The idea that intelligence is limited, it depends as you were born with it and it cannot change is not accurate. Intelligence does not only depend on our genes but also on the experiences we have. Imagine a child born with a low IQ that afterwards is encouraged by her parents to many cognivite functioning games. There are lot of experiments done on this and the results were that intelligence may change through life depending on the practices, trainings and experiences we have. In the following, we prepared some useful ways to improve your intelligence and to get smarter, but keep in mind that it requires you to do it in routine. Here are the 6 ways to improve your intelligence:

1. Get hungry

The moment we get hungry our brain activity begins to modify from the normal (homeostatic) state. First of all, our hormone levels rise to energize us, our mental abilities increase,and our strenght, goes to the top. Imagine the time when you were really hungry. Were you tired or lazy? No – your senses were on hyper-alert. We are always mentally sharp in the absence of the food; in the absence of the food, our mind becomes clear. That’s why within the first ours after we wake up from sleeping, we have better concentration to study. The idea that food make you focus better is completely wrong. Plato and Socrates fasted for 7 to 10 days to obtain physical and mental capacity. Pythagoras fasted 40 days before his examinations at Alexandria and required his students to fast before entering his classes.

2. When you face with a problem, always ask ‘why’

This may not apply only if you face a problem, but whenever you read something, instead of just passing it and believing everything you read to be true, stop and ask questions like ‘how and why’. Asking such questions gets the brain working on to find an answer and increases your curiosity to learn, analyze and research.

3. Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you


Gaining perspective from another person helps our brain consider new solutions and new techniques.
When you talk with people who are smarter than you, you start holding yourself to higher standard, you get exposed to new ideas and new ways of thinking, you learn as much as you can and you become more open-minded.

 

For instance, if you’re interested in philosophy, you can join philosophy discussion groups on Facebook.

4. Follow intellectual forums on the internet.

You may like spending time on the internet, that’s okay because even then you can find ways to become smarter. Follow intellectual forums on the internet such as Quora, or particular discussion groups on Facebook depending on the areas you are more interested in so that you can participate to the discussions while also sharing your own ideas. This is important for your cognitive functioning because every different idea will help you to question things thus to operate your problem-solving skills, and in these environments everyday you are going to learn something new.

 

5.Play instruments

 

Playing instruments is especially important because it requires you to use both of your hands. There is such a thing called brain lateralization which supports the idea that the right and the left brain works differently, and your dominant hand that you’re always using it is associated with one of your brain hemisphare (Right handedness is mostly linked with left hemisphere whereas left handedness is mostly linked with right hemisphere). Playing an instrument requires you to use both of your hands which means as a result you’re not going to use limited capacity of a particular hemisphere but instead it will broaden to the other hemisphere too. If you play one already, commit to practicing everyday.

 

6. Read Books

 

Computers, televisions, iPads and cell phones all encourage us to have short attention spans, however, smart people have long attention spans that enable them to focus on to certain things for a long period of time. Reading books will help you with this. Try to read everyday and to finish a book for a week, in that case in a year you will read 52 books.

 

Additional ways to improve your intelligence include:

  • Not surrounding yourself with people who think like you do
  • Solving math problems, quizzes, puzzles
  • Playing games like chess and sudoku
  • Watch TED Talks
  • Meditation
  • Painting and Writing
  • Sleeping right
  • Eating Healthy

 

By Nefise Saban.

Copyright: Dream Humanity