Our superpowers

We are much stronger than we think.





All these "motivational speakers" are right: you are capable of amazing things. But you will not know about it, because 99% of the time your body and your brain hide from you your superpowers.

Of course, they say that there are reasons for that, and although we are not sure, we buy it. Hey, science Unlock a minute and these forces, too, that we are finally able to find out whether the will beat Captain America Iron Man in the fight in real life.

1. Superpower



You may have heard of "urban legends" about "a woman, lifted the car after the accident," but whether you believe it or not - this is not just a legend. She tells about Angela Cavallo, whose son repaired "Chevrolet Impala" the 64-year, when the car slipped off the jack, and he was trapped under the wheels.

Angela ran out of the house, and found the unconscious body of his son lying under the wheels. Instead of saying something passive-aggressive, like, "Well, I told him to throw the thing out of the garage," she screamed loudly, calling on the help of neighbors. And when help is not there on time, a woman alone, with his bare hands, lifted the car with his son.
Artistry

Okay, maybe she did not raise this thing over his head as the Hulk. It took only a few centimeters to the son got the opportunity to move to a safe place. But this is no small feat when you consider that the weight of the car - at least a couple of tons.
Go out and try it if you do not believe.

Sindzhin Eberle climbing in New Mexico, where a boulder weighing 240 kg rolled down, crashed into him (in the process of breaking his hand), and started to push him closer to a fall from a height of 600 meters and a certain death. And back on "adrenaline mode" and the man tossed aside a boulder broken arms.
Why can not we do it all the time?

The facts tell us that the muscle fibers may actually give us an opportunity to break through the wall, as the Terminator, if we really want this, but our brain arbitrarily restricts us in this. Why?

One problem is the tendons and other tissues through which we - one, and that prevent us from this kind of abuse.

This is the same logic that makes steroid users more prone to injury: their musculoskeletal system simply can not keep up with their bulging muscles.

So when you are in "raise a boulder or die", the body receives a superpower, stopping other body functions such as digestion and immunity. This is one of those things which operate only once and only for a few minutes.

2. "Vision" ears (echolocation)



It - superpowers, which is Daredevil. He overcame blindness using sonar-like hearing, which is so acute that completely replaced his sight.

This is the real thing. In the real world, we call it echolocation, and guys like Daniel Kish possess her. Kish is completely blind, and has been blind all his life. Despite this, one of his favorite activities - mountain biking.

C using sound, mentally drawing a picture of the world around him, Kish makes it so that can avoid collisions with trees, boulders and bears at a time when rushing down the mountainside.

Why can not we do it all the time?

For the same reason that people use calculators, are weak in math. Most people choose the easy way, in this case, they rely on their eyesight, which tells them where to find things, but they lose the ability to make it more difficult and more surprising way.

However, any of you can try echolocation even without losing an eye in any superhero stories. Tests have shown that people with a blindfold gradually learn to estimate the distance to objects, listening to the echo of his own footsteps. Soon they may even determine the shape and texture of invisible objects, relying only on the echo. Try this: Close your eyes, and slowly go to the wall as he spoke. Listen as changing your own voice and responds to you like an echo.

Your brain is able to recognize all the intricacies of the echo (in the end, you listened to him all his life), and it's just a matter of training - to force myself to use them.

3. Super Memory



Hey, remember that time in the afternoon, in March when you were eight years old? Were you tired? Or not? Nothing remarkable has happened?

You can not remember it? Why not? Finally, once your muscles are technically able to allow you to unscrew the head off dude, then your brain is technically should be able to keep every thing you've ever seen, heard or experienced.

Just ask Jill Price. She has a disease called "Hyperthymesia." The disease has given her an almost perfect autobiographical memory, which we just talked about. Give her a date, and she will be able to remember everything that she was doing that day, what was the weather, and all the other seemingly trivial events that no one will remember.

But even if you do not have such a disorder (science knows only a few such cases), there are a few tricks that you can do right now, and that many times will improve your memory.

During the study of short-term memory was tested people's ability to remember a sequence of numbers. Starting with memorizing seven digits, after a little practice a person is able to remember about eighty. This is - something that looks like a magic trick, especially if you show it at the party.
Why can not we do it all the time?

Firstly, it is important to note that what is at Jill - is not a "photographic memory", as claimed by some people (as they say, can scroll through the phone book, and remember all the rooms). It is believed to be a myth. Science has never had a chance to test everyone who could actually do it, it has always been only a "second-hand stories." You probably noticed that Jill is not a giant Baska, which stores all of her memories. It is able to store all their lives in the brain about the same size and shape as yours. Why?

