Are Your Habits Turning You Into a Pea-Brain?

Health Wellness

As long as I have lived, I’ve heard people use the term ‘pea-brain’ to describe someone who is stupid. The term refers to the person having a small brain and thus is not as smart as people with normal sized brains.

According to Urban Dictionary:

“Peabrain – an unfortunate, clumsy, dim-witted, accident prone individual whose many faults can all be attributed to their pea-sized brain.”

“Someone who doesn’t know anything; someone who doesn’t use his brains or just too lazy to do it.’

Collins Dictionary:

“A person lacking intelligence.”

According to A.Word.A.Day, the origin of the expression comes from:

“Alluding to the small size of a pea. The word pea is formed from the misinterpretation of the already singular word pease. The word pease is fossilized in children’s nursery rhyme “Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold.” Another mistakenly formed singular is the word cherry from the already singular cherise. Earliest documented use: 1942.”

The expression was once the subject of an x-ray of the head of Homer Simpson that revealed a brain more the size of a walnut, than a pea or a normal sized brain.

Can the human brain actually shrink in size?

A dear friend of mine and a former boss, lost his brother to a rare brain disorder that caused his brain to shrink in size. His brother was a brilliant preacher, but as the disease caused his brain to shrink, he deteriorated mentally and then physically until he died.

The human brain does shrink with age, which some believe is connected to some forms of dementia.

But, did you know that some of your habits or health conditions can cause your brain to shrink even more?

According to a recent report:

“Vascular risk factors such as smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity have been linked to less healthy brains, according to a new study published Monday.”

“Researchers at the University of Edinburgh in the U.K. studied seven vascular risk factors and brain structures of 9,772 people and were able to connect all but one risk factor to more brain shrinkage. They found no difference in brain size or structure related to high cholesterol levels.”

“Their findings, published in the European Heart Journal, determined that the strongest relationships between the vascular risks and the brain were with parts of the brain in control of our complex thinking skills, which are what deteriorate as dementia develops.”

Lead researcher Dr. Simon Cox, a senior research associate at the Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, commented:

“The associations between risk factors and brain health and structure were not evenly spread across the whole brain; rather, the areas affected were mainly those known to be linked to our more complex thinking skills and to those areas that show changes in dementia and ‘typical’ Alzheimer’s disease.”

“Although the differences in brain structure were generally quite small, these are only a few possible factors of a potentially huge number of things that might affect brain ageing.”

If you don’t want to end up as a pea-brained addled person later in life, it’s never too late to change your habits now and reduce the chance of your brain shrinking more than it will naturally.

 

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