Creating and using a metaphorical understanding is one of the primary ways we communicate a new idea. The process is very apparent with scientific knowledge. For example, we explain an atom using the metaphor of a little solar system in which the nucleus sits like the sun in the middle and the electrons and positrons orbit like planets. Atoms - and many things in science - probably appear nothing like the metaphorical models we invent, but we have to have some way to mentally “see” these things.

Interestingly, after using them for a long time, we often forget the metaphorical nature of our understandings and expressions. For example, we give no thought to our description of temperature as being “higher” or “lower.” What does it actually have to do with elevation? Nothing perhaps, but comparing hotter with higher and colder with lower is a useful perspective for understanding and talking about temperature. It also obviously started as a metaphor, which we can see if we think about it for a moment.

We can see that metaphors are an essential part of how we explain, understand, and communicate things. We can also see that in time the metaphorical basis is forgotten - once our “knowledge” is old and accepted. But what about creating new metaphors to gain new understanding and insight? Some examples that I have found useful follow.

Dark Thoughts are a Storm

Often our thoughts torment us, but are they just a storm which will eventually pass by? Is the “sky” (our peace of mind) always there waiting to reveal itself once again? It seems to ring true, and as soon as we remember this the clouds begin to clear more quickly. And don’t think that because it’s a metaphorical understanding it’s just an invention. All good metaphors point out some true aspect of reality.

When we explore our minds we find that negative thoughts, for all their insistence that we pay attention to them, move on when we allow them to. Of course we often forget this and ascribe them more permanence and importance than they have in reality. When we see them as passing storm clouds that eventually dissipate to reveal the sky that has always been there - that idea points to a valuable insight, doesn’t it? It’s a reminder that loosens the hold those thoughts have on us.

The Beast That Feeds On Attention

From a biological or evolutionary perspective, fear is just a warning (but notice that even this is a metaphor). From a personal perspective, though, we can see that it becomes a little beast growing in us as we feed it with too much attention. We work ourselves into a more fearful and non-productive state by “feeding the beast” with our attention to every thought it holds up about what has gone wrong, is going wrong or can go wrong - and what we might lose as a result. Such a metaphorical understanding of a real phenomenon suggests that we stop feeding our fear.

Reality is an Enemy

Suppose reality points to the failure of a man’s ideas. Often his ideas then demand that he attack the accusing enemy. You may have noticed this in some people, maybe even some friends or acquaintances. Some people have many ideas about how things “should be” and are always stumbling over inconvenient truths as a result. They argue more fervently then about how stupid things are, and yet do not fully accept that they really are that way. This, in a real sense, is how we make reality an enemy.

Ego the Slave Master

Think too much about yourself and follow your own thoughts without reflection, and you become a slave of who you think you are, of your own self image. The ideas and opinions that you call yourself become your master.

What we know of life and the world can be understood in more than one way, seen from more than one perspective. Each way of looking at things can possibly provide a bit more to advance our understanding of reality. That suggests that it can be very productive to play with metaphors from time to time. Every new and different metaphorical understanding has the potential to give us new insights and new ways to deal with ourselves and the world.

There are many techniques you can use to temporarily increase your brainpower. These include problem solving techniques, exercises in imagination, and stimulants like deep breathing or caffeine. Some argue that these don’t actually increase IQ, but only temporarily improve performance. But since you can choose to use them all the time, including during IQ tests, the improvement can be effectively permanent.

Of course, to do anything consistently and repeatedly over time is a difficult goal. What if you want to make real and permanent improvements? Can you increase brainpower permanently, or at least as permanently as things can be for mortals?

Yes, you can change the physical structure of your brain, in order to improve its function. There are two basic ways to do it. The first is to physically build and strengthen your brain with mental exercises. The second is to strengthen it by doing certain physical exercises.

Mental Exercises To Increase Brainpower

Mental exercises do not just create temporary changes in your thinking. Exercising the brain has been shown in many studies to actually generate new neuronal growth. It has even been shown to halt the decline of mental function that often comes with age.

