Question: Do You Burn More Calories when you Think Hard?
Answer: According to Popular Science, your brain requires a tenth of a calorie per minute, just to stay alive. Compare this to the energy used by your muscles. Walking burns about four calories a minute. Kickboxing can burn through a whopping ten calories a minute. Reading and pondering my blog post? That melts a respectable 1.5 calories a minute. Feel the burn (but try the kickboxing).
The brain is comprised of neurons, cells which communicate with other neurons and transmit messages to and from body tissues. Neurons produce chemicals called neurotransmitters to relay their signals. To produce neurotransmitters, neurons extract 75% of the sugar glucose (available calories) and 20% of the oxygen from the blood. The frontal lobe of your brain is where your thinking takes place, so if you are pondering life's big questions, like what to have for lunch to replace the calories you are burning, that part of your brain will need more glucose.
