How to develop intelligence: a detailed guide for those who want to become smarter

What is intelligence

The concept of “intelligence” is heard by everyone, but few understand what it really means. General erudition, the ability to think logically or solve mathematical problems are often mistaken for intelligence. In fact, the concept of “intelligence” is much broader.

Intelligence is a mental function responsible for a person’s adaptation to the world around him. It consists of several components that form a single complex system.

It is the development of intelligence that determines how successful a person will be in life. You can be a walking encyclopedia, but be completely unable to apply your knowledge in practice. But with average abilities you can achieve simply incredible results.

More than 100 cool lessons, tests and exercises for brain development

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Intelligence is closely related to cognitive functions - perception, attention, thinking, speech. With the help of them, he receives “food”, which he subsequently processes and uses to build effective strategies and implement them.

According to recent studies, 50% of human intelligence is determined by genes. This means that we have the second 50% that we can actively influence. Our task is to get the maximum out of them. And for this you need to constantly develop. Anyone who firmly grasps this truth now, in a year will be able to achieve such intellectual heights that he has never even dreamed of.

Solve puzzles

If you can already handle counting easily and are a little tired of it, move on to puzzles. Again, now there are a great many of them; you can choose riddles related to a certain topic or area of ​​​​life. The absolute leaders among exercises for recharging the brain are crosswords and Sudoku. Crosswords are a test of your general outlook, and Sudoku is a test of logic and spatial thinking. By the way, searching for patterns and missing links in the “magic square,” as Sudoku is often called, is a task very similar to IQ testing. However, experts advise not to linger for a long time on the same type of tasks of a similar level - this approach will give the exact opposite effect. Scientists explain this by the fact that first the brain receives an impulse for development and learning, and for this it builds new neural connections. And if you don’t give your brain more complex tasks each time, it may lose its acquired neuroplasticity and “relax.” The main thing here is constant development and complication.

Photo: YAY\TASS

Among the puzzles, board games are especially relevant (all kinds of monopolies, cards, checkers, chess), Rubik's cube, metal construction sets, associations (any form of game is suitable - on the phone, with cards or verbally).

Types of intelligence

There are many different classifications of intelligence. The most famous one belongs to the American psychologist Howard Gardner. He identified 8 types of intelligence:

• spatial,
• bodily-kinesthetic,
• musical,
• linguistic,
• logical-mathematical,
• interpersonal,
• intrapersonal,
• naturalistic.

According to Gardner's theory, everyone has a dominant intelligence that determines what a person can be successful at. Based on this, standard IQ tests are untenable, since they only measure the level of logical-mathematical intelligence.

Another classification divides intelligence into 4 components:

1. Mental intelligence is responsible for rational thinking. It is applicable wherever the laws of logic apply.
2. Physical or bodily intelligence controls processes associated with controlling the body.
3. Emotional intelligence deals with emotions and interpersonal interactions.
4. Spiritual intelligence is associated with the subconscious, intuition, and ethical categories.

All components of intelligence require development. If you pay attention to only one thing, you will not achieve harmony. Some important areas of life will be limping.

Write down your thoughts

It is not necessary to keep a diary, the main thing is to choose information that is interesting to you and “store” it somewhere. You can make selections in a notepad or even social networks, write by hand or copy using a key combination. In the process of compiling such collections, the brain remembers interesting facts or observations, and then analyzes them itself. It turns out that a person, without specially straining, can come to some unexpected conclusions and conclusions. Moreover, by storing interesting information in a notebook (and therefore in your head), it can be used in conversations - this way you will become an interesting, erudite interlocutor.

Recommendations for developing intelligence

It is not difficult to develop your mental abilities. It is enough to devote 20–30 minutes a day to this process. Of course, you shouldn’t hope for sky-high results. Our recommendations and exercises will not make you a genius like Einstein or Newton. But they will help you realize your potential, increase your efficiency, and generally make your life more productive.

Read more

Reading is perhaps the best way to develop intelligence. By reading good literature, we broaden our horizons, learn to think logically, develop imagination and imaginative thinking. By good literature, first of all, I mean artistic classics, biographies of great people, books on history, philosophy, and scientific works.

Make a list of books you want to read and get started. 30 books a year is the minimum required to keep your brain in good shape. If you get more - great!

