It’s just 2 per cent of your total body weight yet controls your whole body. From those long legs to the smallest finger of your hand, from your eyelids to your tongue; you can’t move anything without it. It forms the very centre of your whole nervous system. It is your command centre. It makes a “HUMAN CPU”. I know, by now, you would have already guessed it and most probably it would be a right guess.
Your BRAIN is small as compared to your whole body. In adults, it weighs just 3 pounds that makes 1300-1400 grams. What about its size? On an average brain is 15 cm long fitting right into your skull. Yet this is the core reason for your survival.
“He got no brains!”; “Has she lost her mind?”; “Are they out of their wits?”
We say these sentences to the people who we think are fools. But why is that each of the sentences has some words in it that denote “Brain” of the person? This is utterly because your brain controls most, in fact, all, of your activities. It is the master of your knowledge; it processes, integrates, controls, transmits, coordinates and does whatever function which it needs to perform in order to make you take tens or maybe hundreds of decisions daily. But what backs those decisions? What actually your brain has that it helps you to correlate your present to your past?
MEMORY. Isn’t it? Memory is the capability of your brain through which it does not only stores but also reiterates information. How much is it? I mean how much can your brain actually store? Is it one gigabyte? NO. One terabyte? NO. Your brain can store a whole lot of over a petabyte of data and “a petabyte” is equal to 1027 terabytes. It makes a million gigabytes and trillions of bytes. For those who don‘t know, a byte is units for measuring memory.
How does it work?
Earlier it was believed that the whole brain was involved in the function of memory storage. But it was through some experiments, researchers discovered that maybe it is not whole of the brain involves in memory purpose. It is now argued that there are certain neurons or certain parts of the brain those deal with memory function. These parts are named as: AMYGDALA, HIPPOCAMPUS, CEREBELLUM and NEUROTRANSMITTERS.
Explaining these one by one below:
- AMYGDALA: This part of the brain has its functions to regulate fear, aggression and other emotions. It encodes memories at the deeper levels. It encodes when any incident or an event is emotionally arousing.
- HIPPOCAMPUS: This is associated with objects’, faces’, places’ or recognition of some other things and incidences. That means it is involved in the recognition function of memory, which helps us to connect our present to the past or we can say that it connects the connected memories.
- CEREBELLUM: A part to control your actions. This part of your brain learns motor skills through the information that is received from the spinal cord or other brain parts. Balance and coordination come from functioning of this part which forms only 10 percent of your total brain.
- NEUROTRANSMITTERS: Neurotransmitters as such don’t store any memory or any part of information but this is evident from certain researches that they do help in transmitting the memories which is meant to be stored by the brain.
WHAT PERCENT OF YOUR BRAIN DO YOU USE?
If you say 10% then you too are someone who has been ditched by a common myth. Actually usage of one’s brain can’t be measured in percentages terms. Rather, it can be in a form that which part of the brain do we use. We don’t use only 10% of our brain rather we use mostly all of our brain. Although we do not use the whole of it on same specific work but brain’s parts do their functions as per the need. Our brain is active even during the time when we are asleep. If this is the case then what brought the myth of 10 per cent brain usage? Most probable it was an indication to the cerebellum which forms 10 per cent of your brain (as stated above).
So if working and functioning of our memory and brain faculties is so clear and simple then why do we find differences in people’s ability to remember certain topics or lessons? If we use all of our brains then what impedes our learning? And what actually is a way to enhance our learning?
Mentioning all such impedes and their management below-
- Attention: It can be lack of your attention that is stopping you from excelling in your tasks. Some people don’t focus on certain things and details thereof, and this is why they are not able to retain those details in their minds.
A way out- Start giving attention to the things. Start looking at the things in order to get more details out of them. You don’t have to learn it but once you start to see certain events, pictures etc. seriously, an image of them will get stored somewhere in your memory.
- Learning methods: Sometimes the methods those people select to learn a certain skill are not suitable. For example, if to learn swimming one has not learned basic floating and breathing techniques then he or she will not actually learn swimming ever.
A way out- Learn from basics. If you don’t know how to learn a skill then adopt hit and trial method. Go through certain leaning methods and then choose the best one.
- Physical factors: Physical factors include physical challenges those people have either by birth or develop through some accidents. In both cases people get in such a situation that they are not able to learn and to do some tasks. For e.g. a one-legged man cannot run without any artificial help.
A way out: Accept what you lack and then work out an alternative way to learn something. For example, if a one-legged man gets prosthetics developed for himself, he may start running.
- Emotional factors: Here your emotions play a role. Your emotions memory may be good or maybe negative. If you have tried to learn something in the past and if you have failed in it then chances are there that you will fear in trying it again. Which will stop you from developing those skills throughout your life.
A way out: Be open to new experiences. Shed old negative memories. There is no harm in trying a new thing at any point in time. Do try the same thing once more with recalling whatever you have learned in your last attempt.
The human brain is undoubtedly an incompatible asset that is given to MAN by God. It has such capabilities that we have never even thought of. There is a long way to go until we find out what all secrets does it hold. It is just a matter of time to tell the memory capacity of the brain, maybe a new study tomorrow brings out other dimensions of memory function to the light.
