Fell off on the way home last night and split open elbow on my right (dominant) side. I am now reduced to nodding and shaking my head to brush my teeth as I have to hold my toothbrush in my left hand. It is not particularly efficient and quite painful as I also have a sore neck from the fall (helmet is now in the bin in 2 bits).
So why do we favour 1 side so much more than the other?
Toothbrush is just the tip of the iceberg... Wait till you have a w**k 😀
I think a lot has to do with practice. Couple of years ago I shatterd my wrist on my dominant side. Since then I use my left for a lot of stuff I can't do with my right anymore. Perhaps not as well as I used to but the improvement in dexterity and strength in my left hand has been amazing.
The practice thing is true.
I'm right handed, but strangely, I'm pretty good at using the computer mouse with my left hand!
@ thatscold, I am reverse too, left handed but use my right for mouse (was useful when I broke my wrist). I also eat and play the guitar rigth handed so I guess it's either what you learn as you grow up or just random 😀
i clean my teeth which ever hand is not needed to pick up the tooth paste.
a schoolfriend of mine had to learn to write lefthanded as he electrocuted his right hand and suffered partial paralysis in the hand. writing was shite though!!
You can practice with your other hand and get it to work properly. I did this when younger cos I was annoyed and perplexed as to why my hand wouldn't do what I wanted.
I suspect it's because you pick a side when you are a baby and then that side gets all the practice and motor skills development. Just look at toddlers where neither of their hands have had much chance to develop.
For instance, I type fine with both hands equally. I used to play brass instruments using the valves with my right hand, then I switched to the French Horn where you have to use your left - not too hard. Also playing the guitar requires a lot of dexterity with your left hand. It can be done 🙂
A friend of mine was left-handed but learned to use the mouse with right hand, because she was fed up of having to move it all the time on public computers.
Another one - remember old skool computer games? I used to play a vertical scrolling shoot-em-up (Xenon in fact) which required the fire button to be hammered very quickly. So I switched to steering with my left hand so I could fire with my right - weird at first but I got the hang of it, and played every game like that.