Increasing intelligence?

Over the past few years, I've felt like my focus and mental processing speed have both dropped off. Part of this is because I spend too much time online; part of it might be the stress I've experienced in the last few years with college and a serious bout of depression. It's unlikely that aging is a factor yet since I'm only in my early 20s. I want to try and reverse this, or at least stop myself from declining further. Any tips are appreciated--diet, mental exercises, anything that will "make me smarter."

>>85722 Good post and numbers. Getting smarter is by having new experiences and failing at them and learning from experience and failure and success all in flux. But the key is gaining new experiences and expanding horizons towards more genuine and insightful ends, not just echochambering and being driven along like a hog by a certain area of exploration. As far as supplements I recommend these. >cannabis >chaga mushroom >cordyceps mushroom >lions mane mushroom >oregano >cloves >ginger >cinnamon >green tea >coffee >astragalus root >haritaki >mucuna pruriens >skullcap >valerian root >hibiscus >ashwaghanda >basil >rosemary >lemon balm >peppermint >ghost pepper >cayenne pepper >and pretty much anything else that looks good like niacin, natural honey, lemon juice, lime juice, you get the picture right? garlic, onions, your gonna need organic eggs, you will be requiring brown rice, organic vegetable soups, coffee, a lot of B complex, were gonna be needing plenty of celery, a heck of a lot of spinach, and a barrel of black beans.

>>85722 Can relate. To me it's probably about drive and will. I used to be very curious and interested in everything around me, but as time went on and bad things happened, I grew less interested in many things, and the need to behave 'like an adult' has made life very boring and exarcebated anxiety and discomfort. It's probably normal, not related to aging per se but to adulthood and everything that usually comes with it. I dont have solutions, but would like to let you know that you're not alone.

>>85722 There's no real trick to it. You need to sit down and apply your mind to something and work on increasing your capacity for knowledge. I felt what really helped me was reading classical fiction, it's genuinely interesting but also challenging and somewhat slow. It helped me to correct my dopamine addicted brain and fix my attention span. Things will be difficult at the start and your going to likely lose your train of thought often but stick to it and try to enjoy it. Eventually it will become easier and you can move to something else which interests you

>>85723 if you really believe this is going to do something, it may already be too late for you >>85727 the correct way

So I for a year was unemployed and said I was going to do 'personal projects' all day and get really gud. I got nothing done. Every time I sat down to work, I got uncomfortable having to exert real mental effort, and quit. I went to college and got slightly better, but could only get a degree which didn't require serious study outside of class, because while I got maybe an hour of work done per day, that was it, despite changing my routine and other crap. I got a slow release 10mg amphetamine prescription for 'adhd' and have been taking a tiny notebook with me everywhere writing down what I'm doing right then over the past few weeks, and I'm better able to actually put mental effort and time into things. Also I've been getting rid of my mindset that I need to understand things deeply, and just been working with the high level components of a task or topic until their behavior deviates from the predicted, when I drill down more. That's helped a lot particularly with running programs, since before I would always get frustrated because my method exceeded my capabilities. I highly recommend getting an ADHD diagnosis and slow release amphetamines. Our minds evolved in an environment where being lazy and uninterested in pieces of paper was fit, and our ancestors probably lived bad lives as 'lazy' 'stupid' people because they were not capable of the interest necessary for civilization. Don't take fast release amphetamines in big doses- you'll train yourself to respond to cues with their feeling, rather than modulating your brain's function overall over you life. Also, with the power of amphetamines, you'll be capable of changing the way you live. Make sure you use their power to re-enforce a good lifestyle you believe in.

- Depression can be a big factor in reducing perceived or performant intelligence. #1, try to find a way to overcome your depression and/or anxiety and stress. - Good blood flow to the brain is vital for good brain function. #2 get some aerobic exercise that increases your overall circulatory health. Jogging, swimming, bicycling, even just running in place for fifteen minutes a day. - Using your brain is important, but it sounds like you're already doing that if you're actively involved in school. - Getting enough sleep is also vital. The brain toxins built up by daily use of the brain drain off into the lymphatic system system during sleep. That's why you feel bad and can't think well when you don't get enough sleep. - Eat an adequate diet including greens, lean meats or fish, vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and unsaturated oils like olive, sunflower, canola. - Get your mind off your troubles once in a while. Hobby, meditation, mindfulness, casual irl socializing can all help. - Actively block non-essential negativity out of your thoughts and your life. Otherwise you'll waste a lot of brain energy dwelling on things you can't do anything about, and make yourself feel bad in the bargain. I hope you start to feel better and more intelligent, focused, and capable of handling whatever life throws at you soon.