What mental exercises should you do? Ideally ones that you enjoy, because you will get more involved and be more likely to keep doing them. There have been many activities used to test neuronal growth that results from exercising the brain. No specific ones have been singled out as more effective yet, so we are left using our common sense.

Watching TV, for example, is not mental exercise, because it is too passive. Doing crossword puzzles certainly is good mental exercise, as is playing word games, arguing philosophy, or doing mental math while driving. Other possibilities include learning and using memory techniques, habitually redesigning things in your imagination, and inventing lyrics as you sing a song.

Physical Exercises To Increase Brainpower

Physical exercise has been shown to improve brain function indirectly. This is easy to understand. A better cardiovascular system means better blood flow, and it is blood that carries that much-needed oxygen to the brain. Of course, this better oxygen supply to the brain will persist only as long as you stay in shape. Are there physical exercises or activities that will make more permanent changes in the brain?

Yes. Activities which involve timing and coordination cause dendrite growth in the brain, resulting in more possible connections in your brain. Having more connections means learning and thinking can be more flexible and efficient. Physical exercise, then, can increase brainpower - if it is the right type.

Athletic activities likely to help include tennis, basketball, soccer, and tossing around a Frisbee. Less athletic activities that require a lot of coordination and timing will also accomplish the same thing. These include playing musical instruments, especially those that require precise timing, like piano playing. You can also try activities which involve hand-eye coordination, like painting or drawing.

Meditation, which is part physical and part mental activity, also changes the structure of the brain. Recent research shows that it increases the thickness of the cortex in those areas that are involved in sensory processing and attention - the prefrontal cortex and the right anterior insula. Other studies show that highly skilled musicians and linguists also have thickening in the relevant areas of the cortex.

What’s the bottom line? Areas of the brain that you exercise grow bigger, from new neurons, and from bigger blood vessels and supporting structures like glia and astrocytes, and from increased branching and connections. It is clear that you can increase your brainpower by physically improving your brain.

There are hundreds of ways to improve your mind power. Some have to do with the mind-body connection, some with what you eat, and some with how you train yourself to think. Here is an example of each.

Posture And Mind Power

Your posture affects your thinking process. You can easily prove this to yourself with a simple experiment. Start by sitting in any chair. Then slouch, letting your head hang down and looking at the floor. Now let your mouth hang open. Now, try doing math in your head. Add large numbers or multiply two-digit numbers - just do whatever math you can normally do with some difficulty in your mind.

Now for part two. Sit up straight, keep your mouth closed and look forward or slightly upwards. Try that mental math again. You’ll notice that it’s easier to think with this better posture. Keep this in mind. Whenever you feel that brain fog coming, just sit up straight and close your mouth.

Watch That Glycemic Index

Diabetics know about the “glycemic index,” which rates foods according to how slowly the carbohydrates are released into the system. Slower is better, both for diabetics and for those who want to avoid “brain fog” and think more clearly. Foods that slowly release sugars into your system (and have a low index rating) include beans, whole grains, apples, and salads.

There are other factors involved in how some of these foods affect your brain in the short-term. Beans cause drowsiness in some people for example. However, in general, any foods that are rated high on the glycemic index are likely to cause “brain fog.” If you really want to test this, eat a large piece of sugary pie on an empty stomach, and see how your mind feels fifteen minutes later.

Train Your Brain

To develop greater mind power long-term, train yourself to think in certain useful ways. For example, for more insightful analysis, you can train yourself to challenge assumptions. This is one of the most powerful problem-solving techniques.

For example, suppose you want ways to get customers into your store. Ask, “Do I really need more customers?” An assumption-challenging question like this suggests other creative solutions, like finding ways to make more money off existing customers, or ways to cut expenses. Maybe these will lead to more profitable ideas. Challenging assumptions is a great way to increase the creativity of your solutions.

