The truth about your brain

The one thing why your brain needs to stay sharp (Hint: It’s not puzzles)

Image: Milad Fakurian

Your brain is one of the most powerful and mysterious organs in your body. It controls everything from your thoughts to your emotions and even processes information at lightning speed. But how much do you really know about it? Some long-believed myths about the brain have been debunked, while other surprising facts reveal just how incredible this organ truly is. Get ready to be amazed by these fascinating brain facts!

Image: Natasha Connell

You’ve probably heard this one before, but it’s completely false! While it’s true that not all parts of the brain fire at the same time, imaging studies show that most regions are active throughout the day, even when we sleep.

Your brain is constantly working, controlling bodily functions and emotions, and processing information. So next time someone says you’re only using 10% of your brain, you can confidently tell them that’s just a myth!

Image: Aarón Blanco Tejedor

Here’s a weird fact: While your brain processes pain signals from the rest of your body, it has no pain receptors of its own. This is why surgeons can perform brain surgery on conscious patients without causing them pain.

However, the membranes and tissues surrounding the brain do have pain receptors, which is why headaches and brain injuries can be so excruciating.

Image: Usman Yousaf

How come we have headaches if the brain has no pain receptors? Well, that’s because headaches are triggered by chemical activity in the brain, changes in nerves and blood vessels, and even fluctuating serotonin levels.

In some cases, hormones like estrogen can also play a role, which explains why migraines are more common in women.

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Dreams are proof that your brain never rests! (Warning: this fact can make you feel exhausted.) While you sleep, your limbic system, that is, the part of the brain that deals with emotions, becomes especially active, which is why dreams often feel so intense.

On average, humans experience four to seven dreams per night, even if we don’t always remember them. And what about that scary nightmare about falling? Well, you can thank your amygdala, the brain’s fear center, for that one.

Image: Brett Jordan

Have you ever walked into a room and instantly forgotten what you were after? That’s because short-term memory only lasts about 20-30 seconds! That’s not enough!

Your brain holds a limited amount of information in its active state before deciding whether to store it or discard it. Ironically, we can’t really choose what makes the cut, but we do hope these facts stay with you!

Image: BUDDHI Kumar SHRESTHA

That sharp, icy pain when you eat something too cold? It’s your brain’s way of telling you to slow down! Officially called sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia, a brain freeze happens when cold food or drinks rapidly chill the blood vessels in your throat, causing them to constrict and then rapidly expand. This sends pain signals to your brain, warning you of the sudden temperature shift. It’s annoying, but it’s actually your body trying to protect itself!

Image: Josh Riemer

You didn’t need us to tell you, but let’s look at the details: The average person has between 12,000 and 60,000 thoughts per day. What’s even more interesting? 95% of those thoughts are the same ones you had yesterday. Is that not surprising enough? Hear this out: 80% of them tend to be negative. That’s because our brains are wired for survival, constantly analyzing risks and potential dangers.

Image: Terry Vlisidis

Even though it only makes up about 2% of your body weight, your brain employs a major quantity of energy! It consumes 20% of your oxygen and blood supply, making it one of the most demanding organs in your body.

If your brain goes without oxygen for just five minutes, brain cells start dying, leading to irreversible damage. This is why deep breathing and cardiovascular exercise are great for brain health!

Image: Alexander Andrews

Do you know that feeling when you hit the back of your head and see stars? That’s because your occipital lobe, which controls vision, is located at the back of your brain. If you get hit there, your brain momentarily misfires, causing flashes of light.

Interestingly, your brain processes vision on the opposite side; while your right brain controls your left eye, your left brain controls your right eye. It’s one of the many ways the brain operates in a complex way.

Image: Rodion Kutsaiev

Believe it or not, your brain generates between 12 and 25 watts of electricity when you’re awake. If you can’t really grasp how powerful that is, check this out: It’s enough to power a small light bulb! Your brain’s electrical activity is what allows neurons to send signals at speeds of up to 260 miles per hour.

Image: Robina Weermeijer

Your brain may be the fattiest organ in your body, consisting of at least 60% fat! This is why consuming healthy fats, like omega-3s and omega-6s present in fish, for example, is essential for brain health.

Healthy fats stabilize brain cell walls, reduce inflammation, and support cognitive function. So go ahead and enjoy that avocado toast, it’s food for your brain!

Image: Robina Weermeijer

It’s not just your memory that fades over time; the brain itself physically shrinks as one gets older. It continues developing until your late 40s, but after that, it slowly decreases in size.

Now, size doesn’t equal intelligence, so a smaller brain doesn’t necessarily mean a less capable one. Staying mentally active, exercising, and eating brain-boosting foods can help keep it in top shape!

