Many people assume that intelligence is determined by your DNA, and while your genetics can affect your IQ, it has been proven that you can increase (or decrease!) your intelligence by changing your daily habits and exercising your brain to become a quicker thinker.
If you’ve been wondering how you can boost your intelligence and maintain a healthy brain, then read on.
Learn to Play an Instrument
Learning to play an instrument can seem daunting or even slightly juvenile, especially if you’re older in age. But the benefits of learning to play an instrument have been demonstrated time and time again in scientific research. Not only does learning to play an instrument often help to improve your manual dexterity, but it can also improve your memory, concentration and mathematical abilities.
Keep Up to Date with Current Events
It can be all too easy to give up checking the news and stay hidden away from current events. Oftentimes, the news can seem depressing and detached from your everyday life, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t important to stay up to date with what’s going on in the world. Not only will this help to improve your social skills by giving you more topics to talk about, but exposing yourself to new and interesting information helps to build more connections in your brain to improve your overall intelligence. If keeping up to date with the news is proving difficult for you, try to find a variety of different and interesting news sources to keep you engaged, such as an online news site like Beacon Transcript.
Keep Your Brain Stimulated, Even When Relaxing
While it is important to get some much-needed relaxation time, oftentimes we are prone to fill our free time with activities that don’t benefit us at all, and potentially even make us less smart, such as watching TV or scrolling through social media. While these activities aren’t detrimental in moderation, consider switching it up by incorporating a mind game into your down time. Apps like lumosity provide stimulating mind games to keep your brain engaged and increase your overall intelligence. If you are looking for something even more productive and beneficial, try duolingo, an app that helps you learn a language, which has been shown to improve intelligence.
Get Enough Sleep
Getting enough sleep is crucial to maintaining brain function and improving intelligence. Lack of sleep can severely affect your cognitive abilities, as well as leading to a decline in your psychological health, and can even result in hallucinations. Studies have shown that sleep deprived participants perform worse overall and score lower on IQ tests than participants who slept well.
Eat Healthily and Exercise
The final tip to increase your intelligence is to make sure you eat healthily and exercise regularly. Eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables and grains provides all the necessary nutrients and minerals to improve your cognitive functioning and keep your brain working at peak performance. Regular exercise has been shown to boost intelligence and maintain a healthy brain into old age.