As a student, you might be wondering how to increase your IQ and boost your academic success. After all, students with a high IQ level are really lucky, right? They can study easily, sail through exams, build a successful career, and end up with a very high salary. All in all, it’s easier to live, study, and work when you’re smart, isn’t it?
Can you improve your IQ? The answer is, “Yes, you can!” It is possible to boost your cognitive and learning abilities, improve your memory, and increase IQ. If you want to know how to do that, just keep reading this Custom Writing article!
âť“ What Does IQ Stand for?
First of all, let’s answer several simple questions.
What Is IQ?
The abbreviation stands for “intelligence quotient.” It measures your potential and intellectual abilities. The quotient is derived from standardized tests. The results are used in the evaluation of intellectual disability, educational placement, and assessment of candidates in the course of hiring. It is believed that IQ level predicts income and job performance.
What Does an IQ Test Measure?
IQ test score measures your reasoning abilities, language, processing speed, memory, math abilities, and visual-spatial understanding. If you have a high score, it means your problem-solving skills are above average and signal intellectual potential. If your IQ is 70 or below, your intellectual functioning is limited.
What Is an Average IQ?
An average IQ score is 80 to 120. For example, Tom Cruise has 94, George W. Bush has 91, and Michelle Obama has 115. But IQ does not give the entire picture of a person’s abilities. Testing of social, practical, and conceptual skills is needed to make that kind of determination.
What Is a High IQ?
A score above 130 is a high one. People with a score of 132 or above make up only 2% of the world population, although their countries’ distribution is uneven. For instance, Arnold Schwarzenegger has 135, Madonna has 140, and Quentin Tarantino has 160.
🚀 How to Increase Your IQ: 10 Useful Tips
It goes without saying that there are certain limits to every person’s intelligence level, but scientific research has shown that you can improve your IQ in several ways. Below are the tips on how to do that.
- Be socially active
- Observe and inquire
- Read voraciously
- Play logic games
- Acquire new skills
- Get physical exercise
- Gain new experiences
- Use your non-dominant hand
- Use the “Image streaming technique”
- Eat healthily
Let’s look at these tips in more detail.
Be Socially Active
It is highly beneficial for your intellect to interact with other people, share your views, get feedback, and process others’ ideas.
You should take part in many different discussions and try to defend your point of view, while at the same time being sensitive and amenable to the ideas of other people. Such intellectual communication will help you to increase IQ by broadening your outlook, expanding the limits of what you can accept, and making you think a lot.
Observe & Inquire
To boost your brainpower, always consider issues and problems from multiple angles. For example, you might learn from a news program that there is a student strike in some country or a conflict between two professional groups due to government reform. You could forget about these issues and return to your own business, or you could challenge yourself to think more deeply.
What mistakes were made by the government of this country? What are the values of these students? What rights and liberties do they want to defend? What is behind these problems, and what do these people stand for?
Read Voraciously
Books are an inexhaustible source of knowledge, new ideas, and valuable information. Reading will not only broaden your outlook but will also develop and enhance the ability of your mind to comprehend and process information.
Reading academically challenging books that you have never read before will make you think about new issues. You can easily make such reading a part of your learning process!
Play Logic Games
One can hardly overstate the value of playing intellectual games. Chess and other similar games develop mental abilities such as pattern recognition, problem-solving, concentration, abstract reasoning, strategic planning, and evaluation. These are all skills that you need in real life!
It’s no wonder that grandmasters have high IQ scores – chess is challenging and demands high mental abilities and focus. What’s more, chess surprisingly improves emotional intelligence and psychosocial skills due to the close contact with a second player.
Acquire New Skills
Of course, each one of us is exceptional at some particular skill. If you are a literature student, you’re probably amazingly good at literature. If you are a marketing student, you may know everything about marketing strategies and probably plan to devote your life to creating awesome campaigns.
It’s great to hone our talents, but it has also been scientifically proven that your brain relaxes once you are accomplished at some particular skill. What’s the way out? Try something new. Are you good at French? Then start learning German or Italian! Are you good at web design? Start studying programming! In this way, your brain will always be busy adapting to new challenges and handling new tasks.
Get Physical Exercise
Have you heard the saying, “A sound mind is a sound body”? It’s true enough, and scientists worldwide say that physical exercise is essential for mental health.
Keeping your body fit through exercise will improve the way your brain operates. There is no doubt your IQ will benefit!
