The human brain is an amazing organ. It is the most accessible and at the same time the most complex “device” in the Universe.

We offer you several techniques that will help “pump up” your brain.

Workout

• Aerobic exercise. These are exercises where oxygen is main source energy. Aerobic training strengthens muscles, normalizes blood circulation, and relieves stress. And a recent study from the University of Illinois also showed that “oxygen” exercise has a beneficial effect on the brain. Just 30 minutes of training a day, and cognitive function improves by 5-10%.

• Strength exercises. Are jocks stupid? No matter how it is! Lifting weights not only builds muscle, but can also increase levels of something called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, a protein responsible for protecting neurons in the brain.

• Music. Another study found that the brain begins to work better if you listen to your favorite music during exercise. So let's move on to genius.

• Dancing. This is a great way to keep fit, improve flexibility and coordination. Moreover, according to Daniel J. Amen, MD, neurophysiologist and neuropsychiatrist, author of the book “Great Brain at Any Age,” dancing is also an excellent thinking simulator. After all, when dancing, we use different parts of the brain.

• Golf. It is not for nothing that it is called an intellectual game: calculating the force of a blow and the trajectory of the ball is not as simple as it seems at first glance. In addition, doctors believe that golf stimulates the sensory cortex of the brain.

• Yoga. The ancient Indian spiritual-physical practice, it turns out, not only has a beneficial effect on health, but also improves memory, the ability to self-control and long-term concentration. At least, this is the conclusion reached by scientists from the University of Illinois, led by Neha Gothe.

Nutrition

• Water. The body is 80% water. Every organ needs it, but the brain in particular. In the course of another scientific experiment, it was found that people who are thirsty cope worse with logical problems than those who drank half a liter of water before testing.

• Omega-3. Unsaturated fatty acid super useful. Including for the brain and nervous system. They provide a rapid influx of energy necessary to transmit impulses from cell to cell, which, in turn, increases mental abilities and helps to quickly retrieve the necessary information from memory “reservoirs”. There is a lot of Omega-3 in fish, walnuts and linseed oil.

• Greenery. Spinach and other greens contain folic acid, vitamins E and K. These substances prevent the development of dementia (dementia). In addition, the antioxidants contained in greens protect the brain from stroke, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.

• Apples. They contain quercetin, a substance that has antispasmodic, anti-inflammatory and other beneficial effects. But the main thing for us is that quercetin protects brain cells from damage, and therefore prevents the impairment of its cognitive properties. Most of it is in apple peel.

• Nuts. They are rich in protein, and protein supplies the brain with energy. In addition, nuts are rich in lecithin, the lack of which in the body can cause multiple sclerosis and other nervous diseases.

• Vitamins. B9 (citrus fruits, bread, beans, honey) and B12 (liver, eggs, fish) - without these substances the normal functioning of the body is impossible. The first is necessary to create and maintain healthy condition new cells, and the second reduces the symptoms of senile dementia and mental confusion.

• Eggs. What came first: the chicken or the egg? Perhaps you will find the answer to this philosophical question if you eat both. After all, chicken yolk is a source of choline, and it helps develop the cognitive functions of the brain, that is, the ability to understand, cognize, study, realize, perceive and process.

• Milk. Children, drink milk and you will be healthy! After all, milk is calcium, which strengthens bones. In addition, scientists have found that a glass of milk a day improves memory and other mental abilities.

• Coffee. I'm not kidding. Scientific research has found that caffeine can improve attention and short-term memory. And of course, it will add vigor.

• Chocolate. When you go to an exam, eat a chocolate bar. Everyone does this, but few people know why. Or rather, few people know how chocolate makes us smarter. It's all about glucose and flavonols. Sugar speeds up reactions and improves memory, while flavonols stimulate other cognitive skills.

Schedule

• Deep sleep. We have already talked about how important sleep is for normal functioning. Let’s just repeat - in order for the brain to move, you need to sleep at least seven hours a day.

• Nap. Taking a nap is beneficial. This is an indisputable fact. The question is how much? The ideal duration of an afternoon nap is 10-20 minutes. A person does not have time to fall asleep soundly and it is easier for him to wake up. But on the other hand, according to scientists, a 90-minute nap has the best effect on the brain (memory improves, creative ideas appear). More details about.

• Habitual way of life. Break it! Yes, yes, for one day, destroy the established order for years - drink coffee in another cafe and not at 9, but at 11 o’clock, go to work on a new route, redraw things in your diary. Such “shake-ups” are very useful - they help the brain to be in good shape.

• Sense organs. Another interesting workout for the brain is the sharpening of individual senses. For example, hearing. To do this, blindfold yourself and try to walk around the room, focusing only on the sounds around you.

