10 Surprising Facts About How Our Brains Work

0:00 (gentle music) - [Narrator] Hey, Psych2Goers, welcome back to our channel. Do you ever look at someone and wonder what is going on inside their head? Mm, familiar thought? I'm guessing you've thought that before, but more importantly, what's going on with our brains? How do they work? There are quite a few surprising facts about our brains and how they work. So to partially answer your question, here are just a few things going on inside our heads. (yawns) Number one, your brain is more creative when you're tired. Suddenly it all makes sense now. Those late hours working on your math homework, and all you wanna do is write poetry, or draw, or daydream profusely about your celebrity crush. Our brain works more creatively when we're tired, meaning if you're a morning person, get your most demanding analytical work done

0:46 while you're refreshed and awake. When it comes to writing your thoughts in your journal or creating fan art, it's mighty fine to go ahead and create it when you're a little tired. Number two, you can change your perception of time by doing new things, say what? Yeah, turns out our sense of time can feel slower depending on the information our brains take in. When our brains receive new information, it has to organize it in a way that makes sense to us. Then we perceive it. So our sense of time is influenced by how our brain presents certain information. When our brains receive information that's familiar, processing that information doesn't take as much time, but when we receive new information, our brains take longer organizing and processing it. So our perception of time is altered.

1:32 The longer the process, the longer time will feel. Unlike our five senses, which are focused in a single area of the brain, multiple regions of the brain control our time perception. When we're in a life-threatening situation, our sense of time is longer due to focused attention. And because we record more of what we experience, when your favorite song plays, time seems to slow down due to our greater attention to what we love. Number three, stress can change the size of your brain. Stress can have a huge impact on our brains. Our changes in brain function are most commonly due to stress. Stress has such an impact on us that it can even change the size of our brain. One study used baby monkeys to determine the effects of stress on development and mental health.

2:17 Half of the monkeys in the research were looked after by their peers, while the other half stayed with their mothers. Afterwards, the monkeys returned to normal social groups before researchers scanned the monkeys' brains. Even though all the monkeys were returned to normal environments afterwards, the monkeys who were taken away from their mothers had the areas of their brains related to stress, enlarged. In another study conducted on rats exposed to chronic stress, it found that the hippocampus in their brains, shrank. Number four, brain activity can power a light bulb. Our brains are quite powerful, so much so that they can generate 12 to 25 Watts of electricity. That's enough to power a small light bulb. Also using glucose for energy, the information traveling from our arms and legs

3:04 to our brains move at the speed of 150 to 260 miles per hour. Number five, your brain repeats thousands of thoughts. According to research, the average human has about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts every day. 95% of them are the exact same repetitive thoughts we had the day before. And unfortunately, 80% of them are negative, uh-oh. I mean, interesting. Number six, short-term memory last 20 to 30 seconds. Our active mind can only hold small amounts of information for so long, specifically our short-term memory lasts about 20 to 30 seconds. Most brains can hold onto the memory of numbers for seven seconds, while letters last about nine seconds.

3:51 Also ever wonder why the U.S. telephone numbers are only seven digits? It's because the brain can store up to seven digits in its working memory. Number seven, humans don't only use 10% of their brain. You may have heard this myth and it's completely wrong. Humans don't use just 10% of their brains. When sleeping, we even use more than 10%. So while it's nice to imagine you could have super human powers if you reached maximum capacity of your brain's percentage, it's simply a myth. Number eight, some headaches are a result of chemical levels changing. Did you know that the chemical serotonin is needed to communicate between nerve cells? Sometimes when serotonin or estrogen levels in our bodies change, they can result in a painful migraine or headache.

4:37 The nerves and blood vessels around your skull can very well affect how often you get a headache. For some, it may just take a change in serotonin levels. Number nine, it is impossible to multitask. So you're a multi-tasker, huh? I'm sorry, my friend, but that's impossible. What's really going on in our brains is context switching from one task to another, which isn't the best thing. Research has shown your error rate goes up 50%, taking you to double the time to complete your tasks. Number 10, naps improve our brain's performance. Sleep, we all needed in order to function. But research has shown specifically naps can be useful in other ways. Research shows naps helps solidify your memories and improve your learning.

5:23 When you're asleep, the left side of your brain gets to relax, while the right side organizes and stores memories throughout your day. So if you've just studied for your big history exam, it's not a bad idea to take a quick nap before. 11, introverts and extroverts have different brain wiring. Turns out being introverted and extroverted is related to how your brain recharges. Research has shown that there's a difference between the brains of extroverts and introverts. One strong difference is that extroverts' brains respond more when a gamble pays off. This is partly due to the difference in their dopamine system. And number 12, sleep deprivation kills brain cells. Remember how sleep is vital to memory retention? Yeah, not getting enough sleep can lead to not only your memory being impaired,

6:10 but your judgment and reaction time can also be affected. This is likely due to the fact that, I don't know, sleep deprivation can kill brain cells. So yeah, watching this video at night, after the video, do me a favor and go to sleep. And if you're yawning (yawns), research suggests yawning is a way to cool down your brain, from what? Yup, sleep deprivation raises the temperature of your brain. So when you feel a yawn coming on, trust the yawn, my friend, trust the yawn. So what brain fact surprised you the most? Did you learn something new? Tell us in the comments down below. Are you watching this at 2:00 a.m., 3:00 a.m.? Mm, it's that's time to cool down and get some rest, sleep tight. If you found this video helpful,

6:55 don't forget to click the like button and share this video with a friend. Subscribe to Psych2Go and hit the notification bell icon to get more content like this. As always, thanks for watching. (yawns) See you soon. (gentle music continues)