If you are a left-handed person, you might wonder about the world being so oriented towards the right-handed majority.
It’s partly due to superstition and tradition, but it’s largely owing to the fact that 87-90% of the globe is right-handed.
However, trying to shift to all of the phones, can openers, stringed instruments, scissors, cooking utensils, and workstations made for right-handed people may drive you insane and make you believe you’re the world’s most overlooked minority.
But that’s not it. There are many left-handed advantages that you may not know already. Let’s explore more.
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Left-Handed Advantages: Know the Secrets About Being a Lefty
Do you know that the 10% left-handed minority comprises some of history’s most powerful figures? These include presidents like Barack Obama, entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, and media moguls like Oprah Winfrey.
It’s natural to question if the less-popular handedness has certain advantages. Here’s a list of some of the left-handed advantages:
1. More Creative with Visual Arts
Being left-handed advantages you with better divergent thinking.
It is a mental process that investigates various solutions and creates innovative ideas based on available data.
Research shows that left-handed people are more likely to have a more developed right hemisphere of the brain, which is responsible for creative tasks.
The right hemisphere of the brain is linked to creativity because it governs nonverbal, intellectual, holistic, intuitive, and imaginative functions.
In music, architecture, and art, sinistral are more likely to succeed than dextral. That’s a left-handed personality characteristic.
There’s some strong evidence:
Picasso, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo were all left-handed. You have a strong pedigree when you include Albert Einstein and Beethoven.
Make sure your buddies are aware of this when you have your next creative explosion.
2. Better Athletes
Being left-handed advantages you at some sports better than others.
Take tennis, for example. If you are a left-handed player, you can get an advantage by serving with your left hand, which will cause difficulty for right-handed players.
In boxing, there are similar benefits. Boxers aren’t used to facing opponents who attack from the left.
Left-handed cricket batsmen appear to do better as well.
Left-handed swimmers, such as Mark Spitz, were considered to have an edge in that they could acclimatize to underwater vision more quickly.
If you participate in these sports, there’s no harm in emphasizing these benefits.
3. May Think Differently
Left-handed personality characteristics may be due to highly lateralized brains. It means their brains specialize in particular cognitive activities on each side of the brain.
Information may travel more often between the hemispheres of the brain in lefties, resulting in unique thoughts and solutions to issues.
While right-handed people may discard a radical notion, left-handed people may be prepared to consider it and come up with a solution that a right-handed person’s brain would overlook.
4. Easily Pass the Driving Test
Do you know that left-handed people perform better on driving tests than their right-handed counterparts?
According to statistics, 57 percent of left-handers pass their driver’s test on the first try, whereas just 47 percent of right-handers do!
Ayrton Senna and Valentino Rossi, two of the best drivers in the world, are both left-handed. It’s not a bad idea to mention this if someone makes a remark about your driving!
5. May Make More Money
According to the National Bureau of Economic Research in the US, left-handed males with a college education earn 15% more than their dextral counterparts.
This is an important distinction, but no one knows why.
Unfortunately, the opposite is true for women, with left-handed women earning roughly 5% less than their right-handed counterparts.
Keep these considerations in mind when asking for a pay raise, depending on your gender.
6. Faster Typists
Who say left-handed people can’t type quickly? Well, Dr. Abdul Samee Jatoi who is one of the best neurologists says that the patients that visit him who are left handed are very fast typists.
We’ve never learned to touch-type, therefore we’re all one-finger typists.
However, on a conventional QWERTY keyboard, left-handed typists can type up to 3,400 words, compared to 450 words for individuals who solely use their right hand.
Just tell your coworkers that due to this intrinsic talent, your typing is definitely superior to theirs.
7. Spend Less Time in Lines
Ever faced the task of choosing which supermarket line to join?
It’s no surprise that right-handed people prefer to queue on the right side, while left-handed people prefer to queue on the left.
Lefties can find shorter queues and get out faster because they are in the minority.
Next time you’re at the checkout, try heading left and explain why to your partner!
8. Better at Multitasking
Lefties have always had to think faster because they’ve always had to deal with right-handed issues.
Later in adulthood, this pays off since communication between both hemispheres of their brain is considerably faster and more efficient. This is why lefties have an easier time multitasking.
They have a distinct advantage in that they can analyze many streams of data simultaneously.
If someone frowns at you because you’re multitasking, just smile and claim everything is OK.
Read more about how to increase IQ levels.
9. Decreased Risk for Some Health Concerns
Research shows that arthritis and ulcers are less common among left-handed people.
However, it’s unlikely that it has anything to do with your handedness. Researchers believe it has something to do with the underlying DNA that causes left-handedness; the genes linked to lefties.
If you’re ever taunted for being a lefty, just remember that they’re more likely to suffer such terrible ailments.
10. Bounce Back Quickly from Injuries
Studies demonstrate that people who are left-handed recover faster from strokes and other brain ailments.
While we hope that no one has to experience something as horrific as a brain injury, it’s comforting to know that you might be able to heal more quickly.
What’s the rationale?
Lefties’ brains have more cognitive functions scattered out, which implies that when they have a stroke, less of their cognitive functioning gets impaired.
11. May Have Better Self-Control
It turns out that left-handed people have better self-control than right-handed people.
They have no issue passing up those brownies or resisting the urge to lash out at a coworker, both of which can be challenging at times.
Lefties have superior ‘inhibitory control’ which affects how we manage ourselves than righties.
That will be really useful! (pun intended)
Bottom Line!
Although the stigma and shame associated with being left-handed have faded, the mystery and wonder remain. Maybe we’ll never know what causes left-handedness or why it affects people’s lives so dramatically.
All in all, being left-handed has advantages way more than what you might have thought earlier. That’s why, there’s no need to associate stigma with it, and just rejoice in this blessing.
If you want to know more about how your brain functions benefit you with your left-handedness, make sure to consult a well-known neurosurgeon. You may book an appointment via Healthwire.pk or call at (042) 32500989.