Do this with a given technique for several weeks. Carry a card that reminds you to think a certain way or use a certain technique. Three weeks seems to be the amount of time it takes to make something into a well-established habit, and habitually thinking in better ways is the most effective ways to exercise greater mind power.

I had my own math shortcuts when I was a child. Using these meant that I didn’t “show my work” in math class, as was required. This annoyed many of the teachers, and lowered my grades. I did get the correct solutions to my math problems, however. I was simply using different algorithms, ones which I had a hard time expressing on paper.

In my thinking, for example, 97 x 16 became 100 x 16 (1600) minus 3 x 16 (48). It was easier that way, and thinking this way became almost automatic. As a result, I might just write down 1552 even though I couldn’t explain very well how I arrived at the answer. My teachers called that a problem, but many years later such math shortcuts were being sold in seminars and books.

Making Your Own Math Shortcuts

You can make your own math shortcuts. The following may give you some ideas on how to do that. Alternately, you can try any of the shortcuts and algorithms you read about and adopt the ones that are best suited to you. There are no perfect techniques for all people, because our minds work in slightly different ways.

For example, suppose you want to multiply 68 x 6. My mind immediately thinks “60 x 6 = 360 and 8 x 6 = 48, and 360 + 48 is 408.” That is one way to quickly arrive at a solution without pen and paper. It is essentially this: (60 x 6) + (8 x 6) = 408.

Want another way? Think of it as (70 x 6) - (2 x 6). The “internal dialog” might be something like this: “70 x 6 = 420, but that is two “sixes” too many, so take away two sixes (12) and I have 408.” The point is that there is often more than one way, and you can use whichever math shortcut is easier for you.

If the problem was 68 x 9, by the way, my mind immediately focuses on the 9. Why? Because it is close to 10, and multiplying by 10 is easy. 68 x 10 is 680, from which I just have subtract the extra 68 to arrive at the solution of 612. Always look for the numbers that are close to 10 or 100 or 1000, and you’ll find the easier way to do the math, especially if you are trying to do it in your head.

Percentages can be trickier to do as mental math, but there are ways. Suppose, for example, that you want to figure what the 4.6% sales tax will amount to on your $29 book. One quick way to estimate it is to take 10%, or $2.90, cut that in half to arrive at 5%, or $1.45, and then just guess at around $1.35, because you know 4.6% is a little less than 5%. Alternately, you could think of 5% as a 20th of the price - if this is easier - and then round that figure down a bit.

What if you want a more precise solution? 1% of $29 is easy to arrive at (.29), so multiply that by 4 to arrive at $1.16. (You might think of this as (4 x 30) - 4.) Now you just need to add .6% to that. Think 6 x 29 = 174, and then put the decimal in the right place: .174. Add that .18 (round it up as the store will likely do) to the 1.16 and you have $1.34 in sale’s tax, pretty close to our quick estimate. This is not as difficult as it might seem once you practice these shortcuts a bit.

These simple methods do require a basic understanding of math. If you don’t understand that 123 multiplied by 199 is just adding 123 to itself 199 times - that multiplication is just another way to do addition - you will have problems with these math shortcuts. In that case, you may want to simply use the easiest of the math shortcuts - a calculator.

Does a high IQ (intelligence quotient) mean better grades in school? Does it mean a better life? Is your IQ score even a valid measurement of your intelligence? Let’s take a look at these questions one-by-one.

High IQ - Intelligence

There is almost certainly a correlation between a high IQ score and being more intelligent. These tests are imperfect, though, and you can find examples of cultural biases on many of them. Also, there are specific skills that have been proven to raise scores on many tests, including IQ tests.

The last point makes sense, doesn’t it? When you know how to efficiently “work” a test, you are likely to score higher. For that matter, even a cup of coffee may boost your score. Even the fact that your score can vary from test to test shows there are factors which can be manipulated to raise your score. There may be a general correlation between IQ score and intelligence, but certainly it’s an imperfect one.

