“Intelligence is quickness in seeing things as they are.”
George Santayana, philosopher.
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“There is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is the child of intelligence.”
Robert G. Ingersoll, Civil War Veteran & Political Leader.
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Eight scientifically proven methods stimulate brain cell growth, promote mental sharpness and increase IQ. We can call them the 8 Pillars of IQ.
1. Confidence in your own intelligence.
Academic performance and other types of IQ work – learning something new, taking on a project, solving a problem – depends critically on your confidence in your own cognitive ability. To be intelligent, you have to believe that you are capable of solving problems and making decisions and achieving goals intelligently.
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“Whether you think you can or think you can’t – you are right.”
Henry Ford, Founder of Ford Motor Company.
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“You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.
Michael Jordan, Retired Professional Basketball player.
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2. New, challenging experience.
We need astimulating environment involving new experience. We need to take risks, and get out of our comfort zones for continual learning and mental alertness.
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“The person who lives a sheltered life, who seeks constancy and sameness, who gravitates strongly to the predictable, may be extremely well adapted to that niche. However he isn’t growing.”
Carver & Scheier, Psychologists.
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“A man’s errors are his portals of discovery.”
James Joyce, Novelist
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3. A healthy diet and brain nutrition.
Brain foods include Omega 3, B6, B12, Zinc, Epicathechin, and Folic Acid. Avoid sugar and bad fats – e.g.trans fatty acids such as you find in margarine. These kill brain cells. Creatine has been shown in clinical trials to increase IQ, particularly as we age.Creatine supplies extra energy for mental work. Good food may work synergistically with exercise.
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“The energy of the mind is the essence of life.”
Aristotle, Philosopher
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4. Regular exercise.
Just like training working memory, jogging and other types of aerobic exercise stimulate the production of new neurons in part of the brain called the hippocampus needed for flexible learning and intelligence.
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“Being a runner, to me, has made being depressed impossible. If ever I’m going through something emotional and just go outside for a run, you can rest assured that I’ll come back with clarity and empowerment.”
Alanis Morissette, Singer-songwriter
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5. Working memory brain training.
Software now exists to expand working memory capacity. Our ‘Working memory’ is our short term memory for information that we actively process to think, solve problems and make decisions, while ignoring distractions. The capacity of working memory is highly related to IQ level. By training working memory capacity we increase IQ level. This is the only known way to increase IQ. Our company High IQ Pro provides this scientific training software (link)
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“Increasing intelligence is possible after all using working memory training…with more training leading to greater gains…across the spectrum of abilities.”
Robert Sternberg, Professor of Psychology
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6. Being free from chronic stress: meditating.
Cortisol is a hormone that seriously damages the brain. It destroys brain cells at a rapid rate. Mindfulness meditation is an excellent practice to reduce stress levels.
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“Brain cells create ideas. Stress kills brain cells. Stress is not a good idea.”
Frederick Saunders.
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7. Having good sleep.
Sleep is essential for mental alertness and a high IQ. There is strong evidence that deep sleep is essential for recovery from mental work while REM (dreaming) sleep stimulates long term learning of complex, intelligence-demanding tasks. This is arguably the main function of dreaming.
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“It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.”
John Steinbeck, novelist
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8. Mindware.
All of the practices above generate new brain cells, prevent brain cell death, and foster intelligence. But intelligence needs knowledge and information to work with. It requires knowledge and procedures for tackling any situation intelligently.
In summary, these are the 8 pillars of intelligence and what you need to know to increase IQ – to ’see things as they are’ and preserve your cognitive liberty.
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“Intelligence is quickness in seeing things as they are.”George Santayana, philosopher. ”There is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is the child of intelligence.”Robert G. Ingersoll, Civil War Veteran & Political Leader.
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I understand that HighIQPro exercises working memory and thereby bumps up fluid intelligence.
What I would like to know, however, is whether one’s current performance as a beginner on HighIQPro reflects one’s intelligence.
Equally, is an improvement in one’s IQ score dependent on actually getting better at the HighIQPro exercise? Or is it sufficient simply to use the program regularly without actually getting better at it!
Not saying what my score is.. just curious!
In answer to your first question, there is link between working memory capacity and fluid intelligence yes – but working memory is not the same as intelligence, and you could have a low working memory score and have a high intelligence level. And your intelligence gain does not depend on your working memory capacity gain. What is important is that the task remains challenging to you, that’s all.
I Liked reading this post. Quite some usefull fitness info in it for me
. Again, nice post and i hope you keep it up!
The Seven Pillars was informative and motivating. Keep posting!