Your brain controls everything you do.
Photograph by ISM/Phototake/All Rights Reserved
You
carry around a three-pound mass of wrinkly material in your head that
controls every single thing you will ever do. From enabling you to
think, learn, create, and feel emotions to controlling every blink,
breath, and heartbeat—this fantastic control center is your brain. It is
a structure so amazing that a famous scientist once called it "the most
complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe."
Your brain is faster and more powerful than a supercomputer.
Your kitten is on the kitchen counter. She's about to step onto a hot
stove. You have only seconds to act. Accessing the signals coming from
your eyes, your brain quickly calculates when, where, and at what speed
you will need to dive to intercept her. Then it orders your muscles to
do so. Your timing is perfect and she's safe. No computer can come close
to your brain's awesome ability to download, process, and react to the
flood of information coming from your eyes, ears, and other sensory
organs.
Your brain generates enough electricity to power a lightbulb.
Your brain contains about 100 billion microscopic cells called
neurons—so many it would take you over 3,000 years to count them all.
Whenever you dream, laugh, think, see, or move, it’s because tiny
chemical and electrical signals are racing between these neurons along
billions of tiny neuron highways. Believe it or not, the activity in
your brain never stops. Countless messages zip around inside it every
second like a supercharged pinball machine. Your neurons create and send
more messages than all the phones in the entire world. And while a
single neuron generates only a tiny amount of electricity, all your
neurons together can generate enough electricity to power a low-wattage
bulb.
Neurons send information to your brain at more than 150 miles (241 kilometers) per hour.
A bee lands on your bare foot. Sensory neurons in your skin relay this
information to your spinal cord and brain at a speed of more than 150
miles (241 kilometers) per hour. Your brain then uses motor neurons to
transmit the message back through your spinal cord to your foot to shake
the bee off quickly. Motor neurons can relay this information at more
than 200 miles (322 kilometers) per hour.
When you learn, you change the structure of your brain.
Riding a bike seems impossible at first. But soon you master it.
How? As you practice, your brain sends "bike riding" messages along
certain pathways of neurons over and over, forming new connections. In
fact, the structure of your brain changes every time you learn, as well
as whenever you have a new thought or memory.
Exercise helps make you smarter.
It is well known that any exercise that makes your heart beat faster,
like running or playing basketball, is great for your body and can even
help improve your mood. But scientists have recently learned that for a
period of time after you've exercised, your body produces a chemical
that makes your brain more receptive to learning. So if you're stuck on a
homework problem, go out and play a game of soccer, then try the
problem again. You just might discover that you're able to solve it.
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