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Category: Neuroscience
What Percentage Of Our Brain Do We Use?
How much of our brain do we use? Certainly way more than the 10 percentage points suggested by the myth and here’s why…
How much of our brain do we use? Certainly way more than the 10 percentage points suggested by the myth and here’s why…
How much of our brain do we use?
Unfortunately, it is a pure myth that we only use 10 percent of our brain.
The idea that we only use 10 percent of our brain is probably such an enduring mind myth because it’s comforting to think we have spare capacity.
The ‘unused’ 90 percent of our brain could take up the slack after brain injury or offer the possibility for miraculous self-improvement.
This flexible factoid has been used not only to sell products to enhance our brain’s performance, but also by psychics like Yuri Geller to explain mystical cutlery bending powers.
How much of our brain do we use?
Unfortunately, the idea we only use 10 percent of our brain is almost certainly false.
Here are four good reasons (Beyerstein, 1999):
- If we only use 10 percent of our brains then damage to some parts of our brains should have no effect on us. As any neurologist will tell you, this is patently not true.
- From an evolutionary perspective it is highly unlikely we developed a resource-guzzling organ, of which we only use 10 percent.
- Brain imaging such as CAT, PET and fMRI shows that even while asleep there aren’t any areas of our brain that completely ‘switch off’.
- Parts of the body that aren’t used soon shrivel and die. Same goes for the brain. Any neurons we weren’t using would soon shrivel and die.
Therefore, we must use way more than 10 percent.
New Age optimism
Despite these facts, the myth is constantly fuelled by New Agers hoping to unlock the untapped, hidden forces that will unleash previously unimagined human potential.
Just when all the evidence has been marshalled against its original incarnation, showing that, yes, actually we do physically use all our brains, it turns out ‘human potential’ can’t be measured empirically.
Apparently the unused 90 percent is hidden below the surface, out of sight and almost out of mind.
Which is convenient.
Scientific scepticism
The structure of the brain and its metabolic processes have been carefully examined, along with the diseases that afflict it.
None of this work has suggested there is a hidden percentage of our brain that we’re not using.
Anyone who still maintains we only use 10 percent of our brains after this fusillade of fact has to come up with a counter-argument for each one of these.
Actually, you might argue that imaging technology is rubbish or the neurons are only working at 10 percent capacity, but refuting all these facts, taken together?
Now that’s tricky.
Roots of the 10 percent brain myth
The roots of this myth about how much of our brains we use are very difficult to discern, probably because there are so many different, diffuse stories about its origin.
One apocryphal story is that Einstein once explained his brilliance by saying he used more than 10 percent of his brain, compared to the rest of us mere mortals (Wanjek, 2003).
Despite probably being based on a misquote, the repeating of this story can’t have hurt the 10 percent brain myth’s power.
Perhaps some of the earliest roots of the idea that we only use 10 percent of our brain comes from work by physiologists in the 1870s.
They routinely applied electrical currents to the brain to see which muscles moved.
They found that large parts of the human brain could be zapped without any corresponding bodily twitching.
This led them to dub parts of the brain ‘silent’.
But they didn’t mean silent in the sense of inactive, just that it didn’t make any muscles move.
Of course this didn’t stop the phrase being misinterpreted.
The first sighting of the myth
The actual confirmed first written sighting of the myth about how much of our brain we us, though, is in a 1940s advert for the book Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (Wanjek, 2003, p.21):
“What’s holding you back? Just one fact — one scientific fact.
That is all.
Because, as Science says, you are using only one-tenth of your real brain-power!”
Whatever its provenance, the myth about how much of our brain we use is certainly a slippery customer.
The reason is two-pronged: first, it’s impossible to prove something doesn’t exist and second, people like to believe it.
If I say I’ve seen a Pegasus, or visited Mars, or that all our brains have huge untapped potential, you can’t definitively prove me wrong.
That’s why, despite a few good solid blows to the head, this myth refuses to go down.
Perhaps putting it the other way around might deliver the knock-out blow.
Instead of talking about the 90 percent of untapped potential, just ask people why they only use 10 percent of their brains.
Would anyone seriously admit to that?
I, for one, am working at maximum capacity.
