For one, you’re probably skinnier
By Lindsay Champion, PureWow
As introverts, it can be easy to envy the social skills and joie de vivre of the extroverts around you. But these three introvert-only health benefits are a reminder: Extroverts are also probably a teeny-tiny bit jealous of you, too.
As introverts, it can be easy to envy the social skills and joie de vivre of the extroverts around you. But these three introvert-only health benefits are a reminder: Extroverts are also probably a teeny-tiny bit jealous of you, too.
YOU HAVE A LOWER RISK OF OBESITY
Yep, according to studies, this is because introverts are much more likely than extroverts to rely on internal cues, which can help prevent overeating, versus external cues. For example, researchers at the Cornell Food and Brand Lab found that when children were asked to serve themselves cereal in a large breakfast bowl, extroverts gave themselves 33 percent more than introverts because they tuned in to an external cue (the bowl size) versus an internal one (like how hungry they actually were).
YOU ALSO PROBABLY GET MORE SLEEP
Another reason it pays to cherish downtime. Since extroverts tend to be social butterflies, they’re much more likely to experience sleep deprivation, according to a study published in the scientific journal SLEEP. But this is less about the frequency of going out and more about personality traits. Case in point: Apparently, the same brain regions that make extroverts so alert are the ones that cause them to exhibit signs of fatigue the next day. Introverts, on the other hand, are immune to this because they already have a high level of activity (aka cortical arousal) going on in these parts of the brain--social situation or not.
YOU’RE MORE TUNED IN TO YOUR SENSES
Remember what we said about cortical arousal? It’s this high level of brain activity that makes introverts hyper-sensitive to outside stimuli like sights and sounds (and probably why they tend to feel overwhelmed in social situations). But being extra tuned in to your senses can be a good thing, too. It means you know exactly what to do--and where to go--to hear yourself think. For example, the yoga class that sparks creativity, according to studies.
