10 Things You Should Know Before You Face Yourself

The human face can reportedly create more than 5,000 different and distinct expressions. A smile is the most easily recognized: In studies, participants have identified a smile from up to 147 feet away. Surprise is the next most recognized facial expression.
Read the following; then look in the mirror: Is that a smile or surprise?

1. The human head typically weighs between five and 11 pounds, or roughly one-quarter to half of the average weight of a whole, commercially produced watermelon.

2. The typical, non-balding person loses 60 to 100 strands of hair each day. Blondes have more hair (146,000 follicles), followed by people with black hair (110,000), brown (100,000) and finally, redheads (86,000).
3. Researchers have identified 14 basic human nose shapes. You typically breathe between 12 and 20 times per minute; mainly through one nostril at a time.
4. You can’t breathe and swallow at the same time, unless you’re a nursing baby or a non-human primate, in which case you probably can’t read this.
5. You probably blink around 15 times per minute, though there’s a lot of individual variation. Women tend to blink twice as many times as men do. When you blink, the brain’s visual processing area temporarily turns off so you don’t notice the fact that things go briefly dark 20,000 times a day.
6. Your ears secrete more earwax when you are afraid.
7. When you yawn, the stretching of the jaw increases blood flow into the neck, face and head. The deep intake of breath forces downward flow of spinal fluid and blood from brain. Air breathed into the mouth cools these fluids, ultimately cooling and refreshing the brain. Yawning is one of the first things humans learn to do. It’s contagious, and can be triggered by just thinking about yawning. The average yawn lasts six seconds.
8. Your eyes are the same size from birth. Noses assume their overall shape by age 10 and grow to age 15-17 in females, 17-19 in men. After that, the nose lengthens and droops due to the endless tug of gravity and gradual breakdown of collagen and elastin in skin.
9. That vertical groove between your nose and upper lip is called the philtrum, formed when nasomedial and maxillary tissues meet during embryonic development. It has no known functional purpose. The name derives from the Greek philtre, meaning “love potion.” The Greeks believed this little bit of biological real estate it was among the body’s most erogenous zones.
10. When not in use, your tongue rests either at the top or bottom of your mouth. One small study found that the tongues of native English speakers tend to rest at the top.