How to be more intelligent in 2025

Yahoo

29-01-2025

Our culture places a massive premium on our ability to think and solve problems. It influences our career, dating, and overall life outcomes. We've been sold this broken idea that the cards we get are the cards we get. What if intelligence isn't just about genetics, but habits?
You can improve your cognitive skills with a several brain training techniques that will improve your mental performance over time.
Here are six quick strategies that only require 15 minutes a day.
Choose knowledge over test scores
I'll let you in on a little secret: You can improve your IQ score. Just take more IQ tests.
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Scores are proven to increase via the Practice Effect. But that doesn't do much for you, does it? In fact, those enhanced scores are considered an error variance (faulty data) by IQ test administrators.
It's easy to get lost in the noise, debate, and hype around intelligence. It's best to think of intelligence as what you do rather than what you are. For example, if you wanted to improve your trivia skills, you wouldn't sit around studying IQ test questions. You'd study random trivia.
The best strategy is to develop a growth mindset and implement continuous learning, which is fueled by curiosity. Expand your knowledge base and information at your disposal.
Many people you perceive as being extremely smart, aren't born geniuses. They are just well-read. They use their time to find, learn and study things that interest them. Even if you only have 15 minutes a day, spending that time reading not only helps you build your knowledge, it activates neural pathways in the brain.
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I've never met a unintelligent person who spends their free time reading. Or perhaps I have. But, because they read, they did a good job of hiding it.
Practice problem solving and critical thinking
Studies have repeatedly proven the importance of mental activity and aging. The problem is that most of us get jobs with deep and narrow focuses or which require droning activities, leaving other parts of our brains unchallenged.
For example, there's a game that may actually make you smarter. It's called Dual N-Back Online. It has been shown to reduce dementia in patients.
While most of you don't need to worry about that now, none of you are getting any younger. Contrary to my own skeptical assumptions, scientists also found that brain games, such as Lumosity, boost cognitive function.
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Participants demonstrated greater problem-solving and an improved ability to quickly switch between tasks.
Many games are designed specifically for things you struggle with — such as cognition, pattern recognition, memory, and spatial reasoning. Just as some physical exercises boost functional strength, brain games help with real-life cognitive tasks. It spares you from the abstractness of IQ tests.
Remember: Mental exercises don't just improve the mind — they also protect brain health.
A quick and easy creativity drill
Here's a great creativity exercise my writing mentor taught me.
It's simple and you can do it while brushing your teeth. The goal is to think of two things that are as far removed from each other as possible. You could start simple and say, 'Blue and red.' Then you could say, 'Grass and astronomy.'
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You work your way out from there. For example, you could think bike, snail, love, stenography, sales, alphabet. Then, in the final step, after you think of the two most radically different subjects — try to connect them.
As a simple example, we could try to connect 'snail' and 'alphabet'.
Both can spell each other — a snail with its slime, the alphabet with its letters. Both words have the letters 'a' and 'l'. Both can be a good soup. You get the drift.
This exercise develops your ability to connect unrelated subjects. This ability sits at the beating heart of creativity
Slow things down with meditation
I began meditating after after my initial resistance to the activity. After doing it consistently for a few weeks, I felt a fundamental change in my mind. My stress went down and my posture improved.
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My mind feels calm. The inner noise dies down. I feel still, focused, and uncluttered. Meditation is proven to boost attention and executive function— that part of your brain enabling you to have more control of your actions, to be more deliberate. Another study found that it improves verbal fluency and cognitive flexibility.
And I get that many people resist this suggestion. Just as my friend raved to me about meditation, I was doing the same last month with my neighbor. We were working on his car and I said, 'Have you tried meditation?'
His face scrunched up, 'No, what is that?'
I explained meditation and he gave me this quizzical look like I was talking about hippie wizardry. He's an older military guy. He isn't keen on this type of stuff. However, his doubt isn't uncommon.
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Believe in meditation. The impact is real. It strengthens your mind.
I never do it more than 10 minutes a day and it still pays dividends.
With all of the overstimulating flashing screens and notifications, it's immensely healthy and helpful to slow everything down. Your brain needs it.
Don't shy away from exercise and nutrition
Just as meditation, and slowing our minds down, has this counterintuitively useful impact on cognition, so does exercise. It helps reduce the aging effects on our brain, and fortifies your mind to perform at its best. It is also extremely useful in reducing mental health constraints that can negatively impact cognition, such as depression and anxiety (which can hurt executive function, attention spans, and lower processing speed).
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Your brain is a biological organ that is at the mercy of the same chemical forces your other organs are. Don't forget to healthy lifestyle habits to give it the best chance to succeed and perform over time.
This includes a healthy brain diet, with omega-3 fatty acids, nuts, berries, green tea, vitamin B12, and leafy greens. Combine this with proper sleep and stress management, and you'll already be ahead of the pack.
Lastly, practice deliberate learning
One of my close friends is a successful author, who was always an average student in school. In English class, he never got praise from his teacher nor did I seek it. His work was mediocre. You'd have never predicted he'd become an author. I even remember
Yet, today, he is much better than many of those star students, writing books and hit essays.
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Why? Because he fell in love with the craft on his own terms years later. He didn't quit. He obsessed over the mechanics, iterated, got feedback, and had the humility to learn at something new. His persistence paid off in huge dividends and I am still in awe of how far he's come.
The bigger point I'm making: humans have a remarkable ability to become highly competent at specific things. And while talent will always play a role, it is curiosity and persistence that unlocks your unexpected potential. Make sure you give yourself time to focus on these skills, without distractions, like your phone, which will interrupt deep focus and periods of quick learning.
There are too many defeatist attitudes floating around, 'I'm no good at that.' Or, 'I'm not smart enough for that.'
You being here — reading in your free time— indicates you're probably smarter than the average dot on a scatter plot.
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Put in at least 10–15 minutes a day on that one thing you wish you were better at, and watch the change happen.
Remember, believe in yourself and be persistent. The human brain is a magnificent creation of evolution. Do any of these things for 15 minutes a day, and your mind will be better for it. Treat this as a lifelong learning strategy rather than an instant fix.
Recap for your memory