The human brain has created what surrounds you – the chair you’re sitting on, the vending machine you take food from, the bed you sleep on. It invents the future and has allowed humans to reach a new level of prosperity done by no organism before. The world is vast and with our incredibly developed brains, we have learned to grasp and control our unpredictable lives. As college students, our goal is to absorb as much information as we can to succeed in our future jobs. With a brain plagued with the technologies of the 21st century, we have stagnated our memory, focus, and innovative personalities. Here are a couple exercises you can implement into your daily life in order to improve your intelligence and status:
Invite novelty: Inviting new activities into your life stimulates new neural pathways that haven’t been used before. This is done by visiting new cities or even by taking a different route to work. It will feel odd in the beginning, but displacement helps the brain adapt and furthermore, grow. Simple, yes, but people love repetition because it is comfortable, and hence breaking the repetition will promote new neural connections in the brain. With trying new foods, listening to new music, and meeting new people, your brain will more easily adjust to tackling new experiences.
Stay Updated: We are human beings who seek out connections. Therefore, staying connected with our world when reading about current events allows us to find others we can relate to and stay up to date with new information and events. The news brings the entire world to our fingertips and allows us to soak up all incoming information. Being knowledgeable on new information, in turn, makes you appear smarter to those around you. Nowadays it is much easier to stay updated; you can subscribe to daily blogs or receive updates on your phones when an important article is posted. Know what’s happening around you, and not only what is happening in your collegiate courses, and your intelligence will exponentially increase.
Read, Read, Read: Reading promotes a more mentally stimulated brain. People who stay mentally stimulated, according to Life Hack, can slow the progress or even prevent Alzheimer’s and Dementia due to the ongoing activity. Reading is a particular tool that aids our mental capacity and even fills our brains with more knowledge. Furthermore, it expands your vocabulary. This comes incredibly useful for any profession you partake in, because the more well-spoken and well-read you are, the greater your self-confidence will be. Reading also improves your memory, focus, concentration, and stress levels.
Get creative: Paint, draw, play an instrument or write. All these activities stimulate the brain by sending synapses to neurotransmitters that enhance the size of the brain. On the plus side, the Huffington Post claims the more creative you are, the sexier you become. They explained, “Artists, poets, and writers – professionals and amateurs alike – have more lifelong sex partners than those without artistic ambitions, finds a study led by anthropologist Daniel Nettle.” Lastly, creativity can even keep the doctor away because it boosts the immune function by decreasing stress hormones and lowering blood pressure.
Exercise regularly: Regular exercise produces BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), a protein that helps with memory, learning, focus, concentration, and understanding, into your cells. The BDNF has been proven to stimulate neurogenesis which is the growth of new neurons. It not only improves your cognition, but it also improves your mood. According to Ronald Duman, Ph.D. at Yale University, BDNF has the same effect as people on antidepressants. Exercise also increases the oxygen in the brain, increasing your energy and making you sharper.
Learn a new language: Learning a new language is a mental workout. You are not only memorizing the words but learning how to conceptualize them and use them in sentences. Knowledge of more than one language has been proven to improve attention, memory, and self-control. Bilingual people can outperform monolingual people when working on spatial memory tasks and have more efficient monitoring systems. It also allows one to empathize with others more easily and adapt to new experiences with a broader sense of understanding. Additionally, it significantly delays the onset of dementia by as much as five years.