy output simply on holding the body upright. This means the more twisted up your body is structurally, the more energy your brain has to spend on holding you up, leaving less energy for moving, thinking, metabolism, and healing or repairing.

Advanced Biostructural Correction™ (ABC™) not only unwinds the mechanical distortions of your body, it also works directly with structures related to your brain and nervous system. As your body untwists, your brain frees up more energy for other functions such as thinking, digesting, immune system function, sense of balance, stress reduction, etc. Our patients often report such changes after starting care.

Because of this, we want you to understand a little more about how your brain and nervous system work. This is the first in a series of posts related to these topics. Before we get a bit more technical, we’ll start off with the Top 20 Fun Facts about your brain.

The average human brain weighs around 3lbs. That’s around 2% of your total body weight. Your skin weighs twice that much.
Your brain uses around 20% of your body’s total energy and oxygen intake. As stated above, 90% of the brain’s energy output is related to holding you up against gravity. [1]
Your brain is 73% water. It takes only 2% dehydration to affect your attention, memory and other cognitive skills. That’s why it is important to keep hydrated! Drink plenty of water! [2, 3]
Ninety minutes of sweating can temporarily shrink the brain. More reason to drink plenty of water, especially on hot days or while working out! [4]
Your brain is not solid but soft and squishy. It has the consistency of tofu. It is very fragile! Wear a helmet while biking, skateboarding, skiing, or horse-riding!
Your brain gets protected from foreign substances by a blood-brain barrier. However, this doesn’t work perfectly for all substances. Nicotine from cigarettes takes only 7 seconds to cross the barrier. Alcohol can get across in a matter of minutes. [5]
A piece of brain tissue the size of a grain of sand contains around 100,000 nerve cells and 1 billion connections (synapses) which all communicate with each other. [6]
Information gets processed at speeds up to 268mph, generating around 12-25 watts of electricity. [6, 7]
More than 100,000 chemical reactions take place in your brain every second. [8]
Pain gets processed in the brain but the brain itself does not feel pain. This is why people can be awake during brain surgery and not feel a thing!
You can’t tickle yourself because your brain distinguishes between your own touch and unexpected touch from others. [9]
Anomia is the technical word for tip-of-the-tongue syndrome when you can almost but not quite remember a word or a person’s name.
Airplanes and headaches. A study showed a correlation between flying and headaches. Around 6% of passengers get headaches while flying. However, the researchers only looked at air quality, noise, and air pressure. They did not take into consideration the fact that aircraft seats are just about the most unsupportive seats you can find yourself in! Unsupportive seats can cause mechanical distortion to your spine, which can lead to spinal cord pulling, which is a major cause of headaches! [10]
Laughing at a joke requires activity in as many as five different areas in your brain. [11]
Meditation has been shown to alter brain structure and function. [12, 13]
Memories triggered by scent have a stronger emotional effect and are therefore more intense than memories triggered by other factors. [14]
The smell of chocolate activates so-called Theta brain waves. They trigger relaxation. [15]
Our attention spans are getting shorter. In 2000, the average attention span was 12 seconds. Now it’s 8 seconds. That’s shorter than the attention span of the average goldfish which is 9 seconds. Thanks, digital age. [16]
One more reason to make sure you get enough zzzzz’s: Your brain’s waste-disposal system gets activated while you sleep. It is more active when you sleep on your side than in any other sleeping position. Side-sleeping is also the best position to keep your spine properly aligned. Talk to us about how to set up your perfect pillow so you can get a good night’s sleep that keeps your body and brain healthy! [17]

Now you know why it is not only important to keep your body healthy and functioning, but also your brain. Get in touch today to schedule a free consultation! We will show you how ABC™ can free up your brain so it can spend more of its energy on things other than holding you upright.

Brain anatomy 101