Expand your horizons

We have already found out that there is no useless knowledge. The more of them in your luggage, the more neural connections are formed in your brain. So always look for opportunities to learn something new.

Read popular science articles, watch educational programs, take an interest in current events in the world. And be sure to reflect on what you learn, express your opinion, discuss with friends. Strive to become a true polymath. This will not only help you develop your intelligence, but will also make communication with you valuable and interesting.

Dig Deeper

It is very important to develop not only in breadth, but also in depth. Look for opportunities to deepen and enrich your existing knowledge. You must have an area that you know inside and out. It's best if this is your profession.

If in the process of expanding our horizons we form new neural circuits, then, while working to deepen our knowledge, we establish connections between existing neural circuits. As a result, all mental processes associated with a specific activity begin to proceed faster. Some of them move to the unconscious level, freeing our consciousness. At this stage, intuition comes into play.

Remember how Dmitry Mendeleev discovered his famous table. He studied the properties of elements for many years, thought a lot and worked on the problem. As a result, his brain did the finishing touches for him, giving him a brilliant idea in a dream.

Get creative

Even if you have never held brushes in your hands and a bear stepped on your ear, this is not a reason to give up creativity. Your task is not to create world masterpieces, but to relieve your brain. Constantly engaged in mental work, our thinking becomes dull and begins to feel hungry for simple and understandable stimuli.

Drawing, modeling, sewing, music - choose an activity that you like. Give it at least a couple of hours a week. This is enough to give the brain a break from the same type of work.

Train your memory

Memory and intelligence are two closely related functions of the brain. The effectiveness of all intellectual processes depends on how well you are able to remember new information.

To train your memory, you can learn poems, songs, monologues. Various simulators and applications are also great - we will tell you about them towards the end of the article.

Learn to think positively

Life doesn't always go swimmingly. Some circumstances can seriously unsettle us. But you remember why we need intelligence in the first place? To adapt to the surrounding world. This means that he must be flexible and help us get out of difficult situations.

And our task is not to interfere with him in this. Stop yourself from being discouraged and giving up, learn to trust yourself and believe in your strength. This will give a powerful impetus to the development of your intellect and greatly increase motivation. Think of every challenge as a chance to improve.

Communicate more

Man is a social being. All brain functions are designed for social interaction. Therefore, communication is very important for intellectual development. For interlocutors, choose people who are erudite, diversified, and have superior mental abilities.

By interacting with such people, you will gravitate towards them and adopt useful thinking habits and patterns. And also - learn something new every day and expand your horizons. And remember: high-quality communication does not mean idle chatter and spoiling your mutual friends, but the discussion of some important issues within the framework of joint activities.

Solve math problems

Even if you don't have a child asking for help with math homework, look for problems yourself. It is also useful to solve them not only at school age, but also as an adult. Many long-lived scientists said that the secret of their youth was the constant work of the brain, in particular, solving mathematical riddles. It is not necessary to go into the jungle of higher mathematics - it is enough to practice simple counting and multiplication. It is advisable to sometimes put down the calculator and count in your head or “column”, as they once taught at school. Of course, the answer can be verified. Such exercises perfectly develop analytical thinking.

Exercises to develop intelligence

How about giving your mind a workout right now? I have prepared several exercises and games to develop intelligence.

Logic problems

Logic problems will make your brain work hard. Open a database with questions about the game “What? Where? When?”, choose a package of questions and plunge headlong into the process. I warn you - the questions are quite difficult, especially for beginners.

Therefore, to begin with, choose a package designed for schoolchildren. To give you an idea of ​​what the questions are, here's an example.

The writer Boris Stern once said that the first book he read was a science fiction novel with three failed murder attempts and one successful one. What is this book?

This is a simple question, try to answer it yourself. You will find the answer at the end of the article. Just don't peek!

Mathematical examples

Buy or download a math problem book and solve examples from there from time to time. Try to calculate simple problems in your head, and solve more difficult ones in writing for a while.

Of course, some may find this boring and tedious. Mathematical problems with tricks were invented especially for such people. At first glance, they seem simple and uncomplicated. But the answer that seemed obvious most often turns out to be wrong. I’ll give an example from my favorite book “Puzzles of Professor Puzzles” by Mikhail Gershenzon.

