r/psychology • u/mvea MD-PhD-MBA | Clinical Professor/Medicine • Mar 03 '25

Chewing different materials affects the brain and a new study found that chewing on wood (wooden tongue depressors), compared to chewing gum, led to a significant increase in a natural brain antioxidant called glutathione, and better performance on memory tasks.

https://www.psypost.org/chewing-wood-may-boost-memory-and-brain-antioxidants-study-finds/
2.0k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

95 comments sorted by

View all comments

240

u/YoYoYi2 Mar 03 '25

The teachers that gave out to me for chewing pencils can burn in hell.

54

u/deepasleep Mar 03 '25

Well that paint was probably not very good for you.

I shudder to think how many years I shaved off my life chewing on pens and pencils as a kid.

13

u/Idont_thinkso_tim Mar 03 '25

Ew not the yellow ones you need the plain smoothed wood pencils.

4

u/HavingSixx Mar 03 '25

If you eat a bunch of ink remover I think you’ll get some years back 

8

u/Emergency_West_9490 Mar 03 '25

Were they chewing you out? 

3

u/Interesting-Fig-8869 Mar 03 '25

they have nothing else to live for, quite literally aha