• Workplace. Will the devil break his leg on the table? Then in my head too. Cluttered workplace– not only unsightly, but also significantly affects performance. Has a negative impact. Get your workspace in order and you will be surprised how much faster your brain will work.

• Sketches. If you're having a hard time focusing on a task (and you really should), try taking a pen and paper and drawing it. Diagrams, tables and other sketches will help you concentrate and, perhaps, open up a new vision of the problem.

• Notes. It is useful not only to draw by hand, but also to write. Gadgets have almost replaced paper from our lives, which is why we are unlikely to become smarter. After all, creating handwritten text develops higher brain functions such as memory, attention, psychomotor coordination and others. Not by chance, foreign word, written down by hand, is remembered better than entered on the keyboard.

• Flight of thoughts. Everyone is familiar with the round dance of thoughts. This is when you need to think about a project, there are a thousand and one ideas in your head, but not a single one you need. At such moments, we try to “curb” our randomly racing thoughts and, finally, get down to business. And in vain. Scientific research shows that by letting our thoughts fly free, we stimulate the creative activity of the brain. So relax and let yourself just dream.

Education

• Novelty. New, more complex activities stimulate the release of dopamine, which promotes neuronal growth. Go up the intellectual ladder. Each time, complicate the task for yourself - solve more difficult puzzles, read smart books.

• Orientation. Don't know your city or even area well? Great! From the point of view of training mental abilities. Mastering new routes develops memory, attention and other cognitive functions.

• Music playing. Musicians have a well-developed parietal lobe of the brain, which is responsible for hearing, motor and visuospatial skills. If you want to “pump up” these qualities, try learning to play some musical instrument.

• Foreign languages. Learning a second or third language improves memory, broadens your horizons, and also protects the body from Alzheimer's disease.

• Oral speech. If you say something out loud, you remember it better. Proven scientific fact.

• Positive thinking. Positive psychology experts are relentless and unanimous: think positive thoughts and you'll become smarter.

Rest

• Meditation. We have already written about that. Let us only recall that regular meditative practice helps to get rid of sudden feelings of anxiety, respond more adequately to physical illness, and also better understand other people.

• Computer games. They shout on TV that children are becoming dumb from playing computer games, that teenagers who spend a lot of time playing Xbox are degenerating. But a professor from the University of Rochester claims that gaming improves multitasking and spatial thinking. In addition, logical computer games can’t be called “stupefying” at all.

Relationship

• Conversations. "Hi, how are you?" – do you hate this phrase? Do you feel sorry for the time for “empty” chatter? Do you prefer to keep the dialogue strictly to the point? On the one hand, it is commendable, but on the other, even trivial conversations, “about nothing,” develop cognitive functions - speech, attention and control.

• Sex. This enjoyable activity in all respects increases the level of serotonin in the blood (“the hormone of happiness”, which, among other things, increases creativity) and the level of oxytocin (“the hormone of trust” - helps a person think in new directions and make bold decisions).

• Laughter. It, like sex, is the best cure for many diseases. If you have been engaged in intense intellectual activity for a long time, then you should not pick up a volume of Schopenhauer when you come home from work. Give your brain a break, turn on a good comedy and laugh heartily.

• Ancestors. In a prestigious magazine dedicated to social psychology, was published. According to him, people who thought about their ancestors before taking tests of memory, thinking and attention scored better than those who did not remember their grandparents. It’s difficult to say how objective the scientists’ arguments are, but knowing your genealogy is definitely useful.

How do you train your brain?

There is an opinion that your intellectual abilities do not depend on you, since they are genetically predetermined. Cognitive researcher Andrea Kuszewski disagrees and offers many ways to improve your intelligence - for those who were not born Albert Einstein or Andrew Wiles.

Working memory to help intelligence

First of all, let's understand the terms. We're not just talking about increasing the amount of information you can accumulate—what psychologist Raymond Cattell's theory of intelligence calls agile intellect . It is also important for us crystallized intelligence , which is responsible for learning and retaining new information and using this knowledge to solve a problem or master a new skill.

In 2008, the study “Improving fluid intelligence through working memory training” (Yagegi, Bushkuel, Jonides and Perriga) was published. It demonstrated that intelligence can be significantly increased through training. The subjects trained intensively, performing multimodal (visual and auditory) exercises to develop working memory. As would be expected, after a series of training sessions their results improved. Moreover, the experiment participants transferred their skills to a completely different cognitive task and successfully applied them.

Thus, working memory is highly correlated with intelligence: both fluid and crystallized. And to make the most of your mind, you need to train your working memory. Here are some life hacks.

