Can I train myself to be smarter?
Practicing a new and challenging activity is a good bet for building and maintaining cognitive skills. Your brain has the ability to learn and grow as you age — a process called brain plasticity — but for it to do so, you have to train it on a regular basis.
- Spend time reading every day. ...
- Focus on building a deeper understanding. ...
- Constantly question and seek clarification. ...
- Diversify your day. ...
- Review learned information. ...
- Keep track of your ideas. ...
- Allow yourself to change.
- Green, leafy vegetables. Leafy greens such as kale, spinach, collards, and broccoli are rich in brain-healthy nutrients like vitamin K, lutein, folate, and beta carotene. ...
- Fatty fish. ...
- Berries. ...
- Tea and coffee. ...
- Walnuts.
- staying physically active.
- getting enough sleep.
- not smoking.
- having good social connections.
- limiting alcohol to no more than one drink a day.
- eating a Mediterranean style diet.
In fact, working out raises your IQ far more than playing an online brain game. Plus, a Swedish study proved that cardiovascular fitness can actually raise your verbal intelligence by 50%. Said Maria Aberg, who led the study, "Increased cardiovascular fitness was associated with better cognitive scores.
The intellectual capacity of a smart person
Intelligence is directly tied to intellectual capacity. It's about being able to learn, remember, and use new information to solve problems and adapt to new situations.
- Eat right.
- Drink water.
- Get a good night's sleep.
- Take Omega-3.
- Meditate.
- Exercise.
- Learn a new skill.
- Socialize.
Intelligence is always work in progress so you are never too late to add to what you already know. The good news is, you don't have to learn everything in hours, days or even months. The focus should always be on progress. The simplest, most direct way to be smart is to build deep knowledge about things you care about.
- Exercise regularly. ...
- Get enough sleep. ...
- Meditate. ...
- Drink coffee. ...
- Drink green tea. ...
- Eat nutrient-rich foods. ...
- Play an instrument. ...
- Read.
- Coffee. Coffee is probably the most widely consumed nootropic beverage. ...
- Green tea. Green tea's caffeine content is much lower than coffee's. ...
- Kombucha. ...
- Orange juice. ...
- Blueberry juice. ...
- Green juices and smoothies. ...
- Turmeric lattes. ...
- Adaptogen lattes.
What drinks make your brain smarter?
- Coffee. 1/12. If you can't get through the morning without a java jolt, you're not alone. ...
- Green Tea. 2/12. ...
- Berry Juices. 3/12. ...
- Kombucha. 4/12. ...
- Green Smoothie. 5/12. ...
- Turmeric Tea. 6/12. ...
- Beetroot Juice. 7/12. ...
- Ginseng Tea. 8/12.
Blueberries are packed with antioxidants and flavonoids, which can help, improve your memory, your learning and your general cognitive skills. The flavonoids in blueberries may even help slow down the cognitive decline that is often seen in people with brain diseases like dementia or Alzheimer's.

Memory and other thinking problems have many possible causes, including depression, an infection, or medication side effects. Sometimes, the problem can be treated, and cognition improves. Other times, the problem is a brain disorder, such as Alzheimer's disease, which cannot be reversed.
They conclude that humans reach their cognitive peak around the age of 35 and begin to decline after the age of 45. And our cognitive abilities today exceed those of our ancestors. “Performance reveals a hump-shaped pattern over the life cycle,” report the authors in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Lack of Revision
Students generally tend to forget the content during the examination if he has burnt the midnight oil at the last minute. With a regular schedule of study and appropriate revision, the retaining capacity of the brain improves and the content is embedded in a much deeper manner.
The cause of the IQ decline is due to environmental factors, and not genetics, said Ole Rogeburg, a senior research fellow at Ragnar Frisch Centre and co-author of the study on IQ scores, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.
The appropriately named Marilyn vos Savant is in a class of her own. According to Guinness World Records, her astonishing IQ of 228 is the highest ever recorded. The daughter of an Italian and a German immigrant, vos Savant was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1946.
Does an individual's IQ change with age? An individual's IQ does not change with age. In other words: if you did an IQ test now and then another one in 10 years' time, your IQ score will probably be very similar. This is because IQ is always measured relative to other people your age.
So it's not hard to see why lazy people are considered to be less smart and successful in their careers. Fortunately, for all the “lazies” out there, science has discovered evidence that laziness might actually be a sign of intelligence.
They're open-minded.
Smart people don't close themselves off to new ideas or opportunities. Hammett writes that intelligent people are "willing to accept and consider other views with value and broad-mindedness," and that they are "open to alternative solutions."
What are signs of high intelligence?
- Good memory and thinking ability. ...
- Good attitude and hard-working nature. ...
- General and Tacit Knowledge. ...
- Good language proficiency and reasoning skills. ...
- Reliable decision-making. ...
- Trusted by others. ...
- High Creativity. ...
- High Achievements.
- Computer shortcuts. Learn the ABCs of computer shortcuts. ...
- Microsoft Excel. ...
- Unsend emails. ...
- How to tie a tie. ...
- Breathe. ...
- Think before you speak. ...
- Be a better listener. ...
- Recover after forgetting someone's name.
- Assign meaningfulness to things. ...
- Learn general and specific later. ...
- Recite out loud in your own words until you don't need to refer to your notes.
- Teach someone else. ...
- Use memory devices.
Neuroscientists find that different parts of the brain work best at different ages. Scientists have long known that our ability to think quickly and recall information, also known as fluid intelligence, peaks around age 20 and then begins a slow decline.
IQ peaks at around 20-years-old and later effort will not improve it much beyond this point, research finds. The complexity of people's jobs, higher education, socialising and reading all probably have little effect on peak cognitive ability.
Smaller improvements are still noticeable from age 20 until what the researchers described as a “peak” begins at age 35. The peak lasts until roughly age 45, at which point chess skill – and, the study theorizes, overall mental performance – begins a marked decline.
Challenge your brain by breaking your routines, reading, solving puzzles, and seeking new experiences to increase your IQ. Supplement your efforts by getting plenty of protein, vitamin B, and rest, all of which enhance your brain's ability to remain alert. The right diet and lifestyle can do wonders.
- Get Physical Exercise. Physical exercise promotes the flow of oxygen, glucose, and nutrients to your brain. ...
- Play Dual N-Back. ...
- Play Chess. ...
- Continue Lifelong Education. ...
- Have a Mentally Challenging Career. ...
- Meditate. ...
- Try Neurofeedback. ...
- Do the Mensa IQ Challenge.
- Activity: Play games and solve puzzles.
- Activity: Take creatine supplements (but not too much)
- Activity: Put down the steak.
- Activity: Play a social game like Words with Friends.
- Activity: Try yourself.
- Activity: Exercise.