The old myth
You have probably heard the old claim that we only use 10 percent of our brain. That part is false. But the deeper problem is actually worse than the myth.
What the brain really costs
The brain is about 2 percent of your total body weight, but it uses roughly 20 percent of the oxygen your entire body consumes at rest. No organ burns that kind of energy just to sit there mostly idle.
Here is something else I find interesting. Humans are the only species that does not use the full capacity of its brain. Dolphins have a similar level of neural capacity to ours, and they use nearly all of it, which is part of why they function as such intelligent, social, cooperative animals. We were built with the same kind of potential. We just do not use most of it in our daily lives.
The real issue
The real issue is not some hidden 90 percent waiting to be unlocked. It is that most of us stop challenging the brain we already have. A brain that is not challenged does not sit there quietly. It deteriorates. The average adult loses tens of thousands of brain cells a day simply from disuse.
That is not a small thing. It is part of why memory loss, dementia and Alzheimer's are becoming more common, not less, even as we live longer and have access to more information than any generation before us.
The good news
You can train it, the same way you would train any other part of your body. That is exactly what his memory workshops and online courses are for.
First shared on LinkedIn by Squadron Leader Jayasimha.