Gain New Experiences
Broaden your outlook, expand your boundaries, and try doing new things you have never done before. For instance, you could change your approach to your daily routine. If you usually have coffee and toast for breakfast, try to eat whole grains. If you spend your weekends playing polo with your friends, try parachuting or riding a bicycle. Enjoy skiing? Try skating!
In addition to trying new things, you can start doing old things in some new ways. That will not only develop your intelligence but your creativity as well!
Use Your Non-Dominant Hand
Try to write more instead of typing because handwriting stimulates your brain, especially when you write or draw with your opposite hand. If you’re left-handed, why not try to draw a picture with your right hand?
Use the “Image Streaming Technique”
The image streaming technique is a new method invented by Win Wenger, a Ph.D. in politics who took inspiration from the biography of Albert Einstein. It is simple: close your eyes, imagine some object, and describe it with as much descriptive language as possible.
Although this technique doesn’t yet have much scientific evidence, some experiments were carried out and had promising results. Try it to see if it will boost your learning outcomes.
Eat Healthily
The right diet – containing enough protein, vitamins, and micronutrients – will help your brain produce more neurotransmitters and cope with complex tasks better.
Here’s a helpful video with step-by-step instructions on how to increase intelligence. Watch it to learn how to improve your IQ just by doing some simple things every day!
3. đź“Š Five Interesting IQ Facts
- Children who were breastfed in infancy have 3 to 8 points higher IQs on average than those who were not.
- The overall intelligence of men and women is virtually equal. Still, women perform better in emotional intelligence and language development tasks, while men tend to score higher in spatial awareness.
- Swedish researchers have found a link between having a lower IQ and experiencing suicidal thoughts and feelings. People with low IQs often struggle to find the right solutions to their problems. That makes their lives very stressful and results in suicidal thoughts.
- Higher IQ means higher confidence! People with higher IQ scores tend to be more self-confident.
- A person’s IQ is affected by environmental factors, such as stress, nutrition, pastime, education, and mood. And that’s an important clue for how to increase IQ level!
So what do you think? Can you improve your IQ? Of course, you can—it depends only on your desire, your willingness to work at your intelligence, and your openness to new challenges. Taking a learning style quiz for adults may also help to determine the optimal way for improvement. The main thing is to stay motivated. If you put in the effort, you will see the results.
4. ✏️ How to Get a Higher IQ: FAQ
How to Raise Your IQ by Eating?
- Start your morning with a glass of water with lemon.
- Breakfast is a bowl of overnight oats.
- Choose an apple or banana for your morning snack.
- A lentil soup and a green salad are good for lunch.
- For tea-time, eat a peanut butter toast.
- Eat seared salmon and broccoli three hours before sleep.
How to Increase IQ to 200?
- Exercise your memory.
- Learn new languages.
- Train your visual and spatial reasoning.
- Play musical instruments.
- Read every day.
- Always change the habitual ways of doing everyday things.
- Explore new things.
- Train your body and eat healthily.
- Meditate.
- Use your downtime productively.
How to Increase the IQ of a Baby during Pregnancy?
- Eat healthy food, including eggs, fish, and other sources of iodine.
- Include folic acid in your diet.
- Exercise every day.
- Expose to sunshine.
- Avoid stressful situations.
- Avoid infections and toxins.
- Speak to your baby.
- Listen to music.
- Massage your belly.
- Read books aloud.
đź”— References
- IQ | psychology | Britannica
- What Is Considered a Genius IQ Score? – Verywell Mind
- What your IQ score doesn’t tell you – CNN – CNN.com
- You Can Increase Your Intelligence: 5 Ways to Maximize Your IQ | ScientificAmerican
- 5 Experts Answer: Can Your IQ Change? | Live Science
- Has humanity reached ‘peak intelligence’? – BBC Future
- Increased intelligence is a myth (so far) – NCBI – NIH
- Increasing fluid intelligence is possible after all | PNAS
- No, Your IQ Is Not Constant | Psychology Today
- Immediate and long-term effects of meditation on acute stress reactivity, cognitive functions, and intelligence: PubMed
- 7 ways to keep your memory sharp at any age: Harvard Health Publishing
- How to improve your IQ: PSU
- How to improve Your IQ with Brain Exercises: Academia
- The rise and fall of cognitive skills: MIT News
- Why a high IQ doesn’t mean you’re smart: Yale School of Management