by Win Wenger, Ph.D.
published in The Stream, November 2007
<< The Stream Index
To see quite a phenomenon on your own screen, go to Google search and type in “Brain Plasticity.” Then sample some of the thousands of scientific studies that come onscreen for you, which examine one or more aspects of the brain’s tendency to change its structure, its shape, its size and even its mass, to better handle the type and quantity of information it has been handling over the previous year or so. Each of the various hundreds of different “environmental factors” cited among these studies can be regarded, in a sense, as a technique for increasing intelligence.
However, some of those “techniques” are more effective and efficient in improving intelligence than are others. And hundreds upon hundreds of techniques and “techniques” may be somewhat less than practical for you. So here, instead, is my “short list” of recommended ways you can use to increase and improve your own intelligence, or that of other human beings whom you care about. Here is that list:
- Image Streaming, as per the curriculum on that topic
- Improving your wind – especially the 3-week marathon self-improvement program via held-breath underwater swimming
- Regular or frequent, light to moderate, physical exercise. The past few years of research have been demonstrating that some of the by- products of muscle use improve brain function.
- Good nutrition.
- De-congestant food and drink. Less congestion in and around the eyes makes for better eye-movement responses in the brain’s patterns for seeking various kinds of information, so that the mind functions better.
- Breathing away day-to-day frustrations and irritants, not only big issues, and pleasure-breathing generally – see Winsights No. 28 and Winsights No. 29
- Learn to, or improve your skills to, sight-read and play music, which better integrates the brain
- Improvisation and Improvitaping – here for some of how, here for some of why
- Pursuit of art and the arts in their more subtle and elegant forms. Responding in some specific or concrete way to your awarenesses, reinforcing your ability to handle subtle matters.
- Get good at table tennis and at complex, fast-response computer games requiring accuracy
- Most or all of the measures on our website, including Image Streaming, for engaging and communicating with your beyond-conscious. That means all problem-solving techniques, all accelerated learning techniques, all invention and innovation-finding techniques which are sitting there awaiting your exploration and use.
- Get a few “wins” under your belt and build around them. Not only a matter of self-image, but “flow.” Get on a roll, stay on a roll, get back on that roll as quickly as possible once you’ve fallen off it, keep on as other things fall into and become part of that roll.
- Teach your best insights to a reasonably bright ten-year-old. This is more than the problem-solving technique described in here – a little of this action can go a long way toward making everything clearer for you and easier to sort through.
- Portable Memory Bank or Flash-Catcher. Each time you let an idea or a perception get away from you, you reinforce the idea that your own ideas and perceptions aren’t worth the bother. Each time you make some specific response to them instead, such as recording them in a pocket journal, you reinforce your own creativity and your own power of perceptiveness.
- Each time you catch yourself noticing something which others haven’t, and each time you come up with a good idea or observation, do something specific to give yourself a good mental pat on the back – as further good reinforcement for the associated behaviors and traits.
- Decide to notice more of what’s going on in and around you, then make practice of doing so.
Reinforcing any or all of the above is the question of intention. What will you do with that higher intelligence, once you have it? How will you know when you have it, or how will you know if you are progressing toward that goal? What (if anything) has been between you and that goal besides need of more intelligence? What are other things you intend to do or enjoy once you have higher intelligence? Clarifying and specifying your intention(s) will make all the difference when it comes to that extra effort that brings you the rest of the way toward success.
Lastly, I’d like you to at least entertain the thought possibility that you are worth the effort. You are brighter than you think. You have seen things which no one else has seen, thought thoughts which no one else has thought, there are some things in your experience that you can feel pretty good about. There is much you can yet do that can make a positive difference. Improve your capabilities, and other good things will follow.