20 Tricks to Boost IQ and Build a Mental Exercise Routine

Chess
Why do people go to the gym? We didn’t evolve with treadmills and barbells, so why
should experts recommend exercising every day? The answer would probably be bec
ause our daily life doesn’t challenge us enough physically.
I’d like to suggest that our daily life doesn’t challenge us enough mentally. Throug
h setting aside time to visit the mental “gym” and organizing my life to work variou
s mental muscles I’ve found it much easier to think logically, create new ideas an
d focus myself.
Research indicates brainpower is more than just genes
Science shows that intelligence is both environmental and genetic. Lab rats give
n more toys to interact ended up much smarter than rats left without any. Even m
ore, studies are now showing that, contrary to an earlier belief, you can grow n
ew neurons if given a stimulating environment.
The benefits of mental fitness
The benefits of physical fitness are obvious and visual. In my opinion, the bene
fits of mental fitness are even more important, although they might be more subt
le. Here’s just a few benefits I’ve noticed from structuring my activities and hitti
ng the mental gym:
* Rapid learning. It’s no secret I barely study for exams. My grade point aver
age for my first year of University was a 4.2 out of a 4.5 (my lowest mark was o
ne B+). And this is while taking courses with high failure rates such as Calculu
s, Asian History and Computer Science.
* Logical thinking. I’ve been told one of the biggest assets to this blog is m
y ability to discuss problems with a clear line of logic and reasoning. I believ
e this is an ability I’ve greatly improved over the last few years through mental
training.
* Creativity. This month I wrote about 25 articles for this blog, 15 article
s as a freelancer and a handful of guest posts. The volume of posting ideas I ge
t is large enough that I now need to put a more strenuous filter for quality.
* Memory. I’ve gone from almost complete absent mindedness to above average me
mory. Learning memory tools such as linking and pegging have given me new method
s to store information.
* Focus. When I started meditating to improve focus over a year ago, I found
it hard to control a visual scene or keep out distracting thoughts. I’ve since no
ticed huge improvements so that I can hold images, ideas or focal points even wi
th a fair degree of distraction. I’m still starting out, but the future looks prom
ising.
Creating a mental fitness routine
There are two major ways to construct a mental fitness routine:
1. Balancing projects/activities to ensure all mental “muscles” are being worked
intensely.
2. Setting aside time to hit the mental gym with activities solely for the pu
rpose of building brainpower.
I use a combination of the two. Unlike physical exercise which is hard to reach
a high intensity in routine life, you can structure your day to ensure you are w
orking mental muscles.
You just need to ensure that you are working all mental muscles, not just one or
two. If you go to the gym and just work biceps, you’ll have big arms but be compl
etely weak everywhere else. Varied mental exercises will ensure you can handle a
ll problems and ideas.
Here are twenty ideas for starting a mental fitness routine. I don’t suggest tryin
g to implement them all. Instead either set aside fifteen minutes a day for one
of these or integrate one of them into your routine.
1. Journaling – Writing down your thoughts is a great tool for problem solving.
Every journal session I have, I leave amazed with the answers to tough problems
I can come up with. Journaling is your Universal Machine of the mental gym, pro
viding good workouts for creativity, logic and focus.
2. Meditation – I’ve only recently started to find serious uses for meditation in
my mental regimen. Before I saw meditation as a more spiritual than practical a
ctivity. Now I’ve come up with several different meditations to work different men
tal muscles:
* Visualization – One I’ve been working on I call: eating the white apple.
Visualize a white apple and hold it in your mind. Then imagine yourself eating
it a bite at a time. Experience all the sensations of touch, taste, sound, smell
and sight. The hard part is keeping the mental image of your apple consistent w
ith where and how you eat it. I can usually only go about 10 bites before the me
ntal image degrades.
* Focused Breathing – Start by slowing your breathing to about 10-15 sec
onds per breath. Next focus on one specific part of your body on the inhale. Sel
ect a new focus on the exhale. You can then move this to noticing specific sound
s or senses. A good exercise in focus.