1. Look for new information

Geniuses like Einstein were polymaths or polymaths - that is, their intellectual abilities, interests and activities were not limited to one field of knowledge. They constantly improved in different directions. In 1961, based on the work of psychologists P. Costa and R. McCra, a five-factor personality model was developed, which includes the following components: extraversion-introversion, agreeableness, conformity, emotional stability and openness - a factor that characterizes everything related to thinking person and his learning abilities. It is the only Big Five factor that correlates with IQ. People with high openness scores are constantly seeking new information, areas of learning, and seeking diverse experiences.

When you have a new experience, several key processes occur in your brain. First of all, every new action creates new synaptic connections. Your mind exists because your neurons have formed connections that reflect your experience, whatever it may be. This property of the brain is called neuroplasticity. The topic of recent research is neuroplasticity as a factor in individual differences in intelligence: how many connections are formed between neurons, how they affect the formation of new connections, and how durable they are. All these parameters show how much new information you can receive, process and assimilate. Thus, having new experiences creates connections between nerve cells and increases the chances of electrical signals being transmitted between neurons. In addition, acquiring new experiences increases the production of dopamine, which increases motivation and stimulates neurogenesis - the creation of new neurons.

Researchers from Sweden found that after 14 hours of working memory training over 5 weeks, there was an increase in dopamine binding potential in the prefrontal and parietal regions of the brain. The specific dopamine D1 receptor is associated with, among other things, the growth and development of the nervous system. Increasing plasticity to allow for increased binding of this receptor allows you to maximize your cognitive activity. Therefore, expand your horizons: learn to play the guitar, draw, go to museums, read popular science articles. Become an information junkie.

2. Challenge yourself

If you solve Sudoku stacks and play educational games for hours, you will not become smarter. You just learn to play them. Once you have mastered one of the cognitive activities in brain training games, you need to move on to a new, more challenging game. Scientist Richard Hyer tested whether it was possible to improve cognitive abilities by intensively training new cognitive skills over several weeks. In people who had never played Tetris, after several weeks of playing the game, the thickness and activity of the cerebral cortex increased. An increase in activity was indicated by an increase in the amount of glucose in this area. During training, the brain consumed a lot of energy and increased the thickness of the cortex, which meant an increase in neural connections. Well, a nice bonus: the participants in the experiment began to play Tetris masterfully. Cool, right?

But there is a problem: after the initial explosive growth, the thickness of the cortex and the amount of glucose used during training began to decline. This had no effect on the ability to play Tetris, but brain activity decreased during the game. The fact is that the brain began to get lazy as soon as it understood how to play Tetris. He became more efficient and no longer needed to expend as much energy. Therefore, you need to constantly change both the level of difficulty and the type of activity. You should be in a constant state of mild discomfort. Just because something comes easy to you doesn't mean you're truly great.

You don't have to paint portraits or compose music like Vangelis, we mean creative brain work. Contrary to popular belief, this does not mean you have to “think with your right brain.” Creative thinking involves divergent or divergent thinking (a wide range of topics/subjects), making distant associations between ideas, switching between traditional and unconventional thinking (cognitive flexibility), and generating original, new ideas. These are essential skills for any activity, and to use them effectively, you need to use both hemispheres.

Several years ago, Robert Sternberg, a former dean at Tufts University, opened the PACE (Psychology of Abilities, Competencies and Expertise) center in Boston. Sternberg strives not only to understand the basic concept of intelligence, but also to find ways in which anyone can maximize their intelligence through learning, especially learning in schools. As part of his research at The Rainbow Project, he created innovative methods for creative classroom teaching and developed specific student assessment procedures. The testing was structured so that students would not just memorize facts, but would approach problems creatively, practically, and analytically.

“A creativity test might be: “Here’s a cartoon. Write subtitles for it." A practical problem maybe a movie about a student going to a party, looking around, not knowing anyone, and clearly feeling uncomfortable. What should a student do? - explains Sternberg.

He conducted a study to test the effectiveness of these methods. The results were impressive. On average, students in the test group (those who participated in creative methods) received higher grades in school than the control group (those taught using traditional methods and assessments). The test group also scored higher than the control group on the regular test. In general, you need to approach learning creatively. Forget cramming.

4. Do something difficult

Efficiency is your sworn friend if you want to become smarter. We strive to do many things in life with less time and spend as little physical and mental energy on it as possible. But that doesn't make sense to your brain.

Technology makes many things easier and more efficient, but sometimes our cognitive skills suffer as a result. Of course, getting to work by car is much easier, and it does not require much physical effort from you. But if you give up walking and instead drive your car to the store around the corner or ride a Segway even around your apartment, your muscles will likely atrophy, you will gain weight, and your health will deteriorate. It's the same with the brain.

