Health

Some personality traits of left-handed people

Studies are now revealing that the dominant side of people can be detected at 18 weeks through ultrasound of the foetus. This proves that people are born left-handed or right handed. But with over 90 per cent of the population being right-handed, why are left-handed people so rare?

This is all determined by genetics and the lefty genes have been passed on in humans for over 500,000 years. Being left-handed provides a unique aspect to your personality. While they face several disadvantages when it comes to tools, which are usually designed to cater right-handed people; it also comes with a host of advantages. Here are some positive and negative traits that all lefties share.

Lefties are more creative

Some of the world’s greatest artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were left-handed. Tom Cruise, Robert De Niro, and Julia Roberts, as well as Celine Dion, Paul McCartney, and Jimi Hendrix have all faced immense success with this predisposition, reported The Epoch Times.

This probably happened as lefties have a dominant right brain, the side of the brain that is associated with creativity and imagination. Right brainers see the world in a different way. Another possible reason is that left-handed people are used to figuring out their way around tools from a young age. Scissors, cups, everything is generally made for right-handed people.

Left-handed people have a big advantage at competitive sports

As most players train to face right-handed sportspersons, they are usually left surprised when they face left-handed players. Batsmen and bowlers in cricket also face an undue advantage as the bowl swings differently for them. Tennis players also have this advantage as their serves are unique to those by right-handed players. On the other hand, this can be a disadvantage in sports like golf, as the clubs are designed to fit right-handed people.

Lefties are more likely to suffer from mental illness

One disadvantage that lefties face is that they are more prone to mental illnesses as compared to their right-handed counterparts. Like everything else related to lefties, this could too could be due to genetic and environmental factors. They also have a tendency to develop chronic illnesses later in life.

Lefties hear speech differently

Sound is processed differently in different parts of the brain. As lefties are right brain dominant, sound is perceived differently by them. They process sounds more slowly than left-brainers. This means that they can pick up nuances in speech and music better, making them great songwriters.

Left-handed people tend to be more fearful

“I t is possible that interacting with a world created mostly by righties for rights, which forces lefties to use their shield hand more often, increases activity in the brain hemisphere that is responsible for emotions like fear,” said Daniel Cassanto, a researcher. Lefties are generally more hostile to their environment due to the negative responses that they anticipate.

It’s not just genetics

Scientists aren’t exactly sure why some people are left-handed, but they know that genes are responsible about 25% of the time, says Yeo. Left-handedness does tend to run in families, he says, “but noticeably less than other inherited traits, like height or intelligence.” In fact, identical twins, who share the same genes, can sometimes have different dominant hands. There are plenty of theories on what else might determine which hand you write with, but many experts believe that it’s kind of random, says Yeo.

It’s linked to stress in pregnancy

In one British study, the fetuses of super-stressed pregnant women were more likely to touch their faces more with their left hands than their right. This could be the first signs of a left-handed child, say the researchers. Other evidence supports that theory. In one 2008 Swedish study of moms and their 5-year-old children, women who were depressed or stressed during their pregnancies were more likely to have mixed- or left-handed kids. In other studies, babies with low birth weight, or born to older mothers, were more likely to be lefties as well.

It doesn’t make you “right-brained”

Most right-handed people use the left hemisphere of their brains to process language, but that doesn’t mean most lefties are “right-brained”—that’s just a common myth, says Gina Grimshaw, PhD, director of the Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Wellington in New Zealand. About 98% of right-handers are left-brained, she says, but so are about 70% of left-handers. Only about 30% are right-brained or bilateral-brained (in which both halves are equally capable). “Most left-handers seem to have similar language processing to right-handers,” Grimshaw says. For other one-sided brain functions, such as attention, emotion, music, and face perception, she says, there are less data. “But for the most part, left-handers do not differ obviously from right-handers. They certainly don’t have reversed brains.”

It may cause you to think differently

Society tends to associate the left side of something with the bad (“two left feet”), and the right side with the good (“my right-hand man”). But if you’re left-handed, you might not think the same way as righties, according to a 2009 Stanford University study. Participants were shown two columns of abstract illustrations and asked which seemed more intelligent, happy, honest, and attractive. Righties were more likely to choose the illustrations in the right column, while lefties were more likely to choose the drawings in the left column. “For left-handed people, implicitly, they think good stuff is on the left and bad stuff is on the right, even though consciously, explicitly, everything in language and culture is telling them the exact opposite,” the study’s lead author said in a press release. He believes this may even influence the way we vote on ballots, or which candidates we prefer when watching presidential debates.

It can affect school performance

In a 2009 study of children 11 and younger, Australian researchers found that left-handed kids performed worse than right-handers several measures, including vocabulary, reading, writing, social development, and gross and fine motor skills. Mixed-handed kids performed even worse than lefties.   Mixed-handed and left-handed children are more likely to use the two halves of their brains in unusual ways, which may put them at risk for mild learning disabilities, says Yeo. At the same time, however, some mixed-handed kids have an unrelated learning disability that’s making them struggle to decide which hand to write with. Either way, most kids catch up with their classmates as they get older, he says—being left-handed or mixed-handed isn’t a surefire predictor of how well kids perform as they grow up.

It’s linked to a risk of mental health problems

People who are left-handed are at greater risk of psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia, according to a 2013 Yale University study. When researchers polled patients at a mental-health clinic, 40% of those with schizophrenia or schizoaffective said they wrote with their left hand; that’s considerably higher than the 10% of lefties found in the general population. Studies have also found links between non-right-handedness and dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and some mood disorders.

