Cry, Laugh, Blink: 9 Worldly Things Humans Do Every Day
Have you ever stopped to think that we all do a lot of mundane things that we don't even realize? Do these actions seem unimportant, for what do we cry, laugh at, red with embarrassment, or take risks every day? The folks at Life's Little Mysteries have published an interesting list of these weird things humans do daily and their possible explanations. Check out:
1 - Cry
Why do strong emotions - whether joy or sadness - cause our eyes to fill with water and overflow? Of all species, it seems that only humans express emotions through tears, and scientists believe that, in addition to communicating our feelings, they also help us eliminate excess hormones and other substances produced by the body during times of stress. .
2 - Hiccup
Hiccups are involuntary spasms of the diaphragm - the muscular membrane involved in human respiration - which, although irritating, have no physiological utility. They are usually triggered by muscle irritation resulting from excess (or lack) of food in the stomach. And precisely because it is an action with no purpose for our organism, one hypothesis is that it is a remnant of the primitive sucking reflex.
3 - Blush
Do you know when you go through an awkward situation and your cheeks burn with embarrassment? Well, it doesn't just happen to you, and blushing is a universal human reaction that occurs in response to social attention. Thus, it occurs due to the dilation of small vessels and veins of the face, causing an increase in blood flow that makes the faces more rosy.
However, researchers cannot explain why when we receive a compliment, find someone important, or get socially exposed, we experience such a curious reaction.
4 - Laugh
This pleasant uncontrollable spasm that engulfs our bodies when we see or hear something funny is an action researchers have long tried to understand. One of the hypotheses is that "laughing" is an evolution of panting: when our prehuman ancestors gave in to fighting games, they became very panting, and researchers believe that laughter came from these fun interactions.
Today, psychologists believe that laughter is a behavioral response that serves to convey to other positive emotions, which in turn reduces stress and contributes to cohesion among members of a particular group.
5 - Flashing
Here's another action that humans perform every day very often! Each wink lasts about one tenth of a second and is used to lubricate the eyes and clean dust particles. But have you noticed, however, that we do not realize that the world "disappears" momentarily when we blink, which occurs once every 2 and 10 seconds?
This is because our brain has learned to ignore these little blackouts, and while blinking suppresses the activity of various brain areas responsible for detecting changes in the environment momentarily, we still see the world continuously.
6 - Seeing in 3D
Ever wonder how your eyes can see the world in three dimensions instead of just two? In fact, it is all a trick of our mind called binocular disparity. The brain processes the slight difference between the images captured by the right and left eye, using both images to reconstruct the depth of a given scene.
To get a closer look, the brain records the angle of convergence of our eyes - which move to focus properly - to decide how far we are from objects. Already to visualize the environment as we move, our brain processes the difference between the speed with which closer and more distant objects appear to be moving as we pass them.
7 - Feeling tingling
Also known as paraesthesia, this strange - and unpleasant - response occurs when we apply too much weight or pressure on a given nerve, temporarily inhibiting its function. And when the nerve in question gradually returns to normal activity, our brain interprets this action through tingling.
8 - Take risks
It is quite common to read about people who engage in extreme activity or extreme sports who have suffered serious accidents and even lost their lives due to their passion for danger. So if we are aware of the risks, why do we expose ourselves to them? According to scientists, this is due to our need to impress potential partners.
As they explained, men face more competition than women in this area and are forced to expose their virility and physical strength through risky activities. This would explain why boys tend to engage in such actions when they are in a group, and while women are less likely to take risks, even they feel the need to impress their suitors from time to time.
9 - Die
This is not an action we perform every day, but we cannot deny that it “arrives” daily for many people. It's because? Basically, we die because our cells die, and although they constantly renew themselves throughout our lives, they fail to do so indefinitely.
Inside our cells, at the ends of our chromosomes, are telomeres, which are structures that contain genetic information and that shorten each time cell division occurs. Eventually, these structures become so short that the information in them eventually gets lost, and they can no longer be divided. Luckily - or not - many scientists have been dedicated to finding ways to prolong our lives!
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