Handedness

The Handedness defines the hand with which a person performs most activities. This dominant hand is also evidence of which hemisphere of the brain determines a person's actions. Even if left-handers are much rarer in percentage terms than right-handers, there is now an increased awareness of the special needs of people with a dominant left-handedness.

What is the handedness?

Handedness defines the hand with which a person performs most activities. This dominant hand is also evidence of which hemisphere of the brain determines a person's actions.

The handedness of a person means his dominant hand. This is the hand with which the person performs all difficult and demanding tasks - from writing to brushing their teeth to sewing or precise cutting. This is the right hand for the majority of people. Only around 10 to 15 percent of the population are left-handed, so they naturally have a handedness that makes the left hand the dominant hand.

This handedness is also different: While some left-handers only use the left hand, others use it for all activities except for writing. Equal use of both hands is also widespread.

Science cannot yet give an answer as to why handedness is so unevenly distributed among people. One thing is certain, however: handedness is also an expression of the dominant half of the human brain. Since this is a crossover effect, the right hand is controlled by the left hemisphere and the left hand by the right hemisphere. In right-handed people, the left hemisphere is considered to be dominant, in people with left-handedness the right hemisphere.

Function & task

Handedness has many advantages for us humans. The specialization of the two brain hemispheres can presumably be justified in evolutionary terms by the fact that this avoids competition between the two halves of the brain. Concentrating on one side also ensures that a particularly high level of precision can be achieved with manual tasks. Why the handedness in humans is predominantly expressed in the form of a dominant right hand cannot yet be scientifically explained.

The seldom dominance of the left hand is not accompanied by a mirror-inverted structure of the hemispheres in the brain. For example, in the majority of right- and left-handed people, the language center is in the left hemisphere. The handedness therefore has little effect on language development.On the other hand, what the handedness has an enormous effect are the motor skills: In right-handed people, motor skills are primarily controlled by the left hemisphere, in left-handed people by the right. Motor skills are responsible, for example, for skills such as writing or filigree manual work.

However, through targeted retraining, it can be possible to let individual skills, such as writing, be controlled by the non-dominant half of the brain. In this way, especially in the past decades, many naturally left-handed people were retrained to write with their right hand. However, this does not result in the complete reorganization of the brain.

The natural handedness is usually evident in many other activities - from sports to creative work to everyday routines. Neurological studies of people whose handedness has been artificially retrained show that the formerly dominant hemisphere is still responsible for planning and controlling movements. In the case of retrained left-handers, the right hemisphere remains responsible for organizing the movement sequences. The benefit of artificially retrained handedness is therefore controversial. When writing in German and similar languages, retraining sometimes has the advantage of avoiding tension and unclean writing, because left-handers often find it difficult in this area because people write from left to right. Retraining the handedness can, however, also become a burden.

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Illnesses & ailments

Left-handed people in particular have problems with their own handedness. They are often affected by tension when, for example, they have to use devices that are actually designed for right-handers. However, if the handedness is retrained to avoid such problems, other complaints can result. Left-handers who have been retrained to use the right hand as the dominant hand often complain of psychological problems. Symptoms such as poor concentration, memory disorders, sleep problems, fear of failure and even bed-wetting are attributed by psychologists to retraining in handedness. For this reason, retraining is no longer as popular as it used to be. Rather, left-handers today are encouraged to live out their innate handedness.

The declining importance of skills like handwriting is contributing to this trend. Because when typing on a keyboard or a touchscreen, the handedness is rather unimportant. At the same time, more and more products specially designed for left-handers are available. The spectrum ranges from left-handed scissors to folders and computer mice to garden utensils and tools. Thanks to these developments, their handedness is less and less an obstacle for left-handers.

A person's creativity also seems to be directly related to handedness. Because there is a disproportionately large number of creative people among left-handers. Experts see this as being due to the fact that the right brain hemisphere is responsible for creativity, body language, intuition and feelings. On the other hand, language and logic are located in the left hemisphere. Depending on the degree of individual handedness, this can be the explanation for a person's talents.