From Hard Thinking to Hardly Thinking

Neuroscience says thinking burns more calories. [bold added]

Better than texting for young brains.

The brain—unlike any other part of the body—runs exclusively on the sugar glucose, and strenuous cognitive activities require more glucose than simple ones, says [Albany professor Ewan] McNay, who has studied how the brain uses energy to perform work. During a difficult memorization task, for example, the parts of your brain involved in memory formation will start consuming more energy, but other brain areas will show no such increase.

The energy expended from hard thinking isn't great, though:

A person doing cognitively challenging work for eight hours would burn about 100 more calories than a person watching TV or daydreaming for the same amount of time.

Over the long term an additional 100 calories per day does make a difference in weight control, about as much as walks around the block or foregoing one cookie.

In high school I would lose weight during chess tournaments (yes, I was a member of the team); long bouts of mental concentration, coupled with not eating, had that effect.

Over decades in corporate financial analysis I would also drop a few pounds during the October-December planning season, as well as whenever a potential acquisition arose; intense mental work late into the night and weekends does that to a person. (I turned 40--probably a good thing in retrospect--before free food became an inducement to work late.)

Except for a few consulting gigs, I don't spend much time thinking, which readers of this humble journal will say is obvious. It also explains why I've been putting on weight lately...