One day a snail started traveling along a high wall. The wall was 10 meters high. During the day, the snail crawled up 3 meters, and during the night moved back 2 meters. How many days did it take the snail to get to the top of the wall?

What do most people do when they try to solve this problem? Calculate how many meters the snail crawls per day (3 - 2 = 1), and divide the height of the wall by this number (10 / 1 = 10). And they get the wrong answer. The correct answer is 8 days. And why, you yourself try to explain in the comments to the article. Let's check how your intellect works now.

Essays

We've done some math, now let's imagine that we're in a Russian language lesson. Write an essay on one of the given topics.

1. What superpower would you like to have and why.
2. What will you do if you find out that the world is going to end in a month?
3. Which cartoon character would you like to be like?
4. Imagine winning a million dollars in the lottery. What will you spend the money on?
5. Which great person of the past would you like to meet? Describe the meeting.

In fact, you can write on absolutely any topic. The very process of putting thoughts into material form has a beneficial effect on the intellect. You learn to think consistently, highlight the main thing and cut off the unimportant. Try not just to write randomly, but to create text that would be interesting to read. Look, you’ll master the profession of a copywriter.

Meditation exercises

Meditation will help you bring order to your head and get rid of obstacles that hinder the development of your intellect. You can find many meditation techniques on the Internet, I advise you to try several and choose the one that suits you best.

And I will describe to you my favorite exercise, which combines meditation and autogenic training.

Imagine that you were able to look into your skull and see your brain. Look at it from all sides, look at every curve. Now imagine that you begin to massage it with imaginary fingers. First the outer layer, then deeper and deeper.

Massaging movements relax your brain and fill it with pleasant warmth. If extraneous thoughts arise, do not pay attention to them. They come and go like waves on the surface of the ocean. When you reach the peak of relaxation, stay in this state. Let your brain rest from the endless bustle and stress.

Don't forget about nutrition

Decreased memory and concentration, increased absent-mindedness may be a signal that the body simply does not have enough vitamins. Indeed, many foods (especially fruits, vegetables, nuts) contain many useful elements for effective brain function. For example, beef, herring and peanuts contain coenzyme Q10, which is believed to prevent many neurological diseases. And for memory, attention and resistance to stress, eggs, liver, rabbit meat are suitable - this is what is especially recommended to eat before the exam. To improve your thinking abilities, you need to eat fatty fish, beans, greens and pumpkin seeds. If you feel a loss of energy, you should add foods containing vitamins to your diet: melon, pumpkin and carrots (vitamin A), meat, nuts and grains (vitamin B1), eggs and dairy products (vitamin B6), orange, pineapple, tomatoes ( vitamin C).

Useful literature

Reading books in itself develops the brain. And if these are books about intelligence, then the effect will be simply “Wow!” If our recommendations and exercises weren’t enough for you and you’re thinking about how to further develop yourself intellectually, here’s a list of good books:

• “Brain Plasticity” Norman Doidge
• “Six Thinking Hats” Edward de Bono
• “Brain rules. What you and your children should know about the brain" John Medina
• “Japanese system for the development of intelligence and memory” Ryuta Kawashima
• “Where Intelligence Is Born” John Duncan

Find a more complete selection in our article “Books on the development of intelligence.”

Play sports

It’s not for nothing that they say: “A healthy mind in a healthy body!” Even the simplest physical exercises increase blood circulation, and this, in turn, activates brain function. It is very useful to do exercises in the morning and then take an exercise break during the working day. During lunch, be sure to get up from your desk and stretch. For example, go with your colleagues to the canteen - the main thing is not to sit still. In the evening, try to walk in the park. The brain will receive more oxygen and nutrients, for which it will be very grateful to you.

Online services for the development of intelligence

Finally, I want to share with you my favorite sites and applications with simulators for developing intelligence. I hope you find a use for them.

Vikium

The Vikium service includes more than 40 brain development simulators. All of them are quite simple, so you can easily fit training into your daily schedule. An individual program is compiled based on the results of testing, which each user undergoes before starting training.

Wikium is suitable for all ages. It will help your child prepare for school and improve his attentiveness. With the help of it, teenagers and adults will be able to increase their productivity, reduce the number of mistakes during work and study, and keep their brain in good shape. For older people, training will be an excellent prevention of age-related changes in the brain.

