Video games can reverse the negative effects of aging on the brain as well. In a study conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Charité University Medicine in Berlin, researchers found that video games such as Super Mario benefit the brain by improving sensory, perceptual, and attentional tasks. While it looks like a good way to waste time, video gaming can actually stimulate the growth of neurons and promote connectivity in the regions of the brain responsible for spatial orientation, memory formation, and strategic planning. N-back training, which is available for free online, can help improve memory and problem-solving skills.

The n-back game challenges participants to keep track of spoken words or locations on a grid, and identify when a letter or grid location is repeated. While a professor at the University of California, Irvine, Susanne Jaeggi found that an activity known as the n-back task increases fluid intelligence, which is the ability to reason and solve new problems independent of previous knowledge. While taking a class and reading a book are two ways to learn something new, here are six surprising tasks that boost your brainpower, make learning easier, and put you on the road to greatness: 1. Increasing your intelligence–even taking yours to genius status–takes a willingness to do the work. Intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills, and includes the ability to reason, solve problems, remember information, and be creative. If you want to be smarter than the average American, it’s not only possible it’s within reach. It relieves a person of the burden of expectation,” he writes in his book. Thinking of talent as innate makes our world more manageable, more comfortable. “A belief in inborn gifts and limits is much gentler on the psyche: The reason you aren’t a great opera singer is because you can’t be one. The key is to let go of the myth that giftedness is innate. The key is to let go of the myth that giftedness is innate.ĭavid Shenk, author of The Genius in All of Us, says it’s virtually impossible to determine any individual’s true intellectual limitations at any age anyone has the potential for genius or, at the very least, greatness. “Those who claim that IQ is fixed for life are in fact referring to our IQ test scores, which are relatively stable–not to our intelligence levels, which are constantly increasing.” Anyone has the potential for genius or, at the very least, greatness. “The fact is, intelligence can be increased–and quite dramatically,” writes behavior-analytic psychologist Bryan Roche of the National University of Ireland in Psychology Today.

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