How Many Thoughts Does The Average Person Have Per Day?
How Many Thoughts Does The Average Person Have Per Day?
The human brain is one of the most complex organs in the body, and it is constantly active, even when we are not consciously aware of it. It is estimated that the brain processes millions of pieces of information every second, and this leads to a vast number of thoughts in a day. But how many thoughts do we have per day? The answer varies depending on the source.
How Many Daily Thoughts? Depends on the Source...
You've probably heard the term "a penny for your thoughts" before, but how many thoughts (and pennies) are we talking about? Well, the answer depends on the source. Estimates range from below one thousand into the tens of thousands. Let's examine some of those estimates now.
960-1,919 Thoughts Per Day
Kay Tye, an assistant professor at MIT, suggested that "a thought or a cognitive function usually lasts 30 seconds or a minute." Extrapolating this data to a full day (and assuming the average human is awake for 16 hours per day), that would suggest somewhere between 960 and 1,919 thoughts per day for the average person.
6,200 Thoughts Per Day
Tseng & Poppenk released a study in 2020 titled "Brain meta-state transitions demarcate thoughts across task contexts exposing the mental noise of trait neuroticism." From this data, they found a median rate of about 6.5 thought transitions per minute which remained fairly consistent over time. Extrapolated to a whole day (with roughly 16 hours of being awake and conscious), that comes out to about 6,200 thoughts per day.
50,000 Thoughts Per Day
Psychologist Scott Bea, PsyD, of the Cleveland Clinic has claimed that we can have about 50,000 thoughts per day: "We have about 50,000 spontaneous thoughts, images and ideas every day."
60,000 Thoughts Per Day
Scientist Herbert Specter did an experiment about 20 years ago while he was the head of molecular biology at the National Institute of Health. Deepak Chopra, M.D. mentioned Specter's study in his blog: "It's estimated that the average human has 60,000 thoughts a day. This is not surprising. What is disconcerting is that 90% of the thoughts you have today are the ones you had yesterday."
70,000 Thoughts Per Day
According to HealthyBrains, the average person has about 70,000 thoughts per day: "Your brain is a three pound universe that processes 70,000 thoughts each day using 100 billion neurons that connect at more than 500 trillion points through synapses that travel 300 miles/hour."
Additionally, the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging (LONI) Institute at USC also suggests that the average person has around 70,000 thoughts per day.
Okay... So What?
What's perhaps most interesting about the number of thoughts we have daily (regardless of the actual number) is that roughly 85% of what the average human worried about never came to fruition.
Robert Leahy, Ph.D., conducted research and wrote a book called The Worry Cure. In it, he explained his research regarding the study of worries and other things that people dwelled on in their everyday lives. During his studies, he found that the vast majority of what people worry about (85%) never came to pass.
Furthermore, of the 15% of the time that the worries did come to pass, 79% the worriers coped with the negative outcome better than they expected they would.
What Can We Learn Here?
Ultimately, regardless of the number of thoughts or worries we have, it's important to remember that the vast majority of the time, all of our concerns, worries, and anxieties about what might happen in the future never come to pass. Even when they do, people tend to overcome said troubles much better than they were expecting the lion's share of the time.
So, what's the lesson here? Take a breath, let yourself relax, and try not to worry so much. After all, most of your worries won't happen.