The service also has very interesting courses. For example, the Sherlock Thinking course, where you will be taught how to draw logical conclusions, recognize deception and think critically. Or the Brain Detoxification course, where you can clear your mind of destructive thoughts and attitudes.

4Brain

4Brain is a resource that contains training courses in a variety of areas: from financial literacy to acting. As part of our work on developing intelligence, you and I will be interested in several courses.

Free:

• Emotional intellect
• Critical thinking
• Making decisions

Paid:

• Quick Read
• Mnemonics
• Cognitive science

Bitreynik

On Bitreynik you can train your intellect separately, or you can choose a program to develop several functions at once: perception, memory, thinking, attention. The simulators and games are based on the achievements of cognitive psychology. Daily exercise will help you form new neural connections in your brain.

The developers promise the first results within 20 days, provided that you exercise for 10–20 minutes a day.

BrainApps

On the BrainApps service you will find as many as 52 simulators. There are also a bunch of interesting tests, including ones to determine IQ. The tasks deserve special attention. Among them are logical, mathematical, geometric, chess, erudition problems, puzzles... Most of them are available for free.

If you decide to opt for this service, I advise you to try the following simulators:

• Fruit mathematics
• Letters and numbers
• Visual geometry
• Anagrams
• Geometric switching

Here, just like on Vikium, in addition to simulators, there are ready-made courses in various areas: from memory development to learning English. I recommend the Emotional Intelligence course to you - it is interesting, rich and original.

Learn foreign languages

“The number of languages ​​you know, the number of lives you live,” Goethe said back in the 18th century. Indeed, learning foreign languages ​​trains not only memory, but also logical thinking, and also generally increases the cultural level of the speaker. A foreign language is a structure unusual for the brain, a huge network with specific connections between its elements. Many people compare an unfamiliar foreign language to a subway map in a new city: at first it seems like chaos, but then, moving from station to station, the passenger understands the logic of this scheme. It’s the same with language: step by step, a person discovers an amazing, mathematically constructed logic. Movement (gaining knowledge) helps bring order to this chaos, and this is excellent food for the brain.

Learning foreign languages ​​brings double benefits: not only does it help you speak and finally begin to understand tourists, but it also pumps up your brain. You can learn a language in different ways: go abroad, go to lessons at school or a language center, download an application to your phone, or just chat with a friend.

Striving for more

How to increase IQ at home? You must strive to become better. This advice concerns the spiritual and material spheres. For example, people who want to get rich are constantly looking for additional income.

Students and workers in low-wage jobs must change this. You need to believe in yourself and take advanced training courses. Students should not limit themselves to just a scholarship; they can start working part-time.

It is necessary to involve yourself in various areas. If the work schedule is 2 by 2, then there are about 15 days off per month. In this case, part-time vacancies are suitable. It is advisable to choose positions different in type of activity.

It is believed that mental work is much more tiring than physical work. If you have to work in an office for days, you should go to the gym after work. This will increase brain efficiency by 25%.

You need to set big goals, they are easier to achieve. Many people believe that dreamers cannot reach heights. But that's not true. Dreamers don't set limits; they always strive for more. Therefore, they constantly take risks.

Changing your perspective on familiar things

Images and habits are firmly fixed in the brain, so a person does not want to react to new ways. But some changes may be useful.

How to increase your IQ? The new is the well-forgotten old. It is not necessary to travel to work or school along the usual road. You should shorten the route by half or bypass the traffic jam in another way. Thanks to such manipulations, the brain will think and draw logical conclusions. And if you take the usual route, the brain does not work, since all actions are carried out on a subconscious level.

If you take notes in a notepad, you can transfer them to electronic media. It is better to take notes in a text editor or Notepad. Although these are simple things, they are effective. This not only increases intelligence, but also eliminates routine.

Folk remedies

Folk remedies are also used to increase IQ levels. It is necessary to take beneficial herbs. To increase brain activity you need to use:

• ginseng root;
• brahmi;
• ginkgo biloba;
• sage

Herbs are used in the form of decoctions and tinctures. Their effect is based on strengthening memory and enhancing brain activity. Before using medicines and traditional recipes, it is advisable to consult a doctor to avoid possible risks. After all, drugs, decoctions and tinctures have their own side effects and contraindications.

Self-expression

Multifaceted personalities have a high level of intelligence compared to those who have a passive life. People belonging to the second type must change the situation. How to increase IQ?

