Our DNA sequence may be 99.9% similar to other humans, but that 0.1% makes a lot of difference.
The human brain is quite an intricate organ, containing billions of neurons to keep you alive and help you to stay that way for as long as it can.
You've probably seen a picture of a human brain sometime in your life. It's divided into two identical halves, but each half has its own regions that control certain bodily functions.
While you need all these regions in order for your body to function to the best of its ability, there are many cases where people have survived without certain areas of their brain!
Last year, a friend of mine accidentally had a bullet go through the side of his temple, damaging the right side of his frontal lobe.
He received immediate surgery and was in a coma for many weeks. Thankfully, he survived. When he woke up, doctors learned that he lost sensation in his left arm and noticed that he lacked emotion.
This was normal. The right side of your brain governs the left side of your body, and vice versa.
While there are still many things we don't know about the brain, for example how consciousness has evolved, we've learned a lot of interesting details by studying the left brain/right brain theory.
Roger W. Sperry was a neuropsychologist and neurobiologist who won a Nobel Prize for his theory on how the two hemispheres of the brain function differently.
Take a look at each, and let us know which category you fall into. Knowing which side of your brain is dominant will help you put your brain matter into good use!
The Left Brain
The left brain is associated with linear thinking, mathematics and facts.
It's not that you're in love with advanced calculus, but that you think better in numbers.
You can only focus when you're in a study environment that is bright and quiet. The best way you can absorb a subject is through an organized curriculum that has a lot of visuals and text.
I'm not saying people who are more right-brained dominant have no common sense, but left brain thinkers seem to have a better knack for being street smart.
You like to take your time to come up with a solution, rather than just try to band-aid a problem.
Language is your best friend, and you can quickly pick up on learning new ones. You can understand people through their words, but you falter in gauging people's emotions.
If this doesn't sound like you at all, it's likely that your right brain is dominant:
The Right Brain
The right side of the brain is associated with creativity, imagination, and the arts.
You love playing sports, role playing, drawing, or music, and you think about your hobbies most of the day (that is if it's not your job). While you're working on something, you like to listen to music because it helps you focus.
The world is a place of endless possibilities, and your imagination tends to lead you to strange places. You also dream about seeing all your favorite cities in the world, and you draw a lot of inspiration from these locations.
You tend to forget people's names, but you'll never forget their faces. Communication is important to you, but people's actions speak louder than words.
You have a knack for sensing people's emotions. You use your gut feeling to make decisions, and sometimes that can get you in a pickle.
Your favorite colors are probably out of the ordinary, something like rose quartz, emerald, or teal, and not your regular blue, red, green.