For example, we constantly use a GPS navigator. For those who might get lost in three pines, this is the invention of the century. However, now try to find a club or store without a navigator. Most likely, you will find that your orientation has become even worse. We suggest you abandon the navigator for a while and use regular card. The first weeks will be difficult, you will be late everywhere - but soon you will realize that you have begun to meander in search of the right address much less often. Translation programs prevent you from fully working with the language, and you begin to forget it - so try to read and translate the text yourself with a dictionary before pasting it into the treasured translation window. The same goes for spell checking and autocorrection. Keep apps handy, but don't use them without knowing what to do. Your brain will be grateful.

5. Communicate

Through communication with other people - as through social media, and personally - you will simplify the first four tasks. By surrounding yourself with new people, ideas, and regularly changing your environment, you open yourself up to new opportunities for cognitive growth. Connecting with people who may be superior to you at something gives you the opportunity to look at a problem from a different perspective or discover something you hadn't even thought about before. Steven Johnson, author of Where Good Ideas Come From, discusses the importance of group work and networking in advancing new ideas. The main advantage of communication is that all its participants gain new experience. Therefore, joint work is an excellent opportunity to pump up the brain. Don't isolate yourself.

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Intelligence is a special quality of the human psyche, which includes the ability to adapt to various life situations, learn and assimilate information based on experience, understand and apply abstract concepts and existing knowledge in order to manage the surrounding reality. Simply put, intelligence is a person’s general ability to cognize and overcome difficulties, combining such areas as thinking, imagination, representation, memory, perception and sensation.

It is easy to notice that intelligence covers the work of several parts of the human brain at once, from which it follows that it should be applied to its development as well. A complex approach, consisting of different ways. The methods that you will become acquainted with further can be used as a special system for developing intelligence (and), and it can be used to train it in both children and adults.

Development of intelligence: simple and effective ways

The information you will become acquainted with may at first glance seem extremely unusual when it comes to the development of intelligence, but it is in its unusualness and simplicity that the greatest effectiveness lies. It is also interesting that you can apply it without much effort in everyday life, simply by devoting a little of your time every day.

Method one - optimal time to rest

This method can be called basic, because in a state of fatigue and exhaustion, there can be no talk of any development of intelligence and memory, as well as other abilities. So first, start devoting appropriate time and attention to your sleep. Healthy sleep is not only an excellent prevention of absent-mindedness, forgetfulness and difficulty thinking, but also increases intelligence and all mental abilities in general. I’m interested in an article on the topic of sleep, by the way, you can read.

Method two - keeping records

Here we're talking about about analyzing information through record keeping. Often, each of us has smart thoughts and good ideas, but instead of trying to remember them, as most people do, we advise you to write them down. In addition, in writing you can also reflect, thinking through prospects and options for the development of events, making plans and lists. This way you will use several parts of the brain and, at the same time, improve your concentration. As for the analysis of information, its visual display will allow you to see the broader picture and make the right decisions based on this vision.

Method three - peace and quiet

Many people at the end of the working day, and at any time free time, are not at all engaged in the development of intelligence, but in some activities that do not contribute to this at all. These include being “stuck” on social networks, meaningless conversations on the phone or non-developing computer games. This tendency is especially evident in children. All this, of course, may have a time and place in life, but if there is a goal to develop intelligence, it is better to be in peace and quiet as much as possible - this allows you to generate new ideas, think over plans, find correct and wise solutions to complex problems and generally better and have better quality rest.

Method four - educational games

To develop intelligence and memory, attention and concentration, it is very useful to play, for example, logic games, chess and checkers, dominoes (Monopoly, Imaginarium, Millionaire, etc.). If you make such a pastime regular, you can create an effective system for developing not only intelligence, but also the ability to analyze, count in your head, find cause-and-effect relationships, make calculations and develop thinking in general. You can also devote time to completing various developmental trainings and courses, for example.

Method five – communication with people

Interaction and communication with different people carries a huge number of positive aspects - it broadens your horizons, helps you obtain new information, gets rid of complexes, develops communication skills, and self-esteem. To provide your intellect with the soil for continuous development, communicate with others as much as possible, and try to communicate with people who are better than you in some ways, for example, smarter, more educated, stronger, more confident, wealthier, etc. The higher you set the bar for yourself, the stronger and more developed personality you can become.

Method six - reading books

Another excellent and simple way to develop intelligence in children and adults is reading. People always keep their brain in good shape and cognitively active. By filling it with new information, they simply force themselves to grow personally and intellectually. In addition, a well-read person experiences much fewer difficulties in communicating with others, because literature carries information of a completely different kind, which can always be successfully applied in life. And another advantage of reading is that a well-read person with a developed outlook can be an excellent conversationalist in almost any situation.

