The question, “Which is your favourite body part?” can lead us down an interesting journey of self-exploration with humour and a bit of science. Before proceeding further, make a mental note of your own instinctive and immediate answer to “Which is your favourite body part?” Done that? Now, carry on reading…

Your favourite cuisine? Your favourite holiday destination? Your favourite actor? We answer questions like these often. We are also able to provide reasons for something or someone being our favourite. For our own bodies, we can often have something that we do not particularly like which is happy news for all those professionals who put, not just bread, but butter and jam too on their tables to satisfy our urge to fix what we do not like within us.

It struck me that we rarely ask “Which is your favourite body part?” but when we do, it opens interesting avenues to walk down.

If you find it useful, please share this with your family and friends. All the other 100+ articles are here.

If you would like detailed guidance to discreetly upgrade your life – health and wealth – read more at my mentoring page.

(NEW!) For some testimonials from around the world, go here.

Contents

The Origin of the Body Part Question
Identity and Body Part Preference
Organ Donation
My Favourite Body Part
Brain vs Mind
Centrality
Critical Need Not be the Crown
What Reasons Then?
1234Pleasure
1234Decision-Making for Future Pleasure
1234Future Pleasure from All Organs
Putting it All Together Top-Down
Parting Message

---

The Origin of the Body Part Question [top]

The question, “Which is your favourite body part?” popped into my head a few years ago. It struck me that in answering that question with some seriousness requires us to focus internally. The process of thinking about the answer creates a mental shift that can change the way you live the rest of your life.

Identity and Body Part Preference [top]

Your most preferred body part might be driven by your profession, your pleasures from life or perhaps your own life experiences and the praise you receive. A lady living life to the max after a kidney transplant might answer “kidney” when asked “Which is your favourite body part?” and while one pianist might answer “fingers” it could be that “ears” is the answer of another musician. If a man is praised for his beautiful kind eyes, they might well become his favourite body part.

Now, ask yourself again, “Which is my favourite body part? And, why?”

Organ Donation [top]

The possibility that, upon your demise, someone else could have a longer life with one or more of your organs, is such a wonderful reality. It struck me that those who do not have children can still, in a sense, create a new life through such a donation. I hope I never need a transplanted organ as it can be a very tough life post-transplant (perhaps a transplanted cornea of the eye has only an upside?). Although by the time I die, scientists are likely to have made progress with growing organs from scratch in labs, I hope you too will pledge to donate your organs upon your death.

My Favourite Body Part [top]

It will not surprise you to know that my favourite body part is the brain. And, specifically, my brain. If the brain is also your favourite body part then we will have some overlap in our set of reasons. My applied mathematician brother-in-law who works in the hedge fund world and had a successful liver transplant many years ago also says that his brain is his favourite and that “Without that, nothing else would function well.” In fact, without it, nothing would function at all!

Brain vs Mind [top]

Your brain is the physical organ responsible for many physiological functions, while your mind is the abstract concept representing consciousness and mental processes. Your brain and your mind are intimately connected, with your brain providing the biological basis for your mind’s functions and experiences. The distinction between your brain and your mind is a subject of ongoing exploration and debate in fields like neuroscience and philosophy. It is because of the interconnectedness that, when I say my brain is my favourite organ today, I include my mind. Your consciousness sits outside your body and mind – I do not include it when I say brain.

Centrality [top]

Everything you experience, good or bad, is experienced through your brain – you listen to music with your brain, not your ears. Undoubtedly, when you listen to a piece of beautiful music the ears are important for sending electrical signals (corresponding to the sound waves experienced) but without the brain to do the last part of interpretation for you, you would not experience any of that music.

Critical Need Not be the Crown [top]

Even if nothing would work without a functioning brain, that should not mean that the brain must be one’s favourite body part. Your 6-pack abs might still be your favourite body part. After all, just because something is critical for you to experience the world around you should not mean it has to be your favourite. The location of my home changes continuously around the year and around the world as I chase the sun. I love to have the sun shining on me for 11 if not for all 12 months of the year. However, I still prefer the moon to the sun while knowing that without the sun the moon would not shine and nor would there be any human life on Earth!

