How to improve your IQ (Part 3)

1.Expose yourself. Be active in your community, with social media, and with the world around you. The more you are involved with other people, with other opinions, and other ideas, the more you will learn. You may not always agree with what you learn or find out, but by challenging your preconceived notions, you will either strengthen your own beliefs, or adapt, grow, and adopt new beliefs based on new information.

2.Be observant. Part of "being smart" is being aware of things at a higher level, and understanding (or developing an understanding of) the correlations among what might otherwise seem to be disparate or random events. For example, you see that two cars, heading in the opposite direction, collided head-on. Thinking simply, one could say "oops, accidents happen," and leave it at that. If you expand your observation, you may discover meta-factors that created the conditions that led to the crash: ice on the road may have caused one car to lose traction; perhaps the two cars were heading the opposite direction on a one-way street.

Or perhaps there was a dog in one car who, excited by the sight of a dog on the side of the road, jumped onto the driver's lap; the driver lost control, and hit the other car. Expansive observations can lead you to more productive areas as well—architecture, art, and astronomy, for example, and that's just starting with the As!

3.Listen to classical music. The Mozart effect have show that by listening to classical music for only 10 minutes, a short-term improvement of eight or nine points can be measured. This could have a longer-term effect, but may take somebody with a large IQ to prove it!

4.Read voraciously. Reading enhances the mind's ability to comprehend, as well as encouraging you to think critically. Reading a book that you have never read before broadens your horizons, thus increasing your IQ. Reading different genres is even more productive, as well as reading newspapers, current events magazines, multi-content periodicals (such as the New Yorker), even technical manuals. Make sure the book is in your reading level. Reading something that is too easy for you doesn't do anything but entertain, and while you may increase your IQ by reading a novel beyond your reading level, constantly referring to a dictionary will sap the joy out of reading.