It is important to express yourself in any way. You can take acting classes or learn to play the piano. It is useful to speak in public and make toasts in a company. You need to interact with a large number of people, but you don’t have to classify everyone as friends.

The human brain takes information not only from books, reference books and electronic media. During communication, there is an active exchange of information. It allows people to express themselves. With the right selection of audience, you can achieve success. This expands your horizons and increases your intelligence.

Education and erudition: the relationship between concepts

An educated person can be an erudite, but education does not always imply broad and deep erudition. For example, there is a design engineer, and he knows everything about his work, but is almost not interested in anything other than it, because the rest of the world has nothing to do with him. Who can say that a design engineer is a dark and uneducated person? Nobody. However, he can hardly be called an erudite.

So what is erudition? This is broad awareness of different areas of knowledge. As we have already understood, erudition can be deep and shallow. The main feature is that it is developed by a person independently, through self-education, i.e. reading books. Erudition and erudition are almost synonymous.

If we leave aside people who write (writers, journalists and philologists), for whom bookish education serves as a necessary tool for work, then in other cases, an erudite is an ascetic of non-utilitarian knowledge, which, perhaps, he does not need at all in everyday activities. Reading books and automatically gaining erudition is just a way to dilute the prose of life.

Rounding out the topic of education and erudition, it must be said: a person with an education is not always an erudite, but an erudite is always an educated person.

Reading

How to increase IQ in another way? Reading is a common method for increasing intelligence. But it should be borne in mind that you need suitable literature. There are proven books that increase a person’s IQ.

It is advisable to choose scientific literature. If she is not interested, then you can choose fiction books. Moreover, it is not necessary to go to the library, since many works are available on the Internet, so they can be downloaded to a tablet or smartphone.

Reading improves IQ and visual memory. It also increases vocabulary, improves literacy, and develops logic. It is best to read books of various genres to become a well-rounded person.

Before choosing literature, you should check that it matches your personal level of intelligence. Very light works have a negative effect. You should draw information from all the pages you read.

What factors influence a person's mental abilities?

The level of intelligence can vary significantly among different people. Among us there are intellectuals, slow-witted people, people with average abilities and those who are commonly called mentally retarded. But why are people so different mentally?

Various studies have shown that the formation of human mental abilities is influenced primarily by genetic factors. Upbringing, environmental influences and random external influences play a much smaller role.

However, the external environment also has a certain significance for the formation of intelligence. These are factors such as the standard of living of the family, the level of education of parents, the nature of upbringing, the availability of school education for children (in American studies, students from good urban schools turned out to be more intellectual than students from modest rural schools). Research has even established the influence of such individual factors as annual family income, the size of the house and its cost, the relationship between parents, etc.

The role of nutrition cannot be ruled out. The brain is a rather voracious structure, and a lack of nutrients can lead to a decrease in its ability to process information.

Dream

Scientists have long proven that lack of sleep leads to decreased concentration, short- and long-term memory, and problem-solving speed. Visual and hearing acuity also decreases, and reaction slows down.

Without enough sleep, it is difficult for a person to increase his intelligence. The brain needs rest. Adults need to sleep 7-8 hours a day. But each person is different, so some may need a little more or less rest. Children need more sleep. In addition to night rest, daytime rest is also useful.

Observation

How to increase your IQ? An intelligent person not only understands what is happening, but is also able to observe. Thanks to such manipulations, logic develops. With the help of observation, you can learn to put together or, conversely, consider accidents and intentional events separately.

This method allows us to solve complex problems that may arise in the future. Developing mindfulness increases your intelligence level. It is necessary to emphasize art, music, autonomy, architecture, business, law and other “smart” sciences.

Medical supplements

Thanks to special drugs presented in the form of nutritional supplements, it will be possible to improve the quality of brain activity. The following means are effective for increasing intelligence:

1. "Piracetam." With its help, memory is strengthened and the quality of brain activity increases.
2. Omega-3 acids. They prevent brain aging and increase concentration.
3. Creatine. Taking the drug improves memory and stress resistance.
4. L-tyrosine. The brain is saturated with oxygen. It also improves mood and alertness.

The most popular products: Brain Booster, Amino, Gotu Kola, Active Lecithin. But they should only be taken in combination with exercise and a healthy lifestyle. Only then will they have a positive impact.