How you can raise your intelligence. Really.

It’s easier than you might think and totally within the realm of possibility. Luckily, science has shown us we’re not stuck with what we’re born with. There are many ways we can improve our brainpower, and some of them are amazingly fun.

Get out of your rut and learn something new

One of the top ways to grow new brain cells (a good thing, fights aging) is to learn something brand new. Play a musical instrument for the first time, learn a new language, take a college course on something that interests you, visit a new place, or start a new hobby. All of these activities build new pathways in your brain and that’s a good thing.

This is especially important right now as many people have hunkered down, stayed home, and perhaps even shut down a little as a result of the economy. Please … for your brain’s sake … turn off the TV, and find a new activity that you can get immersed in and that gives you pleasure.

You might sense your brain struggling a little when you feed it something new. That’s normal; you’re just feeling the extra resources it takes to build these new pathways, and your brain is designed to resist this. That’s why you don’t like change (no one does).

Do the new thing anyway.

Don’t give up.

Working your working memory

Your working memory is the part of your brain you use when you need to remember a phone number. It only lasts a few seconds, and most people have a capacity to remember 2-3 things (common myth is that we can remember 7 things, but this has been debunked).

It makes sense when you think about it that your working memory is pretty much the bottleneck of your whole thinking/learning process. So if we can expand this bottleneck, then we end up expanding our intelligence.

How do we do that? There are many ways. One of the best ways is to play chess, believe it or not. The act of memorizing all of your piece’s positions and planning out your moves several chess boards in advance is excellent brain food.

Another tip is to get your working memory and your long term memory working together in concert so that your working memory acts like it’s expanded to remembering far more than a few things. What’s really happening is you’re tapping into your long term memory and leveraging what you already know while learning new things.

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Stop stressing

There are many activities you can pursue to improve your intelligence, and there are also lots of things we need to stop doing that kills brain cells. I probably don’t need to mention obvious ones like alcohol, and drugs. Stress may be a non-obvious one. The chemicals created by stress actually kill brain cells, so it makes sense to work on lowering your stress level as much as possible.

Learn to relax (biofeedback is great for learning if you don’t know how), take yoga, do meditation, exercise, and sleep. All of these things will help you to lower your stress.

Coming into focus

One last area that can yield amazing brain benefits is to learn how to manage those random, crazy thoughts that run through your mind. Buddhists call this the monkey mind. If you have negative thoughts running rampant through your mind all day, one of the best ways to quiet the thoughts is by practicing meditation.

Start with the easiest form which gets you to focus on your breathing. Let go of any thoughts that come into your mind and gently keep putting your focus back on the breath. Just like exercise, it takes constant practice, and just like exercise, you will begin to see beneficial changes in a matter of weeks.

Try some of these ideas for not only great brain health but to experience increased brainpower and intelligence.