The aim of this article is to explain how and why writing can increase your intelligence. Writing does not increase your intelligence because it adds more information to the existing brain structure, but rather it is brings more of your subconscious online. Therefore, actually makes your smarter, just not more informed.

My writing goal

One of my blogging goals has been to increase the quality and also the length of my posts. I have a goal to make each post at least 1,000 words in length. When I first started to blog I wrote 250 word posts and that was an effort. Now I have raised the bar to over 1,000. I did this for a simple reason. I noticed that when I forced myself to write more, the quality of my writing increased.

• I made room for metaphors that would aid people’s understanding.
• I would support my claims with data.
• I also would have to research my subject in more depth in order to write.
• However, the biggest result of this lofty goal is I am becoming more creative. It forced me to reach in and pull out more. I think this falls under the category of you are smarter than you think.

How your brain works

Can you imagine if had perfect hearing and you could hear the whole world speaking (lets assume at the same decibel level). It would be the mass confusion for your brain. What happens is early in your brain’s development you learn to filter out the noise from the signal, to keep you focused. But what if information in the noise contained important things?

This is what is going on between your subconscious and conscious brains. Your subconscious has a gazillion ideas swirling and processing even more external stimuli. It is working on problems you are not consciously thinking of so at any point during the day you say ‘aha I remember where my keys are’. Your subconscious is the ocean.

Your conscious brain on the other hand are tightly controls locks and gates. It filters only what it needs.  Can you imagine if you unlocked a few more of those gates? This is writing.

Socrates meets Einstein

The Socratic method is a teacher prodding the student to draw more and more out, that knowledge which Socrates believed was already within. Einstein road on a light beam in his imagination years before he wrote his theory of relativity. If you could combine those two methods, that is draw out latent ideas out of your imagination and subconscious to an external audience, this would be something that writing does.

You get more of what you reinforce. Once you start to train your brain to think like this ideas in general will flow more easily. When I first started to write 250 words would take forever. Now the words just flow out. I also think I have become more creative and perceptive. I notice more than before. I basically have awaken some latent parts of my intelligence by writing.

Ideas similar to this are discussed by Dr. Win Wenger if you every want to explore this idea in further depth. He showed through a process called image streaming you can increase your IQ. He believes the ability to increase your intelligence is something you can do fairly easily and he backs it up with one study.

Whenever I see writing of the past I see intelligence

Why writing to increase your intelligence

Writing is something that is very personal. Only you can tell a story, like you. No two writers are a like and everyone has something to say. I believe writing is a lot of hard work. Not something that flows out or is only for the gifted. But it is one of the most pleasurable things you can work at. Why? Writing is something that is, at risk of sounding cliché , is a spiritual journey. With the Internet there are a lot of avenues to blog and write on.

What if you do not write well?

Some of my posts I read over and over, and can not believe I wrote such masterpieces. Other posts no matter how much effort I put into them, still come out weak. I think after a few years of writing the percentage of good posts increases. However, one thing for sure. If you write, even at a basic level someone will like it. Just try and you will be surprised. Two things that will make your writing more interesting:

• A word of advice, use ‘I’ a lot as this is about you. People do not want to read abstract high level things. They want to read personal and dirty. Who would not rather listen to their hairdresser and some hot news she has then read some academic work on something equally as irrelevant. I am not saying write about gossip. I am saying write personal.
• Metaphors are bar bells for your brain. Use them and they add humor and imagery to your writing like a fresh coat Victorian blue paint on a grey countryside barn.
• Writing that evokes emotion, either,  getting the reader to say, ‘yes I can relate to that’ or something slightly provocative will get people’s attention. If you try to write to impress, no one will be.

Are you sure writing will increase my intelligence?

There was a study of cloistered Nuns.  These were women who had basically the save environment most of their lives. The ones that were into writing, had a much lower level of degenerative cognitive disease when they were older. They looked at childhood writing samples and compared them. Perhaps the ones who loved to write already were functioning at a higher cognitive level and had a greater reservoir of neurons. Or perhaps the writing is what helped them stay mentally alert.

Try it and find out. I have had serious problems with my brain, as I had bleeding in the brain many years ago. The more I write the better I feel. Maybe my brain is recovering naturally but maybe it is that I am training it to. I am stretching it though the act of research and writing.

I think at the very least my creativity and verbal intelligence as increase. For abstract reasoning I play chess.

My writing assignment for you:

If you have had any experiences with writing please let me know what you think about the relationship between writing and intelligence. If you would like to start to write but do not know how, let me know. Just lease a comment in both cases.

What reading is better than school or learning? Yes, I do not know if school is a great place to learn unless you have an amazing professor and a lot of  Socratic method interaction.

