Summary: 10 Things You Can Do to Improve Your Mental Horsepower

According to research, despise our previous belief that intelligent quantity is stuck at some point, actually it can be developed. There are 10 ideas we can fit into our daily routine that can improve our mental horsepower and increase our intelligent quantity. It is not a list that will use a lot of time and energy, so worth to try.

• Be smarter about your online time

There are many things we can do while online surfing, not only checking the social media or seeing cute animal pics, but get some nourishing resources such as from online learning courses, intriguing TED talks or vocabulary-building tools.

• Write down what you learn

Spend a few minutes each day to write again what you have learned. You do not need to write so long, but reflect in writing is surely can boost your brainpower. A yoga teacher, Claudia Azula Altucher suggest to write 400 words a day on things that you learned.

• Make a ‘did’ list

Intelligence also comes from happiness and confidence. Rather than we make a list of the things that we have yet to do, listing the things you have already accomplished is a big boost for your intelligence. Famed VC Marc Andreessen and Azula Altucher recommend this I DID list.

• Get out the Scrabble board

Play the board games and puzzles also can boost our brain power. There are many games nowadays such as Scrabble, bridge, chess, Go, Battleship, Connect 4 that can make our brain work out.

• Have smart friends

Saurabh Shah, account manager at Symphony Teleca writes that your IQ is the average of five closest people you hang out with. Hanging out with people who are clever than you is the fastest way to learn. But remember that you need to realize there are many things that you need to learn from them.

• Read a lot

Reading is the most essential part of getting smarter. We can vary our readings such as select fiction and nonfiction books, or picking up a daily newspaper. However the most important is the quantity, read a lot.

• Explain it to others

Albert Einstein – “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

We can assure what we think we have learned is really we have learned by teaching it to others. By then, the information is truly stuck in our memory and can’t be forgotten easily. It is easier to learn new things rather than retain it in our memory, so teach it to others.

• Do random new things

Do not hesitate to learn new things, because we never know that something don’t seem immediately useful or productive in the meantime will be useful in the future.

• Learn a new language

It doesn’t to be a fluent learning but still worth to try if you want to learn new things.

• Take some downtime

Azula Altucher recommends giving yourself a time for your brain to process what it has learned.

 

Author’s Opinion

You don’t have to do all the things on the list. Mark some points that you like and fit on your daily schedule. Better to do small things but consistent, rather than do the big but get bored easily then stop.

 

Reference

Stillman, J. (2014) 10 Small Things You Can Do Every Day to Get Smarter. Available at: http://time.com/3032117/get-smarter-every-day/ (Accessed: 28 December 2016).