Things to know about being Left-handed
Only 10% of people are left-handed, so it might be simple for everyone else to forget that we live in a right-handed society. But being a southpaw can also have some subtle repercussions on our physical and mental health, in addition to making it difficult to cut a straight line with scissors made for righties. In this article, we provided some few things to know about being left-handed.
Shortcomings of being Left-handed
Given that 90% of people are right-handed, left-handed people do encounter some practical challenges, such as:
- Western lettering is right-to-left. To avoid smearing the ink, a left-handed person must “crab” their hand when writing.
- When learning to write with their left hand, left-handed kids frequently “mirror” their writing. This is a natural tendency and not an indication of dyslexia; given enough time, practice, and support, it will go away.
- Scissors and other tools are made to be used with the right hand.
- Circular saws, for example, can be hazardous if used with the left hand instead of the right.
- According to some study, left-handed people are more likely to experience seizures, autism, and learning impairments. The present body of evidence, however, indicates that handedness is not linked to learning impairments and that other researchers have not been able to validate these findings.
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Weird Benefits of Left-Handedness
There are some weird benefits of left-handedness:
1. A believer in daydreams
Although only around 10% of people are left-handed, studies show that lefties do better than right-handed people in terms of creativity, imagination, daydreaming, and intuition. They are also stronger at visualizing and rhythm.
2. Included among the Intellectual People
Along with four of the previous five U.S. presidents, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Ford, and Henry Ford are listed as left-handed. Prince William of England is a left-handed person. The list also included works by Michaelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and Renoir.
3. Benefits related to health
Apparently, left-handed stroke victims heal more quickly. While the cause is unknown, some suggest that it is because left-handed people need to develop both sides of their brains in order to succeed in a right-handed society. Many lefties are more adept at using their non-dominant hand than their dominant hand, making it easier for them to recover from strokes that harm only a portion of their brain.
4. Thinking Critically
Given that complicated reasoning is seen to come more easily to left-handed persons, there are many left-handed Nobel Prize winners, authors, singers, artists, architects, and mathematicians. Studies in the American Journal of Psychology suggest that lefties are more adept at divergent thought.
5. Join the group.
The official left-handers group has organized activities for left-handed people all over the world for the past 25 years. There are left-handed tea parties, left-handed sports competitions, and pubs that exclusively serve drinks with left-handed corkscrews.
6. A chance in sports
In sports like tennis, baseball, and boxing where competitors square off against one another, left-handers may have the advantage. The fact that left-handed athletes have more opportunities to practice against right-handed opponents may be the cause of this.
7. Examples of success
According to rumors, left-handed college grads end up 26 percent richer than right-handed graduates. In addition, lefties are identified as four of the initial five Macintosh (Apple) computer designers.
8. Buy everything you can while Shopping
There are shops that specialize on providing lefties with useful and amusing products. Online stores sell anything from left-handed mugs and kitchenware to clothing, “backwards” watches, and clocks. They also sell workplace and school materials.
9. Extreme superstition
Giving a toast with your left hand is said to be equivalent to cursing the person you are honoring. To make her appear more diabolical before she was burned at the stake, Joan of Arc was shown as having a left hand. During the 18th and 19th centuries, left-handers also faced severe prejudice and were frequently “beaten out” of them.
Things to know about being Left-handed
These are few things to know about being left-handed:
1. It goes beyond genetics.
According to Yeo, scientists don’t fully understand why some people are left-handed but do know that genes account for around 25% of the variance. Although noticeably less than other hereditary features, like height or IQ, left-handedness does seem to run in families, according to him. In actuality, even genetically identical twins can occasionally have different dominant hands. There are several suggestions about what else could influence which hand you write with, but many experts think it’s somewhat random, according to Yeo. Read further for more worthy things to know about being left-handed.
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2. It has a connection to pregnancy stress
One British study found that under extreme stress, fetuses were more likely to touch their faces with their left than their right hands. According to the experts, this might be a left-handed child’s first indication. That theory is supported by more data. Women who were unhappy or worried throughout their pregnancies were more likely to produce mixed-race or left-handed children, according to a 2008 Swedish research of mothers and their 5-year-old children. According to other studies, lefties were also more likely to be born to moms who were older or had low birth weights.