Method seven - make familiar things unusual

It's about doing quite ordinary everyday things in extraordinary ways. We all brush our teeth every day, wash our faces, comb our hair, wash the dishes and tie our shoelaces - such things have long become habitual and are performed automatically, which means that the brain does not strain at all. But it’s really possible to make a cool system for developing intelligence out of them. Start taking new routes to work, fasten your seat belt backwards, always cross the road starting with your left foot, etc. This way you will activate your thought processes, you will begin to pay attention to little things, you will... Remember that even such trivial experiments contribute to the development of the mind and serve in a good way training intelligence and memory, attention and concentration, thinking and creativity.

Method eight – fine arts

To develop your intellect, you don’t have to become the next Pablo Picasso or Leonardo da Vinci - you can just do it from time to time. Set yourself the task of drawing a specific picture, and you will notice how your brain begins to work more actively. When a person draws, both hemispheres of the brain are activated, concentration increases and coordination improves. In addition, in the process of drawing, a person seems to disconnect from the outside world for some time, thanks to which the consciousness is cleared and rested.

Method nine - constant training

Learning is always progress and moving forward. Thus, by constantly absorbing new knowledge and mastering new skills, you will automatically force your intelligence to develop. Anything can be suitable: a detailed study of a world map, immersion in historical chronicles, reading autobiographies famous people etc. But you can go further and, for example, get a new specialty, take retraining and advanced training courses or even start running your own business. Such a development system will be an excellent assistant for you and will always keep your intellect in good shape.

Method ten - self-education

This method is a logical continuation of the previous one. Unfortunately, not every person is ready, but those who are thinking about training their intellect make self-education an indispensable part of their life. There are more than enough opportunities for this today. Read books and textbooks, learn new things and communicate with interesting people, get involved in unusual things and find a hobby for yourself, watch documentaries and developmental programs. And if you want to engage in self-education in full, you can, for example, take some good online training. Here we would like to remind you that any new information, if it involves practical application, must always be used in practice - only in this way will self-education become complete and effective.

Method eleven - positive thinking

Naturally, life never goes absolutely smoothly, and sometimes it brings surprises. Circumstances and situations that we did not even suspect can deprive us of strength and unsettle us, make us worry and sound the alarm. But they should be perceived precisely as another chance for self-development and intellectual development. By gathering our will, rising from our knees and directing energy in the right direction, we become stronger, more experienced, wiser and smarter. And a special role in all this is played by nothing other than positive thinking, because... It is what allows us to remain calm, think creatively, be persistent and self-confident. And from here all the other benefits flow - training time management and planning skills, developing willpower and stress resistance. Remember that life, together with all its events, can itself be used by you as an ideal system for the development of intelligence. And such an attitude towards it should be formed in both children and adults.

Method twelve - vision of prospects

The ability to see perspectives is a defining link on the path to success and a fulfilling life. If you learn to always be determined to look for new steps to develop, your thinking will be entirely focused on analyzing the prospects that exist for you. In reality, fate constantly offers you something valuable and significant, and your task is to see, understand and appreciate. By thinking constructively, you contribute to the development of your intellect and artificially create for yourself the need to expand your horizons. And everyone who strives for self-improvement should act exactly this way, and not otherwise. Without this component, it will simply be impossible to achieve full success and happiness.

Method thirteen - physical activity

Despite the fact that this method of developing intelligence is considered more indirect than direct, it gives excellent results. Firstly, by exercising yourself physically, you help improve blood circulation, enrich your brain with oxygen, thanks to which it begins to function many times more efficiently, and promote the production of the protein responsible for the formation of neurons - a key element in the development of intellectual abilities. Secondly, physical work is a wonderful way to relax and gain strength for your mind, because... if he is constantly tired, the effectiveness of any work on himself will be greatly reduced. And thirdly, coupled with mental development, this is the most complete development that we should strive for. If you wish, you can enroll in a sports section or go to Gym, although jogging, exercise, breathing exercises and banal push-ups.

A lot depends on how well your intellect is developed. Of course, it cannot be called decisive in achieving success and improving your life, but if your intellectual abilities are well developed and you work on yourself, your chances of self-realization and realizing your dreams increase many times over. Train your intellect and memory, develop a desire for improvement in yourself and your children, and, of course, improve your thinking - then unprecedented opportunities will open up before you that can make your life bright, rich and happy.

In the era of advanced technology and the Internet, the mental development of people is becoming increasingly important. " Brainy is the new sexy”, that is, “Mind is sexy,” they tell us from the screens. Therefore, the question naturally arises: how to increase your level of intelligence? This will be discussed in this article.

How to become a smart person?

First you need to decide what the concept of “mind” includes. The following components of intelligence are usually distinguished:

• Potential at birth, that is, innate abilities;
• Memory is muscle, visual, olfactory, tactile and cognitive;
• Logical and creative thinking;
• Agility of mind;
• Speed ​​reaction.

