Brain Facts
When you sweat a lot, for example, like 90 minutes during intense exercise, it can make your brain temporarily shrink. This is because your body loses a lot of water, and the brain gets a bit smaller when it’s dehydrated. This shrinking is similar to what happens to the brain as you get older, but it’s not permanent. Once you drink water and rehydrate, your brain goes back to its normal size.
Yes, over 80% of the brain is water. This water helps keep the brain healthy and working well. When you don’t have enough water, the brain can shrink a bit and not work as well.
After age 30, the brain loses about 0.25% of its mass each year. This means the brain gets a little smaller each year as you age.
When you're awake, your brain produces between 10 and 23 watts of power. That's enough energy to light up a small light bulb. This power is used for all the brain's activities, including thinking, moving, and processing information.
As little as five minutes without oxygen can cause some brain cells to die, leading to severe brain damage. Also, the harder you think, the more oxygen and fuel your brain will use from your blood – up to 50%.
Yes, your brain is very busy while you sleep. During sleep, especially in a stage called REM sleep, your brain works on organizing memories and solving problems. In fact, your brain can be more active during sleep than when you're awake.
When you recognize someone’s face, your brain uses the right side more than the left. The right side of the brain is really good at figuring out and remembering faces. It helps you notice and understand different expressions and features on a person’s face. This part of the brain is very important for social interactions and recognizing people.
The left side of your brain helps with things like talking, understanding language, and solving problems. The left side handles more logical and analytical tasks, such as reading and writing. Both sides work together to help you think and interact with the world.
A baby’s brain grows very quickly. It gets about three times bigger than when the baby was born. This rapid growth is important because it helps the baby learn and develop new abilities, like moving, talking, and understanding their surroundings. The brain’s growth during this time is crucial for the baby’s overall development.
Over the long term, memories are encoded in neural patterns—circuits of connected neurons. And your brain's ability to knit together new patterns is limitless, so theoretically the number of memories stored in those patterns is limitless as well. Technically, your brain has the capacity to store everything you experience, see, read, or hear. However, the real issue is recall—whether you can access that information.