* Self-Dialog – Meditation makes it easier to talk with yourself. You ca
n invent characters that can dialog with you, helping explore ideas. I believe j
ournaling is an easier form of introspection than meditation, but they both have
their strengths.
3. Cycle Hobbies – Take up new activities regularly. This will keep your learni
ng curve steep so your mind is always engaged at a high intensity. I’ve dabbled in
painting, dancing, speaking, running, music, woodworking, programming, design a
nd many others.
4. Peripheral Activities – Don’t just take new hobbies, take ones that are vastly
different from each other. Being a mile wide doesn’t just improve mental fitness,
it gives you a broad base of metaphors for creativity.
5. Read One Book Per Week – I strive to read one book each week. Sometimes this
can be difficult with time constraints, but the benefits are impressive. If you
want to save time on this one, learn speed reading.
6. Engaging Fiction – Engage yourself in movies, books or television that makes
you think. Television that makes you think might sound like an oxymoron, but th
e medium isn’t all bad if you know where to look. Engaging doesn’t just mean enterta
ining, but that it actively challenges your assumptions.
7. Puzzles – I like to do crosswords and computer game puzzles. Solitary game p
laying can keep your mind sharp as long as the learning curve is steep and it do
esn’t become routine.
8. Competitive Games – Games that require strategic thinking are excellent ways
to boost your logic and empathizing skills. Chess may be an intellectual favori
te, but newer games can hold more promise by being much more diverse, and having
a deeper range of strategic options.
9. Explore Another’s Perspective – Empathy is a mental, not just an emotional, ab
ility. Exploring another’s perspective hones your ability to think through another’s
eyes. Although empathy is often dismissed as being touchy-feely and not logical
, the ability to think from another’s perspective is an advanced mental ability th
at doesn’t develop until we are several years old.
10. Create Regularly – I always like to have a project on the go. After finishin
g my latest e-book, I’ve been itching for a new challenge. I think I’ll be redesigni
ng the entire website in the next month or two.
11. Thought Experiments – Einstein was famous for thought experiments. This kind
of reasoning ability is a mark of intelligence. Ask yourself, “What if?”
12. Break Routines – Try consciously breaking one of your habits, just for a mom
ent. Eat a different breakfast. Take a different route to work. Sleep in the opp
osite direction.
13. New Cultures – Expose yourself to different worldviews. I found going to Uni
versity and meeting people from vastly different cultures to have a big effect o
n my own ideas.
14. Learn Outside Your Interests – Don’t stick to what you like. As a geek who kno
ws C++ and watches Star Trek, I wasn’t sure whether I’d like dancing. But I took a L
atin dancing course and found it to be both fun and interesting. People told me
I was an introvert who wouldn’t make a good public speaker. I just finished my Com
petent Toastmaster and Competent Leader awards from the Toastmasters program.
15. Friendly Debate – Discuss, don’t argue. When you are in a debate you should tr
y to persuade, but welcome opposing ideas not as attacks but opportunities. Deba
ting forces you to examine your opinions.
16. Teach - When I used to teach First Aid as a lifeguard, I was often surpris
ed at how much better I understood the material through teaching it. Writing art
icles for this blog organizes those ideas inside my head.
17. Practice New Skills – Mastery may be useful, but I don’t think it is as valuab
le to mental discipline as just getting the basics. Unless a skill is useful to
you, I’d suggest trying to learn different skills just to adequacy and then moving
to something different. It can take six months to understand 80% of a subject a
nd sixty years to understand 95%.
18. Force Constraints – Try washing yourself with your eyes closed. Cooking with
out sauces. Reading upside down. Extra constraints make problems more challengin
g, ramping up the mental intensity required.
19. Interlink – Holistic learning is about linking ideas together. Spend some ti
me to explore a subject and ask yourself how the pieces fit into other informati
on. This will organize your thinking and improve your understanding.
20. Increase Mental Intensity - Force yourself to use your brain more. All the
se ideas are just specific implementations to increase the mental intensity you
face. Focus, strategy, logic and creativity are just a few of the mental muscles
you should be exercising more regularly.
Image courtesy of flickr.
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26 Responses to “20 Tricks to Boost IQ and Build a Mental Exercise Routine”
1.