What Reasons Then? [top]

Like all other creatures, subject to the Unholy Trinity, I seek to maximise the total pleasure across my entire lifetime and minimize the pain i.e., negative pleasure.

Let us split that lifetime of pleasure into pleasure just now and pleasure at some point in the future.

Here are the 3 reasons that are pillars for holding up my choice of “my brain” being my favourite organ:

1. Pleasure
2. Decision-Making for Future Pleasure
3. Future Pleasure from All Organs

1. Pleasure [top]

You are in a specific environment. There are signals that your brain receives from the environment (touch, smell, sight etc.) and, depending on how it processes those signals, you experience some feeling or emotion. At this point, it is important to note, however, that when you bite into a yummy samosa on the streets of Mumbai, enjoy a sea swim in Goa while watching the sun setting, or do some forest bathing in London, you are not thinking “Oh, it’s all in my brain, really!”

Having said that, I may focus on many things within a day but at the back of my head (awful pun!) I always keep the importance of my brain being central to my life and its pleasures.

2. Decision-Making for Future Pleasure [top]

In addition to experiencing pleasure right now, decisions are being made in your brain that will then have your brain send out signals for some physical action. [No action is also action.] Your choices made today affect the future pleasure you will experience. A brain (and I include the mind) that understands the science and history of your world and can make good predictions about the future can potentially help you make choices that lead to more future pleasure and less future pain.

It is safe to assume that the sum total of all your future pleasures is highly dependent on the proper functioning of your brain, i.e., the health of your brain. Whether for processing input sensory signals, processing information you have accumulated and making the 35,000 decisions you make daily, or sending signals to the different parts of your body for action and function – the brain is key.

3. Future Pleasure from All Organs [top]

Your brain is as much a part of your body as your heart and your liver. If you have a lifestyle now that aims to keep your brain functioning well when you are 90 years old, then you will also be keeping your heart and liver functioning well at that time. In the opposite direction, one could be only somewhat confident about the reverse causality – a lifestyle now that keeps your heart strong and your liver healthy at 90 will probably lead to a brain that is also functioning well at that age. The reason for less conviction in this opposite direction is that you could be diabetic with a strong heart and enjoy using makeup or hair dye, but at 80 even if you have a strong heart, your brain could suffer from Alzheimer’s – because both diabetes and toxins in cosmetics are known drivers of that cognitive decline.

Because the health of your body will be driven by the decisions you make, keeping your brain functioning at its highest possible level ends up being the most important lifestyle goal you have. A lifestyle that aims to keep my brain functioning well even 50 years from today could lead to better eyesight and better skin along the way. As that lifestyle is tailored to eliminate the risk of Alzheimer’s it must focus on exercise as well, and so I could automatically have a strong heart and, as a bonus, perhaps a 6-pack!

Putting it All Together Top-Down [top]

When talking about Top-Down Investing we saw that spiritual wealth is at the top of our pyramid of wealth goals and using your physical, mental, and emotional wealth along with your external financial wealth to increase your spiritual wealth is most important. To keep those pathways working smoothly and effectively will require me to maintain the ability to make excellent decisions with my brain and mind which are part of my internal physical, mental, and emotional wealth.

Examples of those kinds of decisions would include…

I will process the pleasure from the (unhealthy but oh-so-yummy) samosa and remind myself that “it is only an occasional treat.” I will process the pleasure from the beautiful sunset view during a warm seawater swim and remind myself, “Come back to do it again tomorrow evening.” I will process the forest bathing experience and remind myself, “Come back to do it again later, even if it is raining.”

---

Parting Message [top]

I have answered and explained the reason for my answer to, “Which is your favourite body part?” It is quite likely that you had not thought about this question before today but now have an answer and reasoning that are meaningful to you. I would love to hear about them.

If everything you do is consistent with your core beliefs and desires, then a long and healthy life of joy is pretty much guaranteed to be yours. If you want to be guided in detail, you know how to reach me, and if you found this useful, please do share it with others.

Puru

Dr Purnendu Nath spends his waking hours focusing on helping individuals and organizations reach their goals, to make the world a better place. He speaks, writes and advises on topics such as finance, investment management, discipline, education, self-improvement, exercise, nutrition, health and fitness, leadership and parenting.