Is 90% of Your Brain Useless?

The Myth: We Only use 10% of our Brains

The Truth: Not true.

According to Wikipedia … The 10% of brain myth is a widely perpetuated urban legend … it most likely arose from a misunderstanding (or misrepresentation) of neurological research in the late 19th century …  If 90% of the brain is normally unused, then damage to these areas should not impair performance. Instead, there is almost no area of the brain that can be damaged without loss of abilities. Even slight damage to small areas of the brain can have profound effects …

I’ve wondered about this supposedly ‘scientifically proven’ saying since I heard it as a child. First, I wondered how anyone could do research on this. Back when I was a kid, studying a living person’s brain was very limited. I figured that they must have studied the brains of deceased people and found that 90% of their brains were without any wear and tear marks.

'255/365 I've got the brain of a four year old. I'll bet he was glad to be rid of it.' photo (c) 2009, Mykl Roventine - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Second, why would we have a brain (or anything) that we can’t or don’t use 90% of? As a general rule, we have ten fingers/thumbs — do we only use one of them? I wondered what the world would look like if we begin actually using more than 10% of our brains. I imagined all types of cool inventions would be made.

As I became older, I realized that there is much debate about ‘scientifically proven’ things, so I couldn’t believe everything I heard and

Hearing something repeated often doesn’t mean it’s true. 

I thought about this myth after my injuries. After I healed, a tendon on the bottom of my left foot was shorten due to an injury … with each step it caused my one toe to pull down. Nine of my toes were working fine and causing me no pain, but one was causing enough problems that I needed a surgery to fix the issue.

It was hard to function with just 10% of the toes I had not working, so how difficult do you think it would be to function if 90% of our brain is not working?

I think that myth can limit us … it can become an excuse. Certain things are too difficult for us to do, after all, I’m not a genius, I only use 10% of my brain. Maybe if we believe we can use every ounce of our brain, maybe we’d put more serious effort into solving minor and major life issues.

So use your brain, all of it — because you can!

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Have you believed this myth? Do you still believe it? Why or why not?
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  • Janis

    At any one time, we’re only using 10% of our brains … but the thing is, depending on what it is you’re doing, it’s a different 10% each time.  It’s also the difference between having 10 glasses in front of you and filling either only one glass totally, or filling each glass a tenth.  Either way, you’ve only got 10% of your total capacity used.  But in the first case, someone can take away a glass without you losing any water, but in the second, ANY glass that’s removed is a loss for you.

    And again, depending on what you’re doing — cooking, singing, reading, whatever — your glasses are filled differently.

    Science is NEVER translated well into popular culture.  That’s why people think it’s nonsense.  It isn’t.  It’s just turned into nonsense by most reporters.  That’s why people say that evolution doesn’t make sense.  Evolution does make sense.  It just doesn’t make sense by the time some hack from USA Today is done mangling it.  :-)

    • http://www.JanetOberholtzer.com Janet Oberholtzer

      Interesting info … and I think you are right, it’s hard to translate science into the mainstream news well. 
      But this does raise another question for me  … how does anyone know we only use 10% of each ‘glass’ at a time?

  • http://www.pilgrimsmoon.com/ Tess Giles Marshall

    I think you’re right, this relationship between myth and excuse is important. I teach a system of personal and spiritual development known as the Enneagram, and one of the drawbacks of finding out what makes you tick is that it can be used as an excuse: “I’m such-and-such a type, I can’t help it, it’s not my fault.”  Now off I go to use all my brain…

    BTW, just watched the Emmanuel Kelly video you shared – just amazing.

    • http://www.JanetOberholtzer.com Janet Oberholtzer

      I’ve seen that happen with my one son … after finding out somethings about his personality, he sometimes uses it as an excuse instead of a motivator to change. 

      Yes, Emmanuel Kelly is amazing! I find myself rewatching that video a few times a day.