Let’s take a quick break from left handed guitars and talk about being left handed in general for a change. I’ve put together a list of 25 interesting scientific facts related to being a lefty, from the funny to the weird and everything in between.
One really interesting factoid that I picked up was from a scientist who believed that left handed people tended to be more independent as a result of having to adapt to a world which is largely built for right handed individuals. Here are a few more fascinating pieces of trivia related to being a lefty…
Scientific Left Handed Facts
- Make up between 5% and 10% of the population (depending on who you ask)
- More likely to have allergies
- More prone to migraines
- More likely to be insomniacs
- Use the right side of the brain the most
- Three times more likely to become alcoholics – the right side of the brain has a lower tolerance to alcohol!
- More likely to be on extreme poles of the intelligence scale
- Tend to reach puberty 4 to 5 months later than right handers
- More likely to suffer stuttering and dyslexia
- Twice as likely to be a man
- Better at 3D perception and thinking
- Better at multi-tasking
- Live on average 9 years less than right handed people
- 39% more likely to be homosexual
Interesting Left Handed Trivia
- Make especially good baseball players, tennis players, swimmers, boxers and fencers (almost 40% of the top tennis players are lefties)
- Celebrate left handed day once a year – August 13th – International Left Handers Day
- Draw figures facing to the right
- Recover from strokes faster
- More likely to pursue creative careers
- Of the seven most recent U.S Presidents, 4 have been left handed
- Left handed college graduates go on to become 26% richer than right handed graduates
- On a QWERTY keyboard there are 1447 English words typed solely with the left hand, whilst only 187 are typed with the right hand.
Bizarre Lefty Titbits
- Adjust to seeing underwater quicker
- Less able to roll their tongue than a righty
- Nails grow faster on the left hand than the right (fingerpicking advantage anyone?)
So we’ll live for nine years less than right handed people huh? Well the way I see it, that’s nine years less squandering my kids’ inheritance money, living in a nursing home where some teenager cleans up my drool and wipes my arse for me – that’s a plus in my book 
If you have any left handed trivia of your own leave a comment below! Also be sure to check out our list of 15 Crazy Left Handed Superstitions and Myths! You may also enjoy our article that looks at some of the theories that attempt to explain why some people are left handed Why Are People Left Handed?
Like they say facts but lol really….ok healthy grass is green FACT…..southpaws more likely so have allergies…that’s an opinion not a fact. On what basis was that formed….statistics that weren’t absolute!!! Anyways I’m not trying to bash the web page but I just don’t like these things any more there everywhere about every thing now. The truth is never in plain site! How bout leftys are very philosophical…because I am, does that make it true for all of us, well relative to their basis of knowledge yes we are all philosophical loll and we are all 22 years old and live in America.
No! i don’t think so that these facts are real because
i’m left-handed and those facts were not practised by me! I think the biggest fact about lefties are that we have less population than righties in this world and nothing more than this!
These factoids aren’t true or not because of which hand you favor. it’s which side of the brain is dominant. So these characteristics are more likely to develop in lefties because they are dominant characteristics of the right side of the brain. It may not hold true in individuals, but as an average.
I don’t personally think that there’s less left handed people in the population. My reasoning behind this is simple. The olde world left hander was considered to be evil and as a result people tended to force themselves or their kids into writing with their right hand.
I realise we’re not in the olde world anymore, however my own grandmama was initially right handed until her father hit her with a butter knife on the knuckles each time she wrote with her left hand. She now identifies herself as right handed. (Her left is still better though.) This isn’t ambidextrous as it’s not natural. However that’s one statistic who should be in the left handers camp but is manipulated into the right handers club.
Left handedness has been 30% or less of the population since the beginning of humans. Bias against left-handed people did not reduce their population. These statistics, though – maybe – false are pulled from places like large worksites and hospitals. If they know if you’re right handed or left handed, they keep that information. This allows a large amount of people being pulled from a hat and then ratios are made. Just because you are left handed and don’t show any of these traits doesn’t mean other left handed people don’t display these traits. Also, why are animals mostly right handed?
A lot of this is true for me. I am an insomniac, I have allergies, im said to be intelligent, draw faces towards the right, and my nails grow faster on the left. Most of these things apply to me and my friend. Doesn’t mean that these things occurred because I’m a lefty, but a lot of things match up.
I just found out that i was left handed. A lot of this is true for me.
No. i don’t think that , they all are true. I am a lefty. i am not suffering from diseases. positive things can be encouraged…
hey, i’m also a left-handed. i’m proud of being that. and i’m not a levophobia.
Hey, I’m a leftie who uses a right handed guitar and I am already good at finger picking (i have been playing for 5 months and im 15yo). But I suck in strumming tho. Does that count?
Switch to lefty guitar playing. Most likely you’ll never be a great strummer if you don’t
cool i’m left handed too!
Isn’t their another fact about handers to be VERY GOOD and TALENTED ARTISTS!!
proud to be lefty
Left handers live on average “nine years less” not because we die off quickly, more because back in the day it was not as widely accepted to be lefthanded, forcing natural lefthanders to become righthanders. This means less older lefthanders, probably skewing the mean age.