SINGLES: 10 Ways To Get Smarter This Year
Thursday, 12 January 2012 17:28
For those people who are dating, it’s important to know that being a smart single is a compelling part of your identity. Multiple surveys list the quality of intelligence as one of the top criterion for mate selection.
Have you read the latest scientific advances in how to make yourself smarter?
New research in neurobiology and cognitive sciences gives us substantive tips and techniques on how to buff up our gray matter. Intelligence, once thought to be static and largely unchangeable after early childhood, is now considered to be capable of expanding by as much as twenty I.Q. points well into our 60s and 70s.
Here are ten simple ways to grow your brain cells this year. Some of them may surprise you.
1. Develop your memory power. It’s impressive when you can access your memory bank with ease in the middle of conversations. Try associating the thing you want to recall with a vivid picture…and learn these practices in the book, “Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything,” by J. Foer.
2. Eat some Indian or Thai food, which contains the common spice turmeric, a ginger-like root, which may reduce the risk of dementia…and prolong your love life.
3. Reduce the frequency with which you check your cell phone email. This habit disrupts your concentration, productivity, and even your ability to sustain a conversation with a date. Cell phone usage is a bad idea on any date but who knew that checking email constantly could cause the loss of I.Q. points?
4. Dance, play sports, and get physically active on all levels. Activity that raises your heart rate and calls on your coordination usage boosts your brain power.
5. Bring back handwriting. Research shows that you exercise more sections of the brain when you do… and it’s easier to remember something once you’ve written it on paper.
6. Visit galleries and spend time looking at art. This has been shown to reduce your stress…which affects your brain cells.
7. Drink lots of water. The brain needs hydrating too…just like the rest of the body. When you don’t hydrate, the brain slows down and loses its planning ability.
8. Get in touch with nature. Apparently, even a few minutes spent on a busy street can impair recall and self-control. Nature calms.
9. Get lots of sleep. Your brain is processing information even as you rest, which you can remember later.
10. Learn a language, which exercises the prefrontal cortex helping in decision-making.
Have you always wanted to be smarter? You still have time because of the great plasticity of the brain. Maybe it’s time to rethink your goals, ambitions, and plans for the New Year.