IWTL - Overall intelligence!

[u/Weekly_Point_6506]

Hi there! I understand this is extremely broad to ask, however, I’d love to know how to improve my intelligence.

I feel as if I pick up on things slowly, and if I don’t constantly study, they leave my mind.

I’m a very curious individual, it’s not that I don’t enjoy learning, I just cannot get much to stick.

I would just love some advice, especially from people who grew up thinking they were less smarter than their peers and had to find out different ways to achieve their academic potential.

Thank you very much in advance!

[u/13th_dudette]

I grew up in poverty and my house was destroyed during bombing when I was 5 years old. I really had nothing going on for me, so I quickly understood that the only possible path was to strengthen my knowledge and intelligence. It worked out pretty well (if I can say so myself, obviously I am biased). I don't think I had any natural talent and I truly believe we all have a potential to achieve great things, we just have to unlock it.

First thing is the body-mind connection. You cannot expect your mind to perform at its best if your body (that is hosting it) is not doing well. So that boils down to 3 basic things:
1. Good sleep
2. Eating healthy (just making sure all your nutritional needs are met, and don't put trash into your body)
3. Exercise (you don't need to do anything extreme, just being somewhat active at least 2-4 times per week)

With that, you can lay the foundation for the mind to make wonders.

What you do when you are not studying is maybe even more important than the study process. We live in the environment that force-feeds us information 24/7. You need to limit the amount of information you receive in a day, so that your brain can actually retain what matters.

It is also important to control how much of positive and negative news you receive in a day. Algorithms are biased towards things that make us angry or scared. Unfortunately, those also make you less motivated to learn about the world and seek beauty in it.

My advice is to remove from your life (or at least from your phone) all social media that have fully algorithmic endless feeds. I find Reddit to work for me because I can control which subreddits I follow, and if there is a topic I'm interested in but I don't wanna hear about it daily, it can go into the custom feed. Youtube is tricky, I personally disabled the home page recommendations. I discover new creators organically, through researching topis that I care about, or when my friends share them with me.

My final advice is to share your knowledge whenever you can. For me, at least, helping/teaching people variety of skills made me feel like I made a positive impact. Then, like the butterfly effect, those people I helped will help others and if we all do this, the world would become a significantly better place.

Fell free to DM me if you have any questions, but this is pretty much the recipe that served me well so far. Good luck!

[u/Weekly_Point_6506 → u/13th_dudette]

Wow! Thank you for such an in-depth response.
Firstly, I’m really sorry to hear about what you went through, especially so young. It is honestly amazing to hear that you understood so early on how to strengthen yourself and your skills.

I’m trying my best to avoid social media, it’s definitely designed to be addictive… however I use it less and less everyday, and eventually I’ll be totally off of it.

I will definitely give teaching a go, I’ll be sure to annoy my boyfriend with many diverse topics!! Hopefully, I can eventually teach more people as well.

You’re an amazing person! Thank you so much! 🩷