9 Disadvantages of Being Left-Handed

Left-handers face challenges from the moment they are born. From having to use products made for right-handed people to thinking differently than our right-handed peers, life is different for us. Today we’re making a list of disadvantages left-handed people face.

 1. The Side of Your Hand is Always Dirty

Try writing with a pen or pencil and not come away with ink or graphite smeared all down the side of your hand. Since Lefties must drag their hand across the page to write from left to right, we slide our hand right through what we just wrote.

 2. Getting Through A School Day Like Normal

Left-handed students would love to make it through a day of school like their right-handed classmates. However, that is impossible. Most desks are for the right-handed student, especially those funky ones where the desk is attached to the chair, and the whole school might have two left-handed desks. Not fun. Try the cafeteria tables. A leftie has to find a corner where their left arm faces outward at the end of the table. Otherwise, they find themselves elbowing the person sitting next to them, or they tuck their left arm in so tight they can’t use their utensils.

 3. Their Worst Enemy is Scissors

If you’re left-handed, I’m sure you’ve had the horrible battle with scissors. I remember using scissors in school. My cutouts never came out clean. They frayed around the edges, and the paper looked like I’d crumpled it up to throw in the trash rather than turning it in. When I got older, I used those scissors explicitly made for the comfort of the right-handed. I hated cutting anything with scissors then. Finally, I bought a pair of Fiskars made for left-handers. I’ve had them for over thirty years. They could stand a sharpening, but they are still a great pair of scissors and are comfortable for my left hand.

 4. Female Left-handers May Get Paid Less

This study stated that left-handed women make about five percent less than their right-handed peers. Left-handed males, in this study, made fifteen percent more than their right-handed co-workers.

 5. Studies Don’t Want Them

Northwestern University psychology professor Robin Nusslock stated in the Wall Street Journal that many studies on how the brain works prohibit left-hand dominant people from participating. Researchers exclude left-handed people because they know left-handers’ brains work differently. They want their results to reflect most of the population with accuracy, and including lefties would throw off their results.  Articles that leave out ten percent of the population won’t be accurate. If you are left-handed and reading an article about how the brain works, you won’t get the information you need because our brains work differently from right-handed peoples’ brains.

 6. They Scare Easily

In a study at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, right- and left-handed people watched clips from Silence of the Lambs. When done, they were to talk about the scarier scenes in the movie. Lefties gave more splintered and inaccurate accounts than their right-handed peers. Scientists believe that left-handed people have a lower resistance to fear because the brain’s right side in a left-handed person is dominant. I don’t know about that. I don’t find most scary movies scary. I also find psychological thriller like Silence of the Lambs draws me in. I’m one of those lefties that don’t scare easily. I’ve been watching horror and science fiction since I was about five years old. Blame my dad.

 7. They Anger Faster

A paper in The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease stated that left-handed and ambidextrous people’s brain hemispheres interact more than right-handed people’s. That sounds great, but it means that left-brain logic and right-brain emotion mix more than average. What this means is that 90% of the population or right-handers might deal with a situation in a calm manner will set off a left-handed person. It all comes down to our brains working differently than right-handers’ brains.

 8. You May Have Restless Sleep

Left-handed people have a higher chance of suffering from PLMD or Periodic Limb Movement Disorder. This disorder causes involuntary and spasmodic kicks and jerks in the limbs during sleeping. People who have this can have disturbed sleep, which sometimes rouses them from their slumber.  

This study found that PLMD originates in the brain, according to Dawn Alita R. Hernandez, a professor of medicine at the University of Toledo. It appears left-handed people suffer from sleep disorders because their brain works differently.

 9. They Feel Down More Often

Do you have a hard time moving away from an argument or negative situation? It could be the way your brain is wired. A study in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease found that left-handers hold onto negative emotion because they need longer to process their feelings. So, again, it’s because we are wired differently than right-handers. I believe this. I have a truly horrible time letting go of negative things that happen. This thing we do by holding onto the negative may make us feel low, emotionally. I have to dwell, analyze, relive, and then do it all again. It can take a day and sometimes weeks before I can let something like that go.

Conclusion

The disadvantages listed above are the top ones I found for left-handers. There were some more obscure disadvantages, but some more research is needed before I’d list them. The biggest one was that it appears left-handers are more susceptible to mental issues. From depression to schizophrenia, these may be something to look at later. I hope this list at least entertains you and at most informs you. You may even recognize these in yourself. Maybe some of you have other disadvantages you’ve found in your own lives. If so, let us know by commenting below. We’d love to hear from you.