All of these parts, except hereditary data, can and should be influenced during life. Our brain is like a muscle; it requires constant training and increased load in order to maintain its functionality for a long time.

What important lobes of the brain do you need to know to understand how it works:

1. Frontal - responsible for a person’s ability to discipline himself and concentrate attention.
2. Broca's gyrus is the motor center of speech.
3. Temporal – stores auditory memory.
4. The parietal is the center of tactile sensations, helps to understand words and formulate thoughts.
5. Wernicke's field interprets speech received auditorily.
6. Occipital - plays the role of the visual center of perception of the world.
7. The cerebellum helps maintain balance, coordinate movements and stores muscle memory.

By learning how the most important cognitive organ in the body functions, you will see developmental pathways.

In this video you will be asked 10 questions, based on the answers to which you will be able to assess your mental abilities:

Food and lifestyle of a genius

The human brain consumes 20% of all energy needed per day. So lifestyle certainly matters to your mind. Top 5 tips on how to improve daily brain function:

1. The optimal sleep schedule is 6-8 hours a day. At this time, the brain does not receive new impressions, but systematizes and processes information already received.
2. Regular aerobic exercise. During activity in the fresh air, you inhale an increased amount of oxygen and this saturates not only your muscles, but also your brain, and prevents oxygen starvation.
3. Add foods that improve cognitive function to your diet.
4. Stop smoking, as nicotine causes vasoconstriction, and the head does not receive the necessary substance.
5. Read more - it expands your erudition and increases your stock of active vocabulary.

To keep your brain working like a clock, pay attention to the microelements you get from food. List of useful substances and where to look for them:

• Iodine, omega-3, vitamin B12 – in fish, especially in salmon;
• Lutein – found in green plants such as spinach and arugula;
• Zinc – in pumpkin seeds, seaweed;
• Flavonoids – in dark chocolate;
• Catechins and caffeine - in green tea, coffee;
• Antioxidants – in apples;
• Vitamin B4 is in eggs.

By changing a few habits to healthy ones, you will feel lighter, your thinking will become easier and faster.

How to become a smart girl?

In addition to a balanced diet and regular alternation between rest and activity, the brain requires training. The best load options are:

• Intellectual games, for example, Sudoku, Go, chess, crosswords;
• Logical and abstract problems, riddles, puzzles;
• Reading articles, books, obtaining new information;
• Expanding your vocabulary by communicating with new people, watching movies and TV shows;
• Contact with foreign languages, memorization of phrases and expressions;
• Keeping personal notes, blogs, diaries, formulating thoughts in writing;
• Learning poems and songs.

Each training session is aimed at developing different cognitive skills: games promote reaction speed and logical calculations, reading expands the boundaries of thinking, foreign languages and poetry improves memory.

Start with the aspect that seems most important to you and requires training. Constant exercise will not make you wait long for results.

Books that increase intelligence

1. Turn to the classics, both of your own culture and foreign ones. It is not for nothing that only some of the works remain in the memory of generations for a long time;
2. Get acquainted with the latest popular science literature, as well as educational articles. You will be aware of the inventions and concepts of recent years;
3. Get into the works of philosophy, read criticism and comments on them; Other people's reflections stimulate critical thinking;
4. Flip through the autobiographies of the greats and successful people. You will essentially see how a person who achieved his goals thought and expressed his ideas;
5. Understand psychological theories. When you think about how the human psyche works and how the brain works, you learn to apply this knowledge in practice;
6. Study reference books and encyclopedias. A large number of new facts will expand your horizons.

Websites and applications for brain development

You can train your mind not only with books, but also with modern technologies. The Internet gives access to data banks from all over the world. Conditionally everything useful resources can be divided into two parts:

1. Educational projects. World-famous universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, Oxford, Moscow State University, Graduate School Economies make publicly available materials on their curriculum. Anyone can study the lectures, answer questions from seminars, and write essays on the proposed topics.
2. Websites specializing in mind training, such as Vikium or braintraining . Such mailing list resources give people access to exercises for different areas of the brain. Based on statistics, the program itself determines what needs to be developed and which tasks are best suited. A person can customize the regularity of classes to suit himself.

The human mind is an instrument that requires constant training. It is useful for people of any age to know how to become smarter, how to increase their level of intelligence. If you approach the issue comprehensively, you will maintain the vigor of not only your body, but also your mind for many years and you will feel on the same wavelength with life.

Video test: does your age match your intelligence?

By taking this test you will find out how your level of intelligence corresponds to your age:

Self-development

12 ways to develop intelligence

Is it possible to develop intelligence? Neuroscientists have long answered this question in the affirmative. Your brain is plastic and can physically change depending on what you do. And even the smartest person has something to strive for. So don't waste your time! We've collected tips and exercises from our books to help you become even smarter.