3. Twins are more likely to experience it.
Sometimes identical twins are mirror images of one another; for instance, one twin may have a mole on her right cheek while the other has the same mole on her left face. It was long thought that twins should have genetic composition that is “mirrored,” meaning that one twin should be right-handed and the other left. (It was originally believed that right-handed siblings of left-handed persons perished in utero and that all left-handed people were born as twins.)
Both of these statements are untrue, however twins are nearly twice as likely to be left-handed than the overall population. According to a 1996 Belgian study, left-handedness is present in roughly 21% of fraternal and identical twins. Read further for more worthy things to know about being left-handed.
4. You might change your mind as a result of it.
The left side of something is typically associated with the negative (“two left feet”), and the right side is typically associated with the positive (“my right-hand man”). However, a 2009 Stanford University study found that lefties may not think similarly to righties. Participants were shown two columns of illustrative abstracts and asked which appeared more appealing, cheerful, clever, or happy-looking. Lefties were more inclined to chose the drawings in the left column, whereas righties preferred the ones in the right column.
In spite of everything in language and culture informing them to the contrary, left-handed people instinctively believe that good things are on the left and evil things are on the right, according to the study’s primary author. He thinks that this could even affect how we cast our ballots or whose candidates we support when we watch the presidential debates.
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5. It raises the possibility of mental health issues.
A 2013 Yale University study found that left-handed people are more likely to have psychotic diseases like schizophrenia. 40% of persons with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder reported writing with their left hand when researchers surveyed patients at a mental-health clinic; this is significantly higher than the 10% of lefties seen in the general population.
Additionally, studies have discovered connections between dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and a few mood disorders and non-right handedness.
6. It doesn’t enhance your creativity.
It’s common knowledge that left-handed people are more creative than right-handed ones, but Yeo says it’s difficult to quantify this. That story may have its origins in a 1995 study that discovered left-handed men tended to engage in more “divergent thinking” than right-handed men, which refers to exploring choices other than the ones that are immediately available to solve an issue. (However, handedness had no effect on women.) The notion that creativity is correlated with left-handedness has some merit, but Yeo points out that the evidence is weak when it comes to genuine creative accomplishments over the course of a person’s lifetime. After the things to know about being left-handed, you should know the causes.
Causes of being left-handed
It’s unclear why one in ten people favor their left hand. It hasn’t been established that there is a clear genetic connection, and it is feasible for two right-handed parents to give birth to a left-handed child. Some Left-handedness causes theories are:
1. Genes:
Perhaps a child’s preference for the right hand is inherited. A single gene that determines which hand a youngster prefers may be passed down from parents to offspring. Depending on reinforcement and other environmental factors, a kid may be more likely to be left-handed if a certain variant of this gene is inherited. A left-handed individual is more likely to be born as a result of several different genes “adding up,” according to more recent research.
2. Sex
There are slightly more left-handed guys than girls. Some experts interpret this to mean that testosterone, a male hormone, affects both right- and left-handedness.
3. Embryonic development
Some scientists think environmental factors rather than genetics play a larger role in handedness. They contend that environmental influences during pregnancy, such as hormone exposure, may affect whether we later favor the right or left hand.
4. Modelling
Children mimic their parents and other important caregivers to learn which hand to use. This does not, however, address the issue of why right-handed parents occasionally have left-handed offspring, and vice versa.
5. Brain Injury
A minority percentage of academics believe that all humans are naturally right-handed, and that left-handedness is the result of early-life brain injury. It’s crucial to remember for left-handers and their parents that there is no concrete proof to back up this highly contentious claim.
The need to adapt to injury causes some persons who are naturally right-handed to switch to using their left hand.
Frequently Asked Questions on Left-handedness
What does being left-handed mean?
The lunar, female principle and the left are traditionally linked. They are also said to be weak and passive. It's crucial to keep in mind that these connotations come from a Western perspective.
Why is left-handedness so uncommon?
In fact, one of the stranger explanations for the scarcity of left-handedness holds that a genetic mutation in the distant past moved the language centers of the human brain to the left hemisphere, essentially making right-handedness the dominant hand type.
Do lefties have distinct perspectives?
People who are left-handed do think differently in many ways. Others are physiological, while some are sociological.
Are Left-handed people more emotional?
People who are ambidextrous and left-handed are more prone to experiencing unpleasant emotions, such as wrath. According to a short study that was published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease last year, lefties' brains communicate more between the two parts than righties' brains do when processing emotions.
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