Are you serious reading is better than experience for learning? Yes, because as you do not have an infinite amount of time in your life. If you want to learn to trade stocks you can read the ten best books on the subject. This will be the wisdom of ten lifetimes to gain. You need to learn from other people’s experiences, rather than experience everything yourself first hand, as life is too short.

Reading can teach you wisdom, knowledge, information and open your mind in general. I can not think of a better way to learn than reading. If you disagree or have a better way let me know.

Reading is good for learning but does it make you smarter?

Reading is also one of the best ways to improve your cognitive function.  I have no idea why people forget about this and turn other ways. There are all types of improve your intelligence techniques and technology. There are brainwaves and light and sound machines as well as Neurotrophin.

People who read books are smarter and have a higher IQ than people who do not. I do not have any firm data on this, however, this is what I see. There are some none scientific studies that point to this. The studies show that people who read more have a higher IQ. I do not know the cause or the effect, but does it matter?  One side note if you read books on the IQ test your IQ results will be better, but this does not mean you will be smarter. Just score better. But if you read a book on image streaming by Win Wenger, you might be surprised what you find.

Therefore, are people who read a lot smarter people?  This seems so basic, and low tech that reading can improve your learning and brain performance that people often over look this. That is simply buying some books and reading.

Why I started to read very late

Growing up I had a lot of stress as I grew up in a small house with seven people living in it. This combine with a very strict upbringing and a lot of noise it was not an atmosphere conducive for reading. Reading was not possible until well in my 20s as the atmosphere was not relaxed enough. I really did not read my first book, until an age I do not want to admit.  However, in my 20s I worked in some bookstores and caught up. Maybe too much so. I read everything all the time. I read classics as well as trash. I think I learned more working in a bookstore than I did at college or University.

I also had a brain lesion  that became symptomatic in my 20s.  This bleeding in the brain made me suffer not only pain but I feel some cognitive deficiencies. I tried everything to improve my brain function. Some things did better than other. Games, I feel worked particularly well. But reading helped a lot.

I had a slow start and some trouble but once I go going with reading my life changed.

Reading odds and ends

Nothing beats reading a good book. However, the Internet is a good source for quick information. What I do is I often scan the Internet and the if I need to look for a topic in-depth I look up the best books on the subject on Amazon. Books are well thought out, while often Internet posts have not been put together with as much care.

What about photo reading and speed reading and other accelerated reading techniques. I have tried these and every time, I simply get bored. I prefer to go back to my old pace and take in knowledge at my pace.

Do I read a book cover to cover?  Sometimes, but not always.  For non-fiction I dive right in. For fiction I start from the beginning and skip the introduction.

Reading to learn a language? I study and teach languages and all my students I make read books in foreign languages. I make them because they can not possibly be learning from me everyday. But if they were to read 20 minutes in a foreign langauge a night before they go to bed, they will pick up a lot of vocabulary and generally use the language in a fun way. At the end of this post I will tell you a place you can get foreign language books to read for free online.

Reading will make you:

• I think that people who read are smarter (If you read in the right way).
• Have better vocabulary.
• A more open view of the world.
• Keep your brain growing.
• Make you a more interesting person.
• Keep you out of trouble.

Books and money

I use to complain I felt guilty about buying books. They cost money. However, books are one of the best investments. You can always resell them if you need to. You can go to the library or download books for free at reading to learn.  They even have free human read audio books. If you have an iPod or iPad or e-reader or whatever, you can use these books. I often just print them and put them in a folder and I have a cheap book.

If your book is connected to your business, you could take it as an expense on your tax return. For example, I do consulting and from time to time I buy a technical book I need. This could be a legitimate expense for my business. I am learning what I need to make money.

Either way it is an investment in your brain and your life.

My conclusion is simple, reading is the best way to learn anything, what do you think? Is there any better way?

Get lost to exercises your brain on vacation

I have traveled to about all over the world and prefer this method to a guided tour. Try it without a map or guide book.  I am an avid walker and do not mind if I get lost. I guess I am also a bit over trusting and have never gotten in serious trouble.  But I think it is more often people who live around you hurt you more than complete strangers.  So I am pretty fearless when I am walking around a foreign city. In fact getting lost on vacation is very low stress as you do not have a meeting or important things to tend to.  Further, the best experiences are those unplanned.

Children experience this type of brain exercise all the time as everything is foreign

I am an American but live in Eastern Europe by the way. Traveling around Europe I experience this brain exercise all the time and yes feel smarter for it, or at least more confident.

When you get lost you need to use all your senses to finger out street signs, directions, foreign words and symbols and do this in a reasonable time before the sun goes down.  If you take a wrong turn your have to pay for real estate twice and double back. If you are walking you will get a good workout.  If it is the end of the day I take public transport back. This is perhaps the best way to know a city. In one day you could get to know the whole city. Could you ever get this much of a neural brain workout if you are simply doing a one dimensional puzzle with defined rules? Could you ever excises your brain this way sitting in a classroom?