1. Solve logic puzzles

You will find fascinating tasks for training logical thinking in the book by popular blogger Dmitry Chernyshev “What to do in the evening with your family at the dacha without the Internet.” Here are a few of them:

Answer:

This is a type of credit card. Notches about the borrowed goods were made simultaneously on both sticks. One was kept by the buyer, the other by the seller. This excluded fraud. When the debt was repaid, the sticks were destroyed.

Answer:

This is Morrison's shelter to protect people during bombing. Not everyone had basements in which to hide. For poor households, the device was free. 500,000 of these shelters were built by the end of 1941 and another 100,000 in 1943, when the Germans began using V-1 rockets. The shelter justified itself. According to statistics, in 44 houses equipped with such shelters that were heavily bombed, only three out of 136 residents died. Another 13 people were seriously injured and 16 were slightly injured.

Answer:

Look again at the condition of the task: there was no task to “continue the sequence.” If 1 = 5, then 5 = 1.

2. Train your memory

Until now, you have been trying to guess the number by choosing the average. This is an ideal strategy for a game in which the number was chosen at random. But in our case, the number was not chosen in random order. We deliberately chose a number that will be difficult for you to find. The main lesson of game theory is that you need to put yourself in the shoes of the other player. We put ourselves in your shoes and assumed that you would first name the number 50, then 25, then 37 and 42.

What would be your final guess? Is this number 49? Congratulations! Yourself, not you. You've fallen into the trap again! We guessed the number 48. In fact, all these discussions about the average number from the interval were aimed precisely at misleading you. We wanted you to choose the number 49.

The point of our game is not to show you how cunning we are, but to clearly illustrate what exactly makes any situation a game: you must take into account the goals and strategies of other players.

5. Do math

Lomonosov believed that mathematics puts the mind in order. And indeed it is. One of the ways to develop intelligence is to make friends with the world of numbers, graphs and formulas. If you want to try this method, the book Beauty Squared will help you, where the most complex concepts are described in a simple and engaging way. A short excerpt from there:

“In 1611, the astronomer Johannes Kepler decided to find himself a wife. The process did not start very well: he rejected the first three candidates. Kepler would have taken a fourth wife if he had not seen the fifth, who seemed “modest, thrifty and capable of loving adopted children.” But the scientist behaved so indecisively that he met with several more women who did not interest him. Then he finally married the fifth candidate.

According to the mathematical theory of "optimal stopping", to make a choice, you need to consider and reject 36.8 percent possible options. And then stop at the first one, which turns out to be better than all the rejected ones.

Kepler had 11 dates. But he could meet with four women, and then propose to the first of the remaining candidates who he liked more than those whom he had already seen. In other words, he would immediately choose the fifth woman and save himself from six unsuccessful meetings. The theory of “optimal stopping” is also applicable in other areas: medicine, energy, zoology, economics, etc.”

6. Learn to play a musical instrument

Psychologist, author of the book “We Are the Music” Victoria Williamson says that the Mozart effect is just a myth. Listening to classical music will not improve your IQ. But if you take up music yourself, you will help your brain work better. This is confirmed by the following experiment:

“Glenn Schellenberg has conducted a number of detailed analyzes of the relationship between music lessons and IQ in children. In 2004, he randomly assigned 144 six-year-old children from Toronto to four groups: the first received keyboard lessons, the second received singing lessons, the third received acting classes, and the fourth was a control group where there were no additional classes. To be fair, after the study, children in the control group were offered the same activities as the others.

The training lasted 36 weeks in a designated school. All children passed IQ tests during summer holidays, before these sessions began, and also at the end of the study. Comparable age and socioeconomic status criteria were used.

After a year, a large majority of the children performed better on the IQ test, which makes sense since they were a year older. However, in the two music groups, the increase in IQ was greater than in the acting and control groups.”

7. Practice mindfulness meditation

Meditation not only helps reduce stress levels, but also helps develop memory, creativity, reaction, attention and self-control. More about this method in the book “Mindfulness”. Advice from it:

“Have you noticed that the older you get, the faster time passes? The reason is that with age we acquire habits, certain patterns of behavior and live on “automatic”: the autopilot guides us when we have breakfast, brush our teeth, go to work, sit down in the same chair every time... As a result, life passes past, and we feel unhappy.

Try a simple experiment. Buy some chocolate. Break off a small piece from it. Look at it as if you were seeing it for the first time. Pay attention to all the breaks, texture, smell, color. Put this piece in your mouth, but don't swallow it right away, let it slowly melt on your tongue. Try the whole bouquet of flavors. Then slowly swallow the chocolate, try to feel how it flows down the esophagus, notice the movements of the palate and tongue.

