You have already worked a lot to increase your intelligence and this is something you don’t want to lose. Many things you probably do every day have a negative influence on your brain and kill your intelligence. Fortunately, there are ways to avoid them.
1. Multitasking
Reading this article while watching TV and answering your text messages may make you think you are simply doing more things in a shorter amount of time, but it actually is not a good idea. Multimedia multitasking lowers gray matter density, affecting your cognitive and emotional control. People who constantly use gadgets can not concentrate and recall information as well as those who don’t. So, in fact, multitasking is less productive than doing a single thing at a time.2. Poor Nutrition
You should be concerned about consuming saturated fats and sugar not only for the sake of your health but also because such kind of foods reduce your cognitive flexibility, which is the ability to adapt to changing situations, and can affect your memory and ability to learn. Your brain (as well as your stomach) will also thank you for not taking the easy way by eating pre-cooked and processed foods, since they can lead to excessive cravings and contain ingredients that have the ability to affect your behaviors and cognitive functioning. And don’t think caffeine is truly the best way to start your day since it easily causes headaches and makes you less calm. Eating healthy homemade food is what is going to give you the energy you need.3. Googling vs Being an Expert
Searching the Internet makes people believe they know more than they really do as they can find almost any answer online. However, that doesn’t mean that your brain is doing the work. Knowing you can easily access information, you don’t remember it that well, which also affects your critical thinking. Even if you are an expert in your field and use your own brain, psychologists have found that people who think they know much about a topic are more likely to claim that made-up facts are true. In fact, we are more likely to believe the statements that prove us right and thus tend not to question them.4. Being Asocial
Our brains are made for socialization and we need to be in contact with other people to think and function properly. Studies show that people who socialize much perform better on cognitive tests than those who don’t. Being with friends also gives you a chance to take a break and avoid too much stress, which can help enhance your memory and mental acuity. Not enough social life increases the likelihood of developing psychological disorders, which can potentially damage your brain, so you should think twice before sacrificing time you could spend with your friends to concentrate on your work.5. Lack of Sleep
You love sleep because your brain loves it too. Poor sleep damages your thinking skills, which makes studying all night long before an exam a really bad idea. Being sleepy negatively affects your short-term and long-term memory, attention and planning skills, as well as the ability to understand other people’s facial emotions. Needless to say that this all makes it harder for your brain to work effectively. Even if you are tired not because of the lack of sleep but because of the physical and mental exhaustion, you should probably take a break. Sleepiness can even lead to mental disorders like depression and anxiety, so even if you have a lot of things to do, you better take some time to rest and recharge your batteries.7 Everyday Ways You Are Lowering Your Intelligence
1. Saturated fat reduces cognitive flexibility
A high-fat, high-sugar diet causes significant damage to cognitive flexibility, a new study finds.Cognitive flexibility is the ability to adjust and adapt to changing situations.
The research was carried out on laboratory mice.
They were given either a normal diet, a high-fat diet or a high-sugar diet.
After four weeks the mental and physical performance of mice on the high-fat or high-sugar diet began to suffer.
2. Multimedia multitasking shrinks the brain
Using laptops, phones and other media devices at the same time could shrink important structures in the brain, a new study indicates.For the first time, neuroscientists have found that people who use multiple devices simultaneously have lower gray-matter density in an area of the brain associated with cognitive and emotional control.
Multitasking might include listening to music while playing a video game or watching TV while making a phone call or even reading the newspaper with the TV on.
3. Googling it makes you feel cleverer than you are
Searching the internet makes people feel they know more than they really do, a new study finds.And it doesn’t seem to matter much that people don’t actually find the information for which they were searching.
Matthew Fisher, who led the research, said:
“The Internet is such a powerful environment, where you can enter any question, and you basically have access to the world’s knowledge at your fingertips.
It becomes easier to confuse your own knowledge with this external source.
When people are truly on their own, they may be wildly inaccurate about how much they know and how dependent they are on the Internet.”
4. Too much sugar damages memory
Otherwise healthy people with high blood sugar levels are more likely to have memory problems, according to a recent study published in the journal Neurology.One of the study’s authors, Dr. Agnes Flöel, said:
“…even for people within the normal range of blood sugar, lowering their blood sugar levels could be a promising strategy for preventing memory problems and cognitive decline as they age.
5. Experts know less than they think
‘Know-it-alls’ don’t know as much as they think, new research finds.The more people think they know about a topic, the more likely they are to claim that totally made-up facts are true, psychologists have found.
Ms Stav Atir, the study’s first author, explained:
“The more people believed they knew about finances in general, the more likely they were to overclaim knowledge of the fictitious financial terms.
The same pattern emerged for other domains, including biology, literature, philosophy, and geography.
For instance, people’s assessment of how much they know about a particular biological term will depend in part on how much they think they know about biology in general.”
6. Poor sleep ruins thinking skills
The damage that poor sleep does to your thinking skills is mammoth.Sleepy brains have to work harder while short-term and long-term memory is worse.
Attention and planning are worse and it’s easier to follow habits and difficult to create new strategies.
Sleep deprivation even damages the ability to read other people’s facial emotions.
Read on: Lack of Sleep: The 10 Most Profound Psychological Effects
7. Physical exhaustion hits mental performance
Both mental and physical stress can interact to cause fatigue, a new study finds.The brain’s resources in the prefrontal cortex — an area used for planning and control — are divided during physical and mental activity, the research found.
The research is one of the first to show how mental and physical tasks can interact to fatigue the brain.
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