“I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing”
-Socrates-
Contrary to popular belief intelligence is not limited to people with high intelligence quotient score (IQ), or that it is hereditary, actually environment also plays a role in everyone’s intelligence, because if someone’s IQ is similar to that of their parents it was passed down via both genetics and the shared environmental factors.
Intelligence can be defined as the ability to learn, understand, and make judgments or have opinions that are based on reason.
In another nerdy definition and simple though, the one of Alexander Wissner-Gross in which he said that: “Intelligence is a force, F, that acts so as to maximize future freedom of action. It acts to maximize future freedom of action, or keep options open, with some strength T, with the diversity of possible accessible futures S, up to some future time horizon, τ. In short, intelligence doesn’t like to get trapped”: (F = T ∇ Sτ).
Because of our online-age people have become less focused and less self-conscious, today’s technology could be a curse to most of us rather than a gift when misused, so if you asked yourself this question “ how to become smarter “ you already are on the right path… because you can enhance your IQ or your cognitive abilities in general.
Above all you have to be determined and stick to the things you are about to read if you really want to make of yourself a smart person. In order to become smarter you need to change a lot of things about your daily life routine, habits and diet, here below are the most effective habits, diets you need to adapt to your life style to become smarter and enhance your cognitive functions.
And the first thing you need to start with is to:
Organize your time
And by organizing time I mean literally make a time table of what you do during the day, and if you are the kind of person who doesn’t like to be tide up by a to do list daily program, at least make it for these clues.
Read and write every day for a while
It’s up to you to decide how much time you want to dedicate to reading or how much time you have. The least you can start with is 15min a day and rising if you could -the longer you can make it, the better it is-, as well as for writing, you can start writing information you learned from books, articles, TV shows or memories from your past in a sort of script or a story to tell… it doesn’t have to be a beautifully written novel, writing improves your grammar skills and your cognitive functions.
Learn a new language
Learning a new vocabulary will enhance your memory capacity, but the problem is that it is a little bit hard do it. However, when you simply start learning how to say “Hello” And “Thank you”, step by step, it will be a lot easier than you can imagine.
Don’t make it complicated for you by focusing on grammar at first or to be fluent just start with simple expressions of a daily life usage and try to share your language knowledge with natives on chat website or a passionate people about learning languages from your environment…
Learn a new skill
If you got lost and have no idea about what to learn or acquire as skill, start with the do it yourself (DIY). Instead of paying someone to do it for you, give your abilities a shot to know how good you are at doing it yourself and how fast you can learn. there are now millions of videos and articles online teaching you how to do it yourself DIY.
The good thing about the DIY, is that, it is not only good for your brain, and sure thing you will be able to think more outside of the box, but also it is profitable for you and people around you, by giving them a hand, and by doing the latter you get to become an expert, needless to mention that you start saving money.
The list is very long in case DIY is not your thing, I’m not a god to predict what you want, go find out some of the amazing things to do and share it with the whole world.
Practice your passion
There are a lot of more exciting passions than physicals you dirty minds, as George Bernard Shaw insists, intellectual, mathematical, exploring and discovering are the mightiest passions, you have to find your source of joy because “when you catch a glimpse of your potential, that’s when passion is born”. Zig Ziglar “If biking is your passion, set aside time to enjoy a good ride”. Patrick Dempsey.
Video Games, puzzles and logic games
with today’s technology, easy online access if not all the time, and smart phones are gifts if you knew how to manage and use them smartly. Instead of filling your phone with dating and social networking applications, install some brainy and puzzle games as well, and practice it every day for some time.
The best thing you can do and assure it is working a hundred per cent, leave the social media and hooking up just when you have access to computer but be smart about that too, preferably not for everyday usage, and it is better if you just do it on the private browsing so once you close it you are done with and you will never get distracted when you mistype something and “there it is I’ll just take a look for like a minute and there you are lost for the rest of the day or something”.
Exercise regularly
Clean body, clean mind! As they say, when you regularly exercise your cardio and blood pressure are normal and healthy, which permit to transfer the exact needed amount of blood and oxygen to the different parts of the body including the brain, when the body is very healthy the brain nourishes itself properly and you become physically and morally healthy as well.
Meditate regularly
If working out is how you exercise your body, meditation is how you exercise your brain, to become mentally and morally healthy. Meditation can enhance your memory and focus and make your mind sharper, needless to mention that it makes you patient, and improves your mood.
Food for the brain and nootropics
If you are wondering how to become smarter, the first thing you need to consider is what you feed yourself. Change your diet into a healthy diet for a better living and wellbeing, because the body feeds the brain with supplements you provide it. Your brain functions improve when you switch to a healthy diet.
Nootropics are known by smart drugs or cognitive enhancers. A lot of people take them to improve and enhance different aspect of their cognitive abilities, such as, memory, focus, mood and more…
If smart drugs are your choice and you consider taking them, you need to know a lot of things before you start using those pills. whether the first time you heard of them is now or you heard about them before but still do not know what are nootropics exactly, here is an article that will give you an over view about these cognitive enhancers and how to use them appropriately.
Find some time for your own
Sometime you can find yourself alone, when can’t reach any of your friends or family to spend the weekend with. This should not be a problem, if you think of it as an opportunity to spend some time alone but not lonely.
Scientific studies have proved that if you spend some quality time for your own under good circumstances, actually has excellent income on your psychological estate. Here an article on how to use solitude to your advantage from our articles selection.
Share your knowledge
To share your knowledge is not always easy. Sometimes we can’t find words to transmit the message, especially when it comes to a complicated topics. But to make this easier for you, you have to understand the topic you want to share well enough to be able to explain it in the simplest possible way and make it easily understandable to the people who has no idea about what some of you are talking about. More over the feeling after knowing that you have reached others mind, is one of a kind! satisfaction and pleasure.
Use your online time to your advantage
With our online nowadays life, thankfully everyone has access to everything they need. If you want to become smarter, a good usage of your online time will sure make you intelligent. Read news, articles, download books that interest you to your phone, do online puzzles and brainy games. As mentioned before, hooking up apps will waste a large amount of your time. Looking and learning about others’ private life has nothing to do with what you are looking for here.
Explore new places
Travelling is good for both mind and soul. by exploring other places, you learn about the culture diversity, either in the same country or over board, you get the chance to communicate easily with different people from around the world and with different traditions, religions and different ways of living. Doing this will improve your social skills and sure it will help you become smarter.
Surround yourself with smart environment
The environment is the main factor of building someone’s intelligence beside genetics as we already brought up. So, when you start doing all the things we talked about, you will discover that your social life becomes more successful, and you will be able to fit in with any category that suits you the most, depending on your mood.
In a work place, school, pubs or whatsoever, try to know people you think they are smarter than you, or with average social skills, good communicators as you have become, and you will become more smarter by sharing and receiving knowledge and ideas with and from them.
Conclusion:
This article is giving some useful hints to a better smart living.
Study smart! look for useful information with credible resources, and don’t force yourself to learn things that are not your thing. If you feel tired give yourself breaks, even before getting tired so that you don’t lose the passion and the desire.
Bear in mind that no major change is easy or comes over night and day, and it’s never too late to change for good, do not relate learning with your age because your brain functions can be enhanced at any age, don’t find yourself excuses or barriers to prevent you from doing things you love in general.
Bibliography:
https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/traits/intelligence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passion_(emotion)
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/intelligence
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-the-next-einstein/201311/9-ways-make-yourself-smarter
