5 Proven Ways To Boost Your Cognitive Power

I think there isn’t a single person out there who wouldn’t want to become better at solving problems.

Our entire life consists of solving various problems that like to pop out of nowhere, and when we think of fulfilling a dream or accomplishing a goal, it usually means successfully solving a difficult problem.

The quality of our entire life improves when we become good at problem-solving.

Now problem-solving is an ability that correlates directly with the so-called fluid intelligence. It is, simply put, your capacity to learn new information, retain it, then use this newly acquired knowledge to solve the next problem or learn a new skill.

Fluid intelligence depends greatly upon your working memory.

And the good news here is that working memory can be quite successfully trained.

A study was conducted back in 2008 which showed that by training working memory, it is indeed possible to greatly improve your cognitive abilities and problem-solving skills. The study itself consisted of training several subjects using the so-called dial-n-back task. And the subjects were able to transfer the gains they made there to a significant improvement in their score on a completely unrelated cognitive task. Here you can find more information on the study.

Now we have to note that subjects trained their working memory using a specific system, which involves dividing your attention between competing stimuli.

And while it was enough to prove the study successful, in the long term, you can’t really use it to improve your cognitive abilities. It’s just too boring and repetitive to be used for more than a week.

But there are many other ways you can improve your fluid intelligence. The same and much greater cognitive benefits can be obtained by adopting lifestyle changes which can be implemented every day, to get you the benefits of intense entire-brain training, and it will transfer to gains in overall cognitive functioning as well.

There are 5 primary principles, that are involved in increasing your fluid intelligence. Applying even one would reap immense benefits, but if you want to function at your absolute mental peak, you should do all five, and as often as possible.

If you do, your performance will greatly surprise you and surpass even what you believe you are capable of.

Let’s review them:

1. Seek Novelty

The Five-Factor Model of Personality has 5 traits, but only one correlates directly with IQ and it’s Openness. It means constantly seeking new information, new activities to engage in, new things to learn — new experiences in general.

Think about geniuses like Leonardo da Vinci or Einstein. The defining quality of their personalities is that they’re constantly seeking out novel activities, exploring new fields.

There’s a certain reason why some people are more intelligent than others. The reason is called neural plasticity. This term refers to the number of synaptic connections made between neurons, how that affects subsequent connections, and how long-lasting those connections are.

It basically means how much new information you are able to take in, and if you are able to retain it, making lasting changes to your brain. If you constantly seek out new experiences, it puts your brain into a perfect state for learning.

And novelty can also trigger dopamine, which not only makes your motivation go through the roof but also stimulates neurogenesis — the creation of new neurons — and prepares your brain for learning. A double win — you just need to feed the hunger.

All this means that we are essentially programmed to always explore something new — it’s only through that we can feel ourselves truly alive.

Summary:

Imitate the geniuses — always look for new experiences and activities to engage your mind — expand your cognitive horizons.

Learn a new language.

Take that course or join a club of your interest.

You can even just take a different route home from work — and your brain will thank you later.

2. Challenge Yourself

Do you want your brain to be really efficient?

The truth is, your definition of efficient is probably different from your brain’s. What it wants is to save energy — and this means no cognitive growth.

Now this doesn’t mean our brain is lazy in common sense, but when it completes a difficult task over and over again, it gets used to it, and even if there was some growth in the beginning, when everything is already familiar, there’s no point in wasting mental energy anymore.

If you have a car, you may remember how everything seemed so hard in the beginning and now you probably don’t even think about the process when you drive home from work.

A scientist named Richard Haier once conducted an experiment which goal was to see if you could increase your cognitive ability by intensely training on novel mental activities for a period of several weeks.

The novel activity was the game of Tetris, and believe it or not, they managed to find people who had never played the game before.

After a few weeks of Tetris training, they found that subjects experienced an increase in cortical thickness, as well as an increase in cortical activity, as evidenced by the increase in how much glucose was used in that area of the brain. Basically, exposure to the new activity has pushed their brains to use more energy, develop more neural connections, and become thicker as a result. And they became experts at Tetris. Not bad, huh?

Now here’s the thing: After the huge initial growth, a decline was noticed in both cortical thickness, as well as the amount of glucose used during playing. Despite this, their skills at Tetris stayed at the same level, even though their brain scans showed less brain activity during the task, instead of more, as in the previous days.

What happened? Their brains got more efficient. Once their brain figured out how to play Tetris, and do it well, it got lazy, sending cognitive energy and glucose somewhere else since it didn’t need to work hard to play the game anymore.

So what’s the take-home point? Our brain needs to be constantly challenged, pushed to its limit, to prevent stagnation and encourage growth.

Einstein said:

“One should not pursue goals that are easily achieved. One must develop an instinct for what one can just barely achieve through one’s greatest efforts.”

As he alluded to in his quote, you want to be in a constant state of slight discomfort, struggling to barely achieve whatever it is you are trying to do, only then will your mind be stimulated enough to be constantly growing.

Summary:

If you like “brain training games” like Sudoku, you shouldn’t think that playing it for years after you mastered it will make you a genius.