Maybe that is why kids brains are so flexible, because to them they have to live in a world where everything is new and foreign.  When I moved to Poland from the USA, for at least one year everything was neural chaos.  Everything was different.

Try this brain exercise the next time you are traveling. Let me know if you have ever done this brain excersise and your experiences.  And if you are an American, please get a passport and travel to a foreign country not on a package, but rent an apartment or youth hostel  I do not care if you are a business professional, start taking real adventures in your life for your brain’s sake. Think of it as an educational investment.

Experiences we do not forget memory

One of the problems with life is that we accumulate so many memories and experiences that it can be emotionally overwhelming at times.  I like many people feel they had pain in their lives and wish to forget a lot of my suffering or go back in time and correct it.

I have often fantasized about a time machine to go back and correct my life situation, however, I doubt this is possible and if it were, we would erase all memory that we went back in time as our lives would be on a different trajectory. This is the paradox of time travel. Therefore, we are generally stuck with our memories for better or worse. The issue is not forgetting but forgiving our memories and our past experiences.  Not even learning from them as much as forgiving them.  Often times there is nothing to learn, just forgiveness.

Memory as a retrieval problem rather than a memory formation problem

Therefore, I do not think the problem in life is people have a bad memory or forget things, but rather memory is a retrieval problem. That is how to retrieve the useful information you need when you need it.

You remember everything.  The implication for learning is you can almost learn anything you want given proper exposure and experience.  The difference between one person who masters something and another person who fumbles through something they have tried to learn is mostly the ability to pull out what they need when they need it.

Remembering is the real trick

How can you retrieve information of of your brain when you need it?

Here are some ideas which you can use which I have learned from learning and teaches languages:

• Use flashcards to train your brain to retrieve – flashcards are the ultimate learning tool because they teach your brain how to get information out in a second.
• Before you go to bed, try to repeat your day in vivid detail in your imagination, perhaps even in a backward sequence.  This will amp up your brains ability to store information subconsciously during the day. Or take five minutes and recall the most important points of what you have tried to learn that day, then relax and sleep.
• Play memory games. Do not worry if you are not too good or they are painfully embarrassing, they help.
• Learn a foreign languages.  This is a practical application of memory exercises.

Of all the above ways to improve your brains ability to recall things I would say that flashcards are the best. They not only improve what you are trying to learn but the general health of your brain and teaches it recall. Therefore, when you learn another set of information, your brain will find it easier.

If you personally have had any experience with how to improve your memory or learning, especially the idea that retrieval not formation is the fundamental issues with memory, please let me know.

Homework was not a part of my education

I went to a public school in the 1970s and for the most part I never studied and barely paid attention in school. It was incredibly boring for me. I never read a book nor did any homework until I was 14 year old. Not even a second.
For the first ten years of my education, I do not know what I did. However, by the end of high school I graduated first in my class.

What happened, did I change my life? No.  Simply in the 1970s everything was so relaxed as it was a time that was influenced by the hippies and new ideas.  Pushing children and competition was bad.  Free expression was good.  Therefore homework was really not a part of schooling.

My real education growing up

My real education was when I came home from school and I meet my friend George Wheat.  He is still my friend to this day.  He and I would live in our imagination. We would read books on history, play in the woods and discuss historical what ifs, philosophy, the Soviet Union.  He played historical board games by a company called SPI.   These had thousands of pieces and rule books that looked like a codex.

We created rockets and experiments, my friend Scott Pass has an interest in insects and collected them, and classified them. Scott was the neighborhood liberal, George was the neighborhood republican. Between the two I got an education in political science.

It was mostly in our imaginations we live.  We lived in small town New England and there was nothing but forest around us so this is how we entertained ourselves. Building, creating, imagining and speculating.

It was the best education any child could have.  When we went to school, we just lived to let play.

I am a teacher today

I am a teacher today and I see school give kids endless amounts of knowledge. They must memorize and cram facts and dates.  I do not like it.  It creates minds that are closed.  Childhood is the most important time to make kids mind grow and expand. If you can not dream and play for most of your childhood you will have a very impoverished mental life as an adult.

My recommendations are:

• Kids should always be encouraged to read books, not the Internet. Parents should get them involved in reading.  This is the most important thing you can do as a parent. It will change their lives.
• Kids should be allowed to play with out too many restrictions for countless hours out of the day. Play is not technology involved, such as SMS and chat rooms. Cell phones are a brain drain.
• Teach them to play and escape in their imagination.  Your imagination is where creativity resides and will carry them through their lives.

Let me know what you think is the best way to educate a child and encourage a child to develop their mind in every sense of the word.