Image: Lisa Yount

We often think of cholesterol as bad, but your brain actually depends on it! In fact, 25% of your body’s cholesterol is stored in your brain, where it helps with learning and memory. However, unlike other organs, the brain can’t absorb cholesterol from the blood, it has to produce its own. So, while too much cholesterol in the body can be harmful, the right amount is vital for brain function. At least you can use that as an excuse to get that burger!

Daily Italian

Do you speak Italian? These 10 common words say you do

Although French and Spanish are undoubtedly the Romance languages that have influenced English vocabulary the most, Italian is not absent from our dictionary. Be it because of Italian immigration —especially in American English— or as a remnant of a time when Italian was the language of culture and knowledge, Italian words are present in our everyday speech, though not always with their original meaning. Let’s explore 10 words we inherited from Italian.

Is there anything more American than a pepperoni pizza? Most people would agree that pepperoni is an American staple, and asking for it anywhere in the U.S. would result in a spicy sausage. Not for Italians, though. American ‘pepperoni’ is a corrupted form of the Italian word peperoni, the plural for ‘bell peppers’. The shift in meaning from bell pepper to spicy sausage came from the use of paprika (made from peppers) in spicy sausage, and the double ‘p’ was influenced by the word ‘pepper’.

As many English-speaking tourists know from personal experience, asking for a ‘latte’ in Italy will get you a glass of milk. After all, latte is Italian for ‘milk’. Why do we use it for a drink of espresso and steamed milk, then? This coffee-based drink is of Italian origin, and it’s called caffè e latte or caffelatte (‘coffee and milk’). In America, it was eventually shortened to ‘latte’, but the original name is still used in Italy, which leads to many confused tourists.

The difference is quite small here: asking for a ‘panini’ in English will get you a toasted sandwich, and asking for a panini in Italian will result in more than one sandwich. In Italian, panini is the plural of panino (‘little bread’). While Italians use panino for a small bread roll, it is also a common word for a ciabatta, panino or focaccia sandwich, often filled with cold cuts, vegetables, and cheese.

From the Latin diva (‘goddess’), this Italian word became popular in the 19th century to refer to highly celebrated female singers, particularly in opera. English adopted this use and continues to call female stars ‘divas’, but the word has also gained a negative connotation thanks to the popular association of some female entertainers with entitlement and arrogance.

In Italian, vendetta means ‘vengeance’ or ‘vindication’, while in English it’s used for a long, bitter feud. Despite the difference in meaning, the English meaning of ‘vendetta’ was also coined by Italians. In the 19th century, vendetta became a common name for the bloody family feuds in Southern Italy, a meaning that entered English through Italian immigration. Although the word is many times associated with organized crime, it is also common to describe any personal or political rivalry.

If you go back to English class in high school, you might remember ‘stanzas’ as groups of verses in a poem. In Italian, stanza is derived from the Latin stantia (‘’standing or stopping place’), which resulted in the Italian word meaning ‘a place where one stays’, ergo, a ‘room’. How did it shift from ‘room’ to ‘group of verses’? While a room is a place where one stops, a poem also stops momentarily after a group of verses, and stanza is used in the literary sense in Italian as well. While the domestic meaning never made its way into English, the literary term did.

Being stabbed by a stiletto is painful in both English and Italian, but the situation described is not necessarily the same. In Italian, stiletto is the diminutive form of stilo (‘dagger’), used in the 1500s for a needle-like, narrow dagger. The name carried to the iconic shoes in the 1950s, when Salvatore Ferragamo started using steel rods to stabilize thin heels. Although English had adopted ‘stiletto’ in the 17th century in relation to the weapon, it is now mainly used in its fashion sense.

Scenario comes from the Latin scena (‘stage’ or ‘scene’), and was originally used in Italian to describe the written plot or outline of theater plays, that is, the things that happened on a stage or scene. English adopted the term with this theatrical meaning, but eventually it also came to be used for hypothetical future outcomes. In Italian, the word kept its meaning as ‘stage’ and as ‘plot outline’, but is also used with the meanings of ‘context’ and ‘landscape’.

From the Latin extravagans (‘wandering outside’), the Italian estravaganza evolved to mean ‘an oddity’ or ‘unusual behavior’. While the word was borrowed by English with this meaning in the 18th century, its spelling quickly changed into ‘extravaganza’ by association with other similar-sounding words. Used in association with theater plays, its meaning eventually shifted from ‘odd behavior’ to ‘lavish and spectacular show’.

We all know the term ‘influenza’ as the name for a respiratory virus, commonly shortened to ‘flu’. In Italian, influenza means ‘influence’, and is derived from the Latin influentia, ‘something that flows in’. Related to cosmic forces flowing from above, influenza was used in astrology to describe the pull of stars and planets, which is why, after blaming a 16th-century epidemic on a bad star alignment, the term became associated with a quick-spreading disease.