When you have achieved proficiency in a certain field, don’t stop, move on to the next challenging activity. Our mind likes novelty and challenge — don’t let your F1 rust away in a garage!

3. Think Creatively

You might think this involves something artistic like painting a picture, but even though it wouldn’t hurt (remember #1?), it does not.

Creative thinking pertains to creative cognition, and what that means as far as the process going on in your brain.

Contrary to what many believe, creative thinking doesn’t mean “thinking with the right side of your brain”. Real creative cognition requires both halves of your brain, not just the right.

Experts define creative cognition as “a set of mental processes that support the generation of novel and useful ideas”. If you’re curious, you can read more about it.

It’s obvious that a student would understand a topic a lot better if he’s given a problem and is required to think of a creative solution, rather than just memorizing facts.

Some time ago, Dr. Robert Sternberg from Tufts University opened the PACE (Psychology of Abilities, Competencies, and Expertise) Center, in Boston.

His goal was to understand the fundamental concept of intelligence, and also to find ways in which any person can maximize his or her intelligence through training, and especially, through teaching in schools.

As part of a research study, The Rainbow Project, he created innovative methods of creative teaching and generated assessment procedures that encouraged students to use their creative and analytical abilities.

In his own words:

“In the Rainbow Project we created assessments of creative and practical as well as analytical abilities. A creative test might be: ‘Here’s a cartoon. Caption it.’ A practical problem might be a movie of a student going into a party, looking around, not knowing anyone, and obviously feeling uncomfortable. What should the student do?”

The results? On average, the students in the creative group received higher final grades than the traditional group (the one taught normally).

But just to make things fair, he also gave the creatives the very same analytical-type exam that the regular students got (a multiple-choice test), and they scored higher on that test as well.

That means the knowledge they gained using creative, multimodal teaching methods, was transferred to a different field and they were able to score higher on a completely different cognitive test of achievement on that same material. Sound familiar?

Summary:

To get better at problem-solving, you need to approach every problem from as many angles as possible.

You need both halves of your brain working on it — one generating endless ideas, the other — providing all the possible ways to put them to life.

4. Do Things the Hard Way

Let’s talk about efficiency again.

As we could see previously, it’s not always your friend when it comes to increasing intelligence.

But unfortunately, our modern world is hellbent on efficiency — everything is designed so that we can use the least amount of physical and mental energy possible, in the shortest amount of time. Saving time is good, but it can play a bad joke on your brain.

Let me give you an example.

Imagine you had a flying platform which could deliver you to any location, at any speed — a great alternative to cars indeed. But if you used that convenient and efficient invention everywhere you went, including from sofa to kitchen, your muscles would inevitably atrophy, your heart would struggle to make the next beat and you’ll become weak and pathetic.

If you have seen The Matrix, you can imagine Neo after waking up to his new reality — unable to move a muscle because he never used them before.

Your mind is just the same as muscles — it needs activity or it will atrophy. You need to use your problem-solving skills, spatial skills, logical skills, your cognitive skills to just stay in top mental shape.

Like we discussed above, you’ll also need to challenge your brain to actually evolve.

Sometimes it is necessary to rely on technology to get something done quickly and efficiently.

But you can’t put yourself in a wheelchair if your legs are completely healthy — unless you want them not to be.

Summary:

Don’t let your brain atrophy from continuous reliance on technology.

Instead of always using Maps, learn where everything is in your city.

Try learning a language instead of relying on Translate and your brain will thank you again later.

5. Network

The last, but totally not least, element to maximize your cognitive potential: networking. The good thing about this one is that if you are doing the other four things, you are probably already doing this as well.

If not, start.

Immediately.

Why? Because through networking, you find opportunities to do everything mentioned above:

• By exposing yourself to new people, ideas, and environments, you are opening yourself up to new opportunities for cognitive growth.
• Finding new activities to do with other people helps your brain grow and provides you with a huge motivational boost.
• Being in the presence of other people who may be outside of your immediate field gives you opportunities to see problems from a new perspective, or offer insight in ways that you had never thought of before.
• Actually socializing with people(even just speaking on the phone) instead of always using social media won’t let your brain atrophy and if you find real friends who want to grow, they won’t let this happen anyway.

And that’s not even mentioning the social benefits and emotional well-being that you can derive from networking.

You don’t have to make acquaintance with everyone you see.

Start small — for example, if you have a hobby, try finding people in your city who enjoy the same, maybe even a club. Gradually, you can develop your network to any size you want.

Summary:

If you are looking for ways to discover novel situations, ideas, environments, and perspectives, then networking is the answer.

Don’t waste your time, start today!

Conclusion

Perhaps you already heard about all these principles. After all, none of them is something extraordinary.

But if you seriously want to reach your mental peak, you have no option but to follow all these principles.

Like in The Matrix, you may find it hard at first to make your brain actually work if you never used it before, but it’s totally worth it.

And we know that this is indeed possible, so go and achieve what’s impossible!

SOURCE:

The original article appeared in Scientific American

(You can also read this article here, on my blog)