High IQ - Better Life

What evidence is there that people with higher intelligence have better lives or are happier? None that I am aware of, and how do you scientifically measure “better life?” How about a negative correlation? Many with a high IQ have committed suicide, such as Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, and Sylvia Plath, but this is just anecdotal. Various studies have shown that people with a high IQ AND a low IQ are slightly more likely to commit suicide, but even if these studies prove true, this doesn’t prove causation, only correlation.

High IQ - Academic Performance

A study reported in the journal ‘Psychological Science’ found that IQ level correlated with academic performance, but there was a much stronger correlation with self discipline. Students with high self-discipline have better grades than high-IQ students. They found no correlation between IQ and discipline, meaning they are traits that vary independently.

High IQ - What Does It Mean?

Intelligence is an important tool, but it is just one of the tools we have to shape our lives with. As are money or power or abilities, it is beneficial in the abstract, but it only becomes beneficial in reality if applied in ways that better our lives. Raw computing capacity doesn’t make a computer or a human more effective if they don’t have the other necessary components.

Consider what people of average intelligence, like Henry Ford, have accomplished, before you place too much emphasis on a high IQ.

What is your IQ score? If you don’t know, you can test your intelligence quotient for free at many websites now. What is an average score? The tests are theoretically designed so that half the population will score below 100 and half above. They are scored according to age of the test taker. Here is a quick breakdown of IQ scores in a typical population:

2.2% of the population scores below 70.

6.7% of the population scores 70 to 79.

16.1% of the population scores 80 to 89.

50% of the population scores 90 to 109 (This is considered the average).

16.1% of the population scores 110 to 119.

6.7% of the population scores 120 to 129.

2.2% of the population scores 130 or higher.

How To Raise Your IQ Score

Of course, since the IQ test is supposed to measure your innate intellectual capacity, and not your knowledge, you shouldn’t be able to raise your IQ score. However, there certainly is evidence that you can become more intelligent, which would be one way to raise your score. Then there are the specific techniques that are aimed at just doing better on the specific tests you take. Here are four of them.

1. Prepare and have the right conditions for optimal brainpower. Start by sleeping well before the test. During the test, breath deeply through your nose, and sit up straight. These have been shown to improve performance on almost any intellectual test. Eat fish before taking the test. Recent studies show that eating fish actually speeds up brain waves and increases concentration.

If you’re allowed to listen to music during the test, make it Mozart. Otherwise, listen to it just before taking the test. In one study, those who listened to Mozart’s sonata for Two Pianos in D Major, K. 448 for ten minutes before an IQ test scored nine points higher than those who didn’t. Do anything you can to have your body and mind ready for the test.

2. Learn to be a better test taker. There are techniques for better test-taking. They include rules like skipping over questions you aren’t sure about, and returning to them later. On a timed test it is usually better to answer the easy questions first. This way you won’t leave questions unanswered just because you spent too much time trying to get the answer to a tough one.

Answer every question on multiple choice tests, unless the score is reduced for wrong answers. If in doubt, eliminate the answers that you know or suspect are incorrect, then choose one of the remaining. Eliminate two of four answers on a number of questions, and you’ll get half of those questions right on average.

3. Learn more. Knowledge shouldn’t affect your IQ score, but it can. A recent test asked “Which of these fruits is different?” and you needed to know something about the fruits (one had just a pit, while the others had numerous seeds). Tests have subtle cultural biases, so learning more can help, as can taking a test that originates from your own cultural background.

4. Do brain exercises. This longer term strategy assumes you can permanently improve your brain function and intelligence, and thus increase your average IQ score. It’s a safe assumption in my experience, but in any case no harm will come from the effort.

A final tip. In my experience my score is higher on an IQ test the second or third time I take one. This suggests that you might benefit by taking an online test the day before your scheduled test. This might just increase your IQ score by a point or two.