If you’re left-handed or sinistral as left-handedness is known, you might wonder why right-handed people dominate the world. Part of that comes from tradition and superstition, but the largest reason is that eighty-seven to ninety percent of the world’s population is right-handed. That leaves left-handers at ten to thirteen percent of the people. Needless to say, that percentage difference can leave left-handers feeling awkward, backward, or at a disadvantage.
Please don’t fret, fellow left-handers. We do have some advantages over our right-handed peers.
List of Left-Handed Advantages
1. They pass a driving test the first time more easily
Left-handers have a higher success rate when passing driving tests than their right-handed peers. Fifty-seven percent of left-handers pass their driving test the first time around. Right-handed people come in at forty-seven percent. Two of the world’s best drivers, Ayrton Senna and Valentino Rossi, are left-handed.
2. Male left-handers can make more money
According to studies, left-handed males who went to college earn thirteen to fifteen percent more than their right-handed counterparts. It’s unsure what causes this difference. The gap is significant enough that it statistically can’t be an anomaly. The odd thing is that the results are different for left-handed women. They earn five percent less than their right-handed women peers.
3. They are faster typists
Left-handed typists can type up to 3,400 words on the standard QWERTY keyboard. Compared to those who only use their right hand at four hundred and fifty words. This is because the majority of words are typed with the left hand on the qwerty keyboard. Only about four hundred words are typed with the right hand. Lefties are bound to be faster since they are using their dominant hand. It makes me wonder if the inventor of the qwerty keyboard, Christopher Latham Sholes was left-handed.
4. They have better problem-solving skills
Mensa’s statistics state that twenty percent of its members are left-handed, which indicates that they are more intelligent. There are many exceptional left-handers, including five of the last presidents. Left-handers have been Nobel prize winners and show that lefties dominate the world much more than their ten percent of the population suggests. No one is sure why left-handers seem smarter than their right-handed peers. One reason is that left-handers are challenged from the beginning of their lives, making them natural problem solvers.
5. They are better at some sports
This particular addition to our list leaves me out. I was never good at sports, and I’ve never been a fan of sports.
The research concludes left-handed people are overrepresented in a database of 10,000 boxers and martial arts fighters. It also shows left-handers had a higher win percentage. Along with boxing and martial arts, left-handers seem to have advantages in table tennis, baseball, cricket, and fencing.
Most players are right-handed and don’t usually have to deal with left-handers. When they do, it can throw them off.
In baseball, left-handed players face the first base, which means they don’t have to turn to run the bases. They can also keep a closer watch on first base when pitching. So, stealing a base might not work with a left-handed pitcher. There is also an advantage when they play the outfield because they wear their glove on the right hand.
In tennis, a left-hand serve will create problems for a right-handed opponent
6. They excel in creative and visual arts
Left-handed people are more likely to succeed than right-handed people in art, music, and architecture. All the proof they need is in these names, Picasso, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Albert Einstein, and Beethoven. Each one of these men was left-handed.
A specialist in neurobehavioral genetics at UCLA, Daniel Geschwind, investigated this. He found that lefties use both sides of the brain when they deal with language. They also use the right side of their brain for creativity, which can bring many opportunities. However, this is the only scientific information on why left-handers excel in this area.
7. They are better at multitasking
One advantage of being left-handed is that your brain thinks more quickly than it would have to, compared to right-handers. As left-handers, we must learn to adapt to a right-handed world. In everyday life, we may find it easier to multitask and deal with large, unorganized information streams. Researchers found that the brain’s left and right sides speak to each other more quickly in left-handed people. These abilities are better in those with more dominance in their left-handedness. The swiftness in which the two sides of the brain happen is what makes left-handers better at multitasking. Another thing that may be related to both sides of the brain communicating faster is that left-handers have a great chance of being geniuses or having higher IQs.
8. They Have Some Health Perks
Left-handed stroke victims recover faster. The reason for this is unclear. However, some think it’s due to left-handers having to strengthen both sides of the brain to survive in a right-handed world. Lefties have an easier time using their non-dominant hand, so it’s less complicated for them to recover from a stroke that damaged one part of their brain.
Lefties also have lower rates of arthritis and ulcers, a study in Laterality, published in 2005, stated. They used a sample of over a million people.
9. They are good at complex reasoning
Left-handed people are good at complex logic. This finding has resulted in many left-handed Nobel Prize winners. Writers, artists, musicians, architects, and mathematicians are among those winners. The American Journal of Psychology states that left-handers are better at divergent thinking.
10. Different Thinking
In a 2009 Stanford University study, the participants were more likely to choose images in the same column as their handedness. This result in this study leads to the fact that left-handed people may think differently than their right-handed peers.
Those who are left-handed seem to think that the right stuff is on the left and wrong is right.
The American Psychological Association seems to think that left-handed people are less likely to have brains that specify certain cognitive functions to each side of their brains.
In lefties, information may pass quicker between brain hemispheres, allowing left-handed people to form different answers to problems and develop unconventional ideas.
Right-handers may find specific ideas too radical, but left-handers might take to the ideas and come up with a way to develop and solve any problems that come with an argument, while the right-hander might skip right over it because of the way their minds work. This comes from Michael Corballis, Ph.D., a psychologist at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
11. Unique Advantages
Left-handed people adjust to seeing underwater more easily
Being left-handed allows them to adjust to seeing underwater faster than their right-handed peers. Not that this is a talent most of us need often. Scientists aren’t sure why this is a left-handed talent, but they feel it has something to do with the different way a left-hander thinks compared to right-handers.
They spend less time standing in lines
While right-handed people usually head to the right to find a line at the store, left-handers go left. With more right-handed people in the world than left-handed, it stands to reason that lefties will get through a line faster. At the grocery store or big box stores anyway.
Lefties are better at playing video games
The traits making lefties better thinkers and multitaskers also influence the way they play video games. Lefties seem to be able to handle large amounts of stimuli better than righties.
Lefties may face challenges better
Left-handed people may face challenges better because, for one thing, they’ve had to deal with challenges from the beginning. Just sitting down at dinner can be a challenge for a left-hander.
The Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology (2013) tested 47 right-handers and 50 left-handers on a series of executive-related tasks.
The New Yorker reported that the results suggest left-handed people have better mental flexibility, which can help them adapt to new situations.
Conclusion
Well, there you have it, our list of advantages that left-handers have over their right-handed peers. I tried to cover the most significant of these and then added just a few more obscure benefits that lefties have. I’ve been left-handed for just over fifty years, and I’ve found we are a unique bunch and not just because we’re only ten percent of the world’s population, but because we do appear to think a lot differently than our right-handed peers. What about you? Do you have some skill that you feel is from your left-handedness? We’d love to hear from you. Please leave comments below, let us know what you think.
I’m left-handed and I think differently than most people that are in 6th grade because I have faced challenges my whole life but those were mental, and I don’t even want to get into that but anyways I was interested in looking up info on my left handedness. The reason is that I see things differently than everyone I know and I’m a 4.0 student which is pristine, but my brother was like this even though he is right-handed he was also pristine but never a 4.0. By the way my name is Braydon. P.S. it’s not spelled like Brayden