It does offer an advantage in sports

There’s one thing that most handedness experts can agree on: lefties have the upper hand (pun intended) when it comes to one-on-one sports like tennis, boxing, and pitching a baseball. In his book The Puzzle of Left-Handedness, linguist Rik Smits explains that athletes, (left- and right-handed) usually train against right-handed opponents. When finally facing a southpaw, lefties can easily adjust—but righties are at a double disadvantage. “They’re forced to engage in an asymmetrical battle for which they’re poorly prepared, against an opponent who’s a dab hand at dealing with this type of asymmetry,” he writes.

It may make for better fighters

In a 2005 French study, researchers found that southpaws made up just about 3% of the population in the most peaceful primitive societies, but 27% in the most warlike ones. Why? It goes back to the idea that lefties have a physical advantage over righties. In violent societies, researchers theorize, left-handers benefit from their unexpected left hook.

It’s linked to a higher risk of breast cancer

Left-handedness seems to be associated with some physical health issues. In a 2007 study published in the British Journal of Cancer, researchers found that left-handers had a higher risk of breast cancer than right-handers, especially for cancer that occurred after menopause. While the two seem completely unrelated, Yeo says that both could be the result of something affecting a fetus in early development. “We know that other physical vulnerabilities, like low birth weight and prenatal head circumference, can predict later health issues,” he says. “How you develop in utero may put you on a trajectory for certain strengths and weaknesses for your entire life.”

It doesn’t affect your general health

Scientists long suspected that being left-handed was somehow related to immune function, and that it may be a risk factor for an autoimmune disorder. Research has not been able to back up most of these claims, says Grimshaw, and that theory has been largely debunked. But one autoimmune condition handedness does seem to be associated with is inflammatory bowel disease. A 2001 British study found that lefties are twice as likely to suffer from bowel problems such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis than righties.

It’s linked to some sleep problems

Southpaws may be more prone to periodic limb movement disorder (PLMD), which causes patients to involuntarily kick and jerk their arms and legs while sleeping. In a 2011 University of Toledo survey of 100 sleep clinic patients, researchers found that 69% of right-handers experienced limb movements on both sides of their body while sleeping. As for the left-handed patients, 94% of them had these movements. “Their findings indicate that left-handed people have significantly higher chances of having bilateral limb movements, indicating the potential for PLMD,” states a press release from the 2011 conference where the study was presented.

It doesn’t impact longevity

It was once thought that left-handed people were doomed to die earlier than their “normal” peers, thanks to a 1991 study from the University of British Columbia. (The study also found that car accidents were often to blame, so lefties also took on the reputation for being bad drivers.) But several studies since have debunked those claims, and scientists now generally accept that being a rightie or a leftie has zero effect on lifespan.

It may up the risk of PTSD

A 2007 Scottish study found that left-handers were more likely to display symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder after watching clips from a scary movie. Other studies have found that non-right-handers experience more negative emotions. Both findings could be due to the fact that non-righties are more likely to have unusual brain lateralization, which could affect the way their brains process fear and anger.

It doesn’t make you a bigger drinker

Many small studies have suggested that lefties drink more than righties, but scientists weren’t sure why. They guessed that the unusual way lefties use the two sides of their brains made them more prone to alcoholism, or that lefties just drank more to deal with the stress of being a minority in a right-handed world. So a 2011 study published in the British Journal of Psychological Health examined the issue on a large scale, using self-reported data from more than 27,000 people. They found that left-handers did tend to drink more often, but mainly because they were “less likely to drink rarely (less than once a month) or not at all.” In other words, lefties weren’t more likely to binge drink or become alcoholics. “There is no reason to believe that it is associated with excessive alcohol consumption or risky drinking,” the authors wrote.

It might mean you earn less money

Whether the cognitive, mental, and physical differences lefties have from righties actually make a real-world difference in people’s lives is still up for debate—but a 2014 Harvard study suggests that they might. Researcher Joshua Goodman found that left-handed people’s salaries were, on average, 9 to 19% lower than their right-handed peers. (The gap between lefties and righties was $2,500 for men and $3,400 for women.) He also found that left-handers were more likely to not attend or to drop out of college, and to work in less cognitively demanding jobs, like manual labor. “When people ask me for the takeaway message, I tell them that it makes me pay a little extra attention to my kids as they develop their handedness,” Goodman said in a press release. “And if they turn out to be left-handed, I won’t worry, but will keep an eye out for some of these other things.”

Overall, handedness doesn’t really matter

Of all the interesting facts about handedness, probably the most important one, says Yeo, is that it doesn’t matter much at all. “The differences between righties and lefties are really rather subtle, and of much greater scientific interest than any kind of practical use,” he says.   Grimshaw agrees, noting that mixed-handers seem to differ from “strong handers,” much more than left- and right-handers differ from each other. “However, we really don’t know much about the brains of mixed-handers, because we’ve been so focused on the left-handers,” she says. “Hopefully we’ll have a better understanding of them soon.”   One thing is for sure, Yeo says: We shouldn’t assume much about people’s personalities or health just because of the hand they write with. And we certainly shouldn’t worry about lefties’ chances of success: After all (as of 2015), five of our last seven U.S. presidents have been either left- or mixed-handed.