Keep Thy Tool Sharp « Marston’s 365 says:
June 30, 2007 at 8:54 pm
[...] How we keep sharp is as individualized as our DNA. Whatever regime
you use, there can always be improvements. In his blog posting 20 Tricks to Bo
ost IQ and Build a Mental Exercise Routine Scott Young shares several (20 to be
exact – see, I can deduce that from the title!) tips on how to keep on top of your
game. Some of these concepts are quite common sense in that we know to do them
. However, the beauty in this posting is that Scott spells it out quickly and s
imply. A small reminder is always a good thing. The trick to this is to make i
t a routine. Practice, effort and willingness are all a part of that, but, maki
ng it a habit is a lot of work. Scott is very good at helping in that regard as
 well. [...]
2.
Alan Marston says:
June 30, 2007 at 8:57 pm
Scott,
Funny story…I was just blogging about this post, talking about how the brain
is a tool that requires preventative maintenance to keep it sharp. Following al
ong your theme. Then, instead of “publish” I hit “Clear Contents.” Sometimes, irony is a
wonderfully fun thing. I guess I need more maintenance!
I have become a fast fan of this blog of yours. I am learning more with ea
ch posting and look forward to the next!
3.
Boss says:
June 30, 2007 at 9:59 pm
scott,
hey nice article i love getting smarter and challenging my mind. sorry to
be blunt; well at first i thought you were a homosexual, but then you said you w
ere a geek so that explains it. unless you’re both? but any ways you write well. b
ut since you told me you are a “geek” i now must take everything you say with a grai
n of salt. geeeeeeez
much love
4.
Scott Young says:
June 30, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Alan,
Perhaps that’s how I secretly get all my posting ideas. Some cosmic force pr
opels them from the recycling bins of other bloggers and into my head!
Boss,
No I’m definitely straight, although I don’t see how that equates with geek…
5.
Marek says:
July 1, 2007 at 3:30 am
Just one tip from your resident self-improving linguist: read not only boo
ks outside your regular interests, read book in other languages. This will not o
nly help you progress in and maintain that language, but also expand you mental
horizons culturally.
And if you know only your native language, get out there and start learnin
g another. I guarantee you, learning a new language is one of the most demanding
, expanding and rewarding mental excercises in the world.
6.
Scott Young says:
July 1, 2007 at 7:44 am
Marek,
I’ve learned a bit of French, but I’ve always been interested in learning lang
uages besides English.
-Scott
 7.
ZHereford says:
July 1, 2007 at 10:11 am
Fascinating post!
Scott how is it that at such a young age you are so savy?
Are you related to Peter, David or Anne Young? You look like you could be.
8.
Eric Blue says:
July 1, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Scott,
Fantastic post and some great tips! Have you ever tried out any of the men
tal fitness games out there (like MyBrainTrainer — formally ThinkFast).
9.
Scott Young says:
July 1, 2007 at 12:29 pm
ZHereford,
I have an uncle and cousin both named David and a cousin named Peter. I’m af
raid I’m not at the top of original surnames, so the chances are slim that I’m relat
ed to any other Young you happen to know.
It took me months of blogging before I could even claim the top search eng
ine ranking for my own name!
-Scott
10.
Kali says:
July 1, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Scott,
Great idea about engaging all “muscles” in a novel routine… I plan to register f
or novel classes like dancing and painting during school semesters at the U of M
. Hopefully, this will pull me out of the twister that equates coursework with s
uccess by keeping me present-focused. In the meantime, I’ll engage my muscles by c
hecking out speedreading, journaling (which I guess will include thought experim
ents) more regularly, and exploring interlinking.
Thank-you so much for the novel ideas!
Kali
11.
Boss says:
July 1, 2007 at 5:11 pm
well because you never talk about chicks or parties, even though you’re in C
OLLEGE :)
12.
Scott Young says:
July 1, 2007 at 8:43 pm
Boss,
You assume that because I don’t mention aspects of my social life on this bl
og that they don’t exist. I partied a fair bit in my eight months at residence and
my best friend and I pretty much talk exclusively about women.
