So essentially, the most beneficial course here is getting into healthy habits and pursuing loss prevention. I haven't seen much evidence at all that otherwise well nurished and healthy people can raise their actual intelligence, but there seems to be a lot of things which can effectively reduce it, both short term and long. Removing or mitigating these can get folks closer to their potential. I think this has a lot of applications for people who worry about this. Like I've read studies quantifying I.Q loss per day of losing just 1 hour of sleep a night. After a few days parts of cognition can be effected heavily.
Well, the trick is that loss prevention is difficult in a living fast and dying young culture where everythings supplied and effort is reduced to repetitive narrow minded tasks. It should give the brain enough workout to gain some IQ points. Memory can be trained, too, and that is an important part of the intelligence or at least to leverage it.
I've been thinking about this A LOT as a football player (American). I'm certain I've dropped a few IQ points after seven years of being a defensive lineman. It takes me a little longer to process things; my memory is a little worse. Right now I'm debating if I'm going to make this past season my last.
That being said, if I could do it all over again, I'd still choose to play. Totally worth it. On one hand, I get protecting your intelligence as much as possible (intelligence being a critical component in my career path). But on the other hand, there's more to life than simply maximizing your brain power.
4 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 21.3 ms ] threadGreat study!
That being said, if I could do it all over again, I'd still choose to play. Totally worth it. On one hand, I get protecting your intelligence as much as possible (intelligence being a critical component in my career path). But on the other hand, there's more to life than simply maximizing your brain power.