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Tools to Increase the IQ

Exposing yourself to new experiences, such as traveling and learning new tasks or skills, helps keep your brain sharp. New stimuli activate underused nerve pathways and connections, which help you develop a fitter, more flexible brain. The IQ is a measure of your intelligence based on your performance on standardized tests, which can improve with training. Tools to increase your IQ help you develop skills to improve your performance on IQ tests.

  1. Video Games

    • Video games may offer a tool for increasing your IQ. In 2009, "Current Directions In Psychological Science" published an analysis by Matthew Dye, Shawn Green and Daphne Bavelier, which suggests that playing action video games may increase your ability to process visual information. A 2007 study by Derek Robertson, of Learning and Teaching Scotland, suggests that video games with number challenges, problem-solving and memory puzzles, improved math scores among 9- and 10-year-old students after 10 weeks of playing for 15 minutes a day.

    N-Back Applications

    • N-back software applications for your computer or mobile device may help increase your IQ. These exercises present a sequence of sensory stimuli, and you indicate when a current stimulus matches a prior stimulus. In 2010, researchers at the University of Michigan found that n-back tasks improved matrix reasoning performance, which measures abstract and verbal reasoning with tasks that involve filling in the missing portion of a group from a number of choices.

    Classical Music

    • Listing to classical music may improve IQ while boosting math and science skills. In her Spring 1999 World's Fair presentation at the University of Texas, Kathy Yoshimura, professor of psychology, references a study in which college students who listened to Mozart performed better on spatial IQ tasks than students who listened to dance music. The structure of classical music may improve cognitive processing in your brain, but lacking sufficient complexity may interfere with abstract reasoning. Reasoning skills required for spatial reasoning may be similar to skills used when you listen to music, explains Professor Yoshimura.

    Crossword Puzzles

    • Crossword puzzles may help increase your IQ. In his March 2010 article, Marcel Danesi, Ph.D., suggests that any crossword puzzle activity helps keep your mind sharp. Crossword puzzles may increase your IQ, or fend off age-associated cognitive decline, by forming new neuronal connections or growing new brain cells. In June 2003, "The New England Journal of Medicine" published a study led by Joe Verghese, M.D., of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, which evaluated 469 participants between ages 75 and 85. Researchers found that subjects who did crosswords four days a week had a risk of dementia that was 47 percent lower than subjects who did puzzles once a week.

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