IQ is an acronym that stands for Intelligence Quotient. Your IQ is the statistical score of your intelligence. Basically, IQ is a measurement of your smartness, nothing but your capacity in cracking the logic, your understanding abilities, your self-awareness, your emotional, reasoning, creative knowledge, and your ability on self-reliance backed by emotional know-how and problem-solving mindset.
Your IQ score can be arrived at if you undergo an intelligence test. The average known IQ score is 100. If you happen to achieve a score over and above 100, it means you are smarter than an average intelligent person. And on the other hand, if you happen to score less than the average benchmark, it means you are less smart in life and your brain needs refinement.
If you want to check out where you stand in terms of your intelligence and potential, then you may try any of the below mentioned generally acceptable IQ tests-
- Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-V)
- Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Adults (WAIS)
- Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale
However, do understand that these tests are just one way to quantify your intelligence. They are not the only measure. You need to sit with yourself or with an expert and assess your mental health conditions and your learning capabilities.
Overall, you can categorize human intelligence as being fluid and crystallized. While your fluid intelligence is linked to your levels of abstract reasoning, your crystallized intelligence is associated with your intellectual skill development.
Whatever skill or intelligence you may be acquiring, understand that there are certain influential factors that drive your intelligence. These factors include your parental IQ, your lifestyle, your parenting style, nutrition intake, genes, or education, to name a few.
Having said all that, there are still a couple of things that you could do to increase your IQ. Listed below are few such activities.
- Train your brain by playing a good number of memory games and puzzles. Memory activities improve not just your memory, but also your reasoning, logical, and language skills. By involving yourselves in such brain boosting and memory enriching activities, you not just gain intelligence, but also tend to develop intelligence continuously for a long run.
- Learn something new each day, either from a book or from a moving book, i.e., a person. Try to learn a new language, a new word or a new subject matter. Alternatively, try to master a new hobby or learn a new habit. You need not wait for long for results to pour in. All these will benefit your brainpower.
- Have sufficient sleep. Sleep is when you allow your mind to get into relaxation mode. Sleep plays a vital role in increasing your intellectual capability. Even if you rest for a while, you can still improve your brainpower. Interestingly, taking power naps actually helps your brain to solidify memories and thereby increasing your intelligence levels.
- Understand that life is a non-stop cycling of education. Keep feeding your brain with newer and newer inputs and it will in turn fuel up your intelligence to a greater extent.
- Exercise regularly. Apart from just exercising your body and brain, also set time for yoga and meditation. They give you a soothing and relaxed feeling, busting out your worries, anger, and stress. With a calm state of mind, you are sure to think better, act smart, and thereby improve your intelligence levels. You will act mindfully. That is because, during meditation, your brain stops processing activities depending on how dedicated and focused you are during your meditation.
- Have your favorite foods, but do remember to maintain a balanced diet as well. If you eat good food, your mind will be more efficient and productive. This, however, doesn’t mean that you keep eating all the time and turn yourself obese. Do mind your body weight. With the right levels of BMI (Body Mass Index) numbers, you will feel a lot healthy by brain and body.
- Stay calm and focused while at work. Keep off all your distractions. Get rid of your stress and strain. Have a sense of emotional balance. Do not feel inferior about yourself in working out the task. Work in partnership with your inner self to enhance your levels of intellect. Give your best.
- At times, you may feel that the work needs to be done right away, but you do not have enough confidence to handle it all by yourself and deliver it before the deadline. In instances as these, seek help. There is nothing wrong with asking for help or offering help at times of need.