Well, most of the time anyway…
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The Simple Signs Of A Highly Sensitive Person
Up to one-third of people are ‘highly sensitive’.
Up to one-third of people are ‘highly sensitive’.
Up to one-third of people have particularly ‘sensitive’ brains, psychologists find.
People with this trait tend to pay more attention to their experience, which is what produces their sensitivity.
It also means they need time to reflect on their experiences.
Psychologists call this a sensory processing sensitivity (SPS).
People with a sensory processing sensitivity tend to agree with statements like these (the full list is below):
- I have a rich, complex inner life.
- I am made uncomfortable by loud noises.
- I startle easily.
- I find it unpleasant to have a lot going on at once.
- I notice and enjoy delicate or fine scents, tastes, sounds, works of art.
SPS is a personality trait not a disorder or a condition.
In other words, it is just the way that some people are.
Sensitive people can be prone to emotional outbursts, procrastination, and withdrawal.
However, they also process things more deeply, have a greater appreciation for beauty, are more conscientious, have higher levels of creativity and deeper bonds with others.
Dr Bianca Acevedo, the study’s first author, explains:
“Behaviorally, we observe it as being more careful and cautious when approaching new things.
Another broad way of thinking about it, that biologists have been using to understand people’s individual differences in responses to different things, is that the person with high sensitivity will be more responsive, both for better and for worse.”
For the study, people who were shown descriptions of happy, sad and neutral events then asked to rest, while their brains were scanned.
Dr Acevedo explained the results:
“What we found was a pattern that suggested that during this rest, after doing something that was emotionally evocative, their brain showed activity that suggested depth of processing and this depth of processing is a cardinal feature of high sensitivity.”
Sensitive people demonstrated greater connectivity between the hippocampus and the precuneus.
This circuit is vital to how memories are consolidated and retrieved.
However, there were weaker connections in circuits that help people process and control their emotions.
This could help explain why sensitive people can be prone to overstimulation and anxiety.
One of the best ways of coping with being highly sensitive is to take a break, said Dr Acevedo said:
“For all of us, but especially for the highly sensitive, taking a few minutes’ break and not necessarily doing anything but relaxing can be beneficial.
We’ve seen it at the behavioral level and the level of the brain.”
Find out if you highly sensitive
To find out if you are highly sensitive, think about whether you agree with each of the statements below.
Agreeing with 14 of these statements suggests you are a highly sensitive person.
A positive answer means agreeing that it is at least somewhat true of you.
- I am easily overwhelmed by strong sensory input.
- I seem to be aware of subtleties in my environment.
- Other people’s moods affect me.
- I tend to be very sensitive to pain.
- I find myself needing to withdraw during busy days, into bed or into a darkened room or any place where I can have some privacy and relief from stimulation.
- I am particularly sensitive to the effects of caffeine.
- I am easily overwhelmed by things like bright lights, strong smells, coarse fabrics, or sirens close by.
- I have a rich, complex inner life.
- I am made uncomfortable by loud noises.
- I am deeply moved by the arts or music.
- My nervous system sometimes feels so frazzled that I just have to go off by myself.
- I am conscientious.
- I startle easily.
- I get rattled when I have a lot to do in a short amount of time.
- When people are uncomfortable in a physical environment I tend to know what needs to be done to make it more comfortable (like changing the lighting or the seating).
- I am annoyed when people try to get me to do too many things at once.
- I try hard to avoid making mistakes or forgetting things.
- I make a point to avoid violent movies and TV shows.
- I become unpleasantly aroused when a lot is going on around me.
- Being very hungry creates a strong reaction in me, disrupting my concentration or mood.
- Changes in my life shake me up.
- I notice and enjoy delicate or fine scents, tastes, sounds, works of art.
- I find it unpleasant to have a lot going on at once.
- I make it a high priority to arrange my life to avoid upsetting or overwhelming situations.
- I am bothered by intense stimuli, like loud noises or chaotic scenes.
- When I must compete or be observed while performing a task, I become so nervous or shaky that I do much worse than I would otherwise.
- When I was a child, my parents or teachers seemed to see me as sensitive or shy.
These statements are from the highly sensitive person test.
→ Read on: being highly sensitive is in the genes.
The study was published in the journal Neuropsychobiology (Acevedo et al., 2021).
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