But I’m not a dating expert and I am still sorting out my beliefs on social
aspects of my life so I don’t write articles about those topics.
Plus this isn’t a diary. I only do semi-annual posts that are specifically a
bout myself, so I’ll have to apologize if the site makes me appear particularly na
rrow.
13.
ZHereford says:
July 2, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Scott, you’re right the surname ‘Young’ is not what you’d call obsure. Sorry about
that. The Youngs I mentioned are siblings originally from Windsor, Ontario so y
ou’re probably not related to them.
14.
Recommended Reading 03/07/2007 | Personal Development - Brick Blogging say
s:
July 2, 2007 at 9:50 pm
[...] One of my favorite personal development bloggers, Scott H Young, has
an interesting article called 20 Tricks to Boost IQ and Build a Mental Exercise
Routine. I’ve been using many of the tricks he writes about and I can definitely
recommend them to you. [...]
15.
Christian Jonassen says:
September 26, 2007 at 9:39 pm
You mention that you do memory training, but you do not provide any specif
ic hints for this. I would recommend trying to visualise things, learning system
s that translate numbers into images, and so on.
16.
20 Tricks to Boost IQ and Build a Mental Exercise Routine « Natural Health A
lternatives says:
November 4, 2007 at 12:13 pm
[...] read more | digg story [...]
17.
Niedzielne linki: okres przedsesyjny « Doodge’owy przemyślnik says:
January 20, 2008 at 3:25 pm
[...] 20 Tricks to Boost IQ and Build a Mental Exercise Routine – bo czasem
nie wiedza się liczy ;-) [...]
18.
mathew says:
February 1, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Learn languages the fun way :
If you are interested in learning Arabic, French, Spanish or English the f
un way, be sure to visit http://www.speakitall.com.
19.
Max says:
March 16, 2008 at 11:18 pm
I think the suggestion of learning another language is a great one. It is
indeed one of the most challenging and engaging tasks you can undertake, but onc
e you are able to speak even at a basic level, interaction with native speakers
will expand your abilities at an amazing rate. Since you know French (given that
 you seem like an ambitious and intelligent guy), you could probably be pretty c
onfident with spanish or Italian in a matter of weeks. I also just started learn
ing Chinese and it’s a very fun challenge. Given that there are 1.3B Chinese and c
ounting, I figure knowing their language can’t be a bad thing. Great post, actuall
y one of the best I’ve found of this kind. We’ve all heard to do one small thing to
get better every day, and you summarize very well some of these things in the re
alm of bettering our mind. Thanks and keep it up.
20.
Scott Young says:
March 17, 2008 at 5:35 am
Max,
Not sure where you got the idea I can speak French. I took basic French in
school, but I’m far from fluency.
-Scott
21.
Max says:
March 18, 2008 at 12:36 am
“I’ve learned a bit of French, but I’ve always been interested in learning langu
ages besides English.”
That’s where I got the idea, I guess I just missed the “a bit” part.
22.
Scott Young says:
March 18, 2008 at 3:46 am
Max,
Perhaps I should have emphasized “a bit” more, as my French vocabulary consist
s of about ten token sentences and thirty or forty words.
-Scott
23.
Scott H Young » 100 Good Ideas says:
May 28, 2008 at 7:00 am
[...] Exercise your mind. [...]
24.
C.J. says:
August 16, 2008 at 8:35 pm
I noticed I’ve been forgetting many things lately and only in my 20’s that sca
res me. I’m glad I came upon your site to read about your mental exercises. I’ve alw
ays used meditation for headaches and other ailments however it never occurred t
o me to use it for mental strength as well. I could really taste that apple! :-)
Thanks!
25.
Martin s.s. says:
July 28, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Hey scoot! These 2 links could help you, maybe
http://www.wordofmouthexperiment.com/articles/iq-tests-brain-fitness/incre
ase-your-iq-act-now
http://the-secrets.eu/blog/?p=13
 greets martin s.s. (karina)
26.
ross says:
April 2, 2010 at 11:42 am
Not to complain, but you spelt flickr wrong. Flicrk?