Let's look at the brain as a computer. He really fast processor and almost unlimited space to store information. But still it has a unique, and often inconvenient file management system. It's not like a folder on your hard drive, it's more like the results that the search engine gives.

Your brain makes memories accessible by creating links to other memories using these links every memory is sorted by relevance (based on the similarities and on the basis of how much you had for emotional events).

Thus, the memory is only available when some memories are opened by other, which refers to the brain arbitrary, or after the introduction of some information (for example, someone of something to remind you). Otherwise, the memory will be gone forever.

So with all like Jill: her excellent memory, is believed to be the result of obsessive-compulsive disorder and update these memories. How are the people who trained to memorize series of numbers, it is "trained" herself to remember the years of quite insignificant everyday events. But normal brain forgets it all: so it can give priority to really important things.

Hyperthymesia brain - like a broken search engine that gives you the porn no matter what you are looking for. Kind of like a Google search for the pictures.

4. Insensitivity to pain



The fact that pain is a necessary part of life - one of the heavy lessons that we get as they grow older. But, at some point, you break a bone or get some other unexpected injury, and wait a second. This is - almost painful. In these moments of shock or injury your brain just switches off the pain, like a switch.

Tell it to Amy Racine, who fell off a cliff, landing six stories below, a reversal his knee and broke her hip. Not feeling too much pain, even with a broken bone sticking out of the skin, it dragged down the street until she found help. The pain came back only when she came to where it loaded into the helicopter.

A similar phenomenon is known as the "phenomenon of the runner." At the point when the body cries out for mercy, a sense of calm painless makes the runner to run on, it's almost like being on drugs.

Why can not we do it all the time?

Welcome to the wonderful world of endorphins. The very name of this wonderful substance means "morphine produced naturally by the body." It is an excellent ingredient for good health. It is produced by the body during exercise, excitement or during orgasm, and it has the ability to blunt or eliminate pain, blocking synapses (connections between neurons) in the brain.

So why is the body so sparingly on endorphins? Why can not you just turn them and let the phone? Just ask anyone with congenital insensitivity to pain - a genetic disorder, which allows a person not to feel the pain constantly. The parents of one such girl saw her in different situations: one day she accidentally otgryzla part of their own language, absentmindedly own finger bitten through, or drank a flammable liquid.

Whenever the pain bothers you, it saves you from a hundred situations in which you mutilate yourself.

You probably want to say, "But why my brain does not allow me to decide? Give me control of a switch endorphins! I'm not going to use it to win the argument in the bar, eating the glass! ", But we are not so sure.

5. Time management



Simply put, this "flying bullet" in reality. Talk to people who visited in combat or in other situations of life and death, and they will tell you about the time that stretched like taffy.

There was a number of studies US police officers who took part in a series of shootings and other terrible moments. One of them said:

"During the shooting I looked up, and was puzzled since I saw beer cans, slowly drifting past my face. What was even more puzzling is the fact that they had the word "federal", printed on the bottom. It turned out the liner, flying by the officer, the shooter next to me ».

Firefighter Ryan Jordan tells a similar story. At a time when the forest fire suddenly blocked their way, and they began to think, what to do to not roasted, he felt as if someone had put the game on pause.
Why can not we do it all the time?

Something similar is happening in the crazy moments, but for different reasons. Experts say this is because your brain has two modes of perceiving the world: rational and experimental. First - this is where you probably are now, it's peace of mind and the ability to think. But if at the other end of the room to explode a bomb - you suddenly will pass in experimental mode.

Your brain goes into a sort of "overdrive", bypassing all the analytical and rational thought processes for the benefit of the trigger decision. Most normal thought processes are confused and suddenly you act on instinct (or, in the case of a police officer or a soldier, at the expense of the preparation). And as you think you will - the world seems to be slower.

It makes sense. Neo never had the ability to slow down time. He just could not move very fast.

So why can not you turn it on, like Neo?

A better question: Would you like this?

In the moments of your life when you have to make decisions in a panic, for a split second - how good are those decisions? I venture to guess that most of your most stupid decisions you have made, while in the middle of some kind of panic.

This is the reason why the police are forced to go through all this training. You should be able to overcome their natural instinct to start yelling and shooting in all directions. Experimental thinking in your brain - it is removing excess weight from your car to make it faster. But it is not just the loss of the air conditioner and the headrest with DVD-player. This is - the loss of antilock brakes and power steering.