Agree, the sensations are not at all the same as if you simply ate a candy bar without thinking. Try this exercise with different foods, and then with your usual activities: be mindful at work, while walking, getting ready for bed, and so on.”

8. Learn to think outside the box

A creative approach will help you find a solution even in a situation that seems hopeless to most. book author"Rice Storm"I am sure that anyone can train creativity. First, try using Leonardo da Vinci's method:

“Leonardo da Vinci’s way of developing ideas was to close his eyes, completely relax, and scribble random lines and scribbles on a piece of paper. Then he opened his eyes and looked for images and nuances, objects and phenomena in the drawing. Many of his inventions were born from such sketches.

Here is an action plan on how you can use Leonardo da Vinci's method in your work:

Write the problem down on a piece of paper and think about it for a few minutes.

Relax. Give your intuition the opportunity to create images that reflect the current situation. You don't need to know what the drawing will look like before you draw it.

Give shape to your task by defining its boundaries. They can be of any size and take the shape you want.

Practice drawing unconsciously. Let the lines and scribbles dictate how you draw and arrange them.

If the result does not satisfy you, take another sheet of paper and make another drawing, and then another - as many as needed.

Explore your drawing. Write down the first word that comes to mind regarding each image, each squiggle, line, or structure.

Link all the words together by writing a short note. Now see how what you wrote relates to your task. Have new ideas emerged?

Be attentive to the questions that arise in your mind. For example: “What is this?”, “Where did this come from?” If you feel the need to find answers to specific questions, then you are on the right path leading to solving the problem.”

9. Learn foreign languages

According to researchers, it promotes brain development and helps maintain mental clarity even into adulthood. In the guide by polyglot Susanna Zaraiskaya you will find 90 effective tips on how to learn new foreign languages ​​easily and fun. Here are three recommendations from the book:

• Listen to songs in the language you're learning while you drive, clean your home, cook, take care of flowers, or do other things. You will become immersed in the rhythms of the language even when listening passively. The main thing is to do it regularly.

• The nonprofit Planet Read uses Bollywood music videos in its literacy program in India, subtitled in the same language. The subtitle format is the same as in karaoke, that is, the word heard in this moment. Easy access to such videos doubles the number of first-graders who master reading. And all due to the fact that viewers naturally synchronize audio and video. The way India fights illiteracy will allow you to compare what you hear with what you see.

• Who said drama is incompatible with the table? irregular verbs? Soap operas can be a really fun way to learn a new language. Simple storylines, and the acting is so expressive that even if you don't know all the words, you'll still be aware of what's going on just by following the characters' emotions.

10. Make up stories

This is another way to become more creative and develop flexible thinking. Don't know where to start? In the notebook “642 ideas of what to write about” you will find many tips. Your job is to continue the stories and turn them into complete stories. Here are some tasks from the book:

• You meet a girl who can close her eyes and see the entire Universe. Tell about her.

• Try to fit the whole life of a person into one sentence.

• Take an article from a recent newspaper. Write down ten words or phrases that caught your eye. Using these words, write a poem that begins: “What if...”

• Your cat dreams of world domination. She figured out how to switch bodies with you.

• Write a story that begins like this: “The weird thing started when Fred bought a house for his miniature pigs...”

• Explain to a gold miner from 1849 how email works.

• An unknown force threw you inside the computer. You need to get out.

• Choose any object on your desk (pen, pencil, eraser, etc.) and write a note of gratitude to it.

11. Get enough sleep!

Your ability to learn depends on the quality of your sleep. Interesting fact from the book “The Brain in Sleep”:

“Scientists have discovered that different stages of sleep are designed for various types training. For example, slow-wave sleep is important for mastering tasks involving factual memory, such as memorizing dates for a history exam. But dream-rich REM sleep is necessary for mastering what is associated with procedural memory - how something is done, including the development of new behavioral strategies.

Psychology professor Carlisle Smith says: “We spent a month cutting out blocks from which we built a maze for mice, and then for ten days we recorded their brain activity around the clock. Those mice that showed greater intelligence in running a maze also demonstrated greater brain activity in the REM sleep phase. I myself have never doubted that sleep and learning are connected, but now enough data has accumulated for others to become interested in this issue.”

12. Don't neglect physical education

Sport has a positive effect on our intellectual abilities. Here's what evolutionary biologist John Medina says about this in his book Brain Rules:

“All sorts of tests have shown that physical activity throughout life leads to amazing improvements in cognitive processes, in contrast to a sedentary lifestyle. Adherents of physical education outperformed lazy people and couch potatoes in terms of long-term memory, logic, attention, problem-solving ability, and even the so-called fluid intelligence.”

More books about the development of intelligence- .

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