Hello,
So my question is, our body uses a certain amount of energy through the day and 20% of that is used exclusively by the brain.
Why can’t we increase or decrease the calorie usage of our minds to burn more or less calories?
My own theory is that the brain runs on a base threshold of energy and it normally is around 20% but it doesn’t explain why doing brain teasers/puzzles doesn’t increase it.
And bonus if you can explain how doing extremely challenging problems for any amount of time makes you feel physically tired (such as taking a test).
Edit: there have been a amazing amount of answers while I was asleep (posted this before sleeping for a solid 10 hours), my questions about the brain functionality has been answered
In: 7004
It’s because “conscious thought” is only a small part of what your brain actually does and therefore a small part of its energy expenditure. Increasing the intensity and duration of conscious thought is only slightly increasing the work that your brain is doing.
Your brain, through the nervous system, also regulates the majority of your body functions, including your enzyme and hormone systems. So if you want to fire your brain right up you need to not only think more but feel more and do more stuff.
If you want to increase your brain’s work rate across most of its functions, and hence achieve a higher energy burn, you can. But the methods are normally not things you should do flippantly, for example taking certain drugs or getting into very stressful situations.
Even if you’re able to achieve safe conditions, it’s not a good idea to do this a lot. Your brain, like any other organ, wears out. There’s a reason it’s evolved to be very efficient at what it does.
Edit: a lot of people talking about chess because of an ESPN article. Chess players don’t burn 6000 additional calories playing chess. There was a great reply below from u/avocadokadabra that referenced another Reddit thread where this was debunked: [you can find it here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/s0tqcd/chess_grandmasters_do_not_burn_6000_calories_a_day/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
I’d also like to add that in my comment I explicitly separate “conscious thought” from subsequent physiological effects, although they may be _related_ to conscious thought. In the example of the chess games, it’s clear (even in the often misquoted ESPN article) that the majority of the additional energy burn is not happening in the brain, it’s happening in the rest of the body as a result of elevated blood pressure, excessive breathing, and it’s certainly not due to conscious thought, it’s the systemic effects of being in a hyper-stressful situation.
I’m so glad this generated a lot of conversation! 🙂
Latest Answers