>>85722 Increase brain metabolism. Reduce starch, grains, increase "simple sugars" such as fructose, lactose. Caffeine alongside sugar can be helpful. Eat those things which are very easily digested. Avoid seed oils like the plague, but also avoid other sources of PUFA, such as salmon, and many brands of eggs. Nuts and seeds should be avoided. Vegetables, if eaten, should be well-cooked to reduce the effects of plant defense chemicals. Try to explore and develop your environment. Do real stuff. Use your government name. Be more public, you will be more thorough and pure. I'm starting to feel like a broken record but you guys keep asking and this soykaf is actually extremely important, so there you have it. This is the program that has increased my intelligence the most. raypeat.com/articles

>>85743 Postscript. The most productive way to think about intelligence is in terms of cybernetics (i.e., control loops). I think a lot of people here fall into an increasingly twisted trap of thinking that intelligence is ennui or introvertedness or having the right taste in anime or being able to read wikipedia articles or having a rackmounted server or something. That isn't to say that one should lose their humanity but it is to say that true intelligence is rarely melodramatic. Even when its texture is melodrama its interior is stable and cool. It's about the process of getting what you want out of the environment. Which in broad strokes is a process of accumulating data, processing data, and acting on the data. More lofty philosophical or political concerns can be a part of that but I think that as you become more intelligent the right answers about these questions kind of just fall into your lap.

>>85746 i would rather define int as hardware specs. thinking process is the software. This is what you can realistically aim to improve. photoshop on an older pc beats mspaint on supercomputer.

>>85743 Please don't post nutcase rubbish like that. Seriously, if you really believe that moronic crap your brain isn't working well at all. Why do threads like this always attract that kind of idiocy?

>>85752 this board has been infested by unironic schizophrenics for years, it's especially bad on /hum/ because there's no barrier of entry as I've seen a few of them mention they come here specifically because they can't program and generally have no skills at all

>>85754 >this board has been infested by unironic schizophrenics for years, it's especially bad on /hum/ because there's no barrier of entry as I've seen a few of them mention they come here specifically because they can't program and generally have no skills at all This is hilarious. Lainchan has recreated the flavor of Eternal September from the 80s-90s. "Man, everything was better before these wired magazine reading noobs people appeared."

>>85751 > i would rather define int as hardware specs. This is a rationalist-reductionist-geneticist view. I wouldn't go for it. Obviously intelligence is related to your parents and how they lived (notice I did not say "genes"...) But you should always do your best wherever you are to improve the hardware. Thinking process is not nothing but less impactful, most thinking is not done consciously through a 'process'. >>85752 > Increasing your brain's speed and energy increases your mind's speed and energy There is nothing "nutcase" about what I just wrote. I would be interested to hear a genuine critique if you had one, but if you did, you might've opened with it already.

>>85723 >if i eat rosemary and peppers it will make me smarter! spending your time being autistic about supplements is an easy way to stay retarded

It's futile to argue with schizophrenics. It's like arguing with a doorknob. The appropriate thing to do is just laugh at them, and if they deserve it, make fun of them. The funniest ones are the ones who think their delusions are sane and worth defending. Lol.

>>85759 you can improve hardware performance in brain of course but its limited. exercise improves neural shielding for example, sleep is also a requirement. but even the best hardware cant produce good solutions with soykafty software >most thinking is not done consciously through a 'process'. this is where you should develop a process. Even subconscious processes are learned. people bad at math memorize solutions. people good at math approach it from a how can i reduce the complexity and find the essential rules and how do they interact standpoint. Making the effort to understand and reduce a course to a few interconnected rules gives a huge performance gain. The other aspect is what people call street smart: The simplest brainboost to gullible people is to let them consider irl people giving advice happens with a goal in mind, so rather than taking words at face value consider what someone tries to accomplish and what benefits they hope to gain. Someone who learns to think that way wont be as easily misled. And finally there is the goal issue. I know very smart people who did very stupid soykaf for group approval. It doesnt help being smart enough to know exactly why something is bad when you prioritize friend group cheering for you. Putting your own well being above group approval will increase the quality of your actions.

>>85779 I accept your surrender. >>85785 > this is where you should develop a process. Even subconscious processes are learned. people bad at math memorize solutions. people good at math approach it from a how can i reduce the complexity and find the essential rules and how do they interact standpoint. Making the effort to understand and reduce a course to a few interconnected rules gives a huge performance gain. Sure, but I don't think this is something you can teach to a less intelligent person. I'm not a professional teacher but it requires "hardware" all the same. When you split the system up into "hardware" and "software" you engage in philosophical dualism, which I don't think is right. > you can improve hardware performance in brain of course but its limited. Sure, it's somewhat limited. It depends on accumulated experiences through generations a la Lysenko. Actually it means you have an obligation of sorts to your future children to do everything in your power. > exercise improves neural shielding for example This is not necessarily true, actually: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/brain-tissue-fuel-marathon-runner I think a lot of people correlate BDNF levels to neural development. But the fact is that exercise more intense than walking is a new phenomenon among the intelligentsia. IMHO exercise often increases levels of stress hormones and dulls intelligence as a result by slowing down metabolism. > And finally there is the goal issue. I know very smart people who did very stupid soykaf for group approval. IMHO this is another side of dualism, what Hume called the "is/ought" distinction, the idea that goals can be chosen arbitrarily while reaching them is where intelligence is. I think it is a flawed concept. More intelligent people tend to have more correct goals.

>>85788 >>When you split the system up into "hardware" and "software" you engage in philosophical dualism, which I don't think is right. Why do you call it philosophy when you have factual evidence of the split? We know brain structure comes from genetics and there is a learning process which builds on top of it. The first software limit you encounter is language, thinking is shaped by language because it limits how and what you can express. >Sure, but I don't think this is something you can teach to a less intelligent person. I'm not a professional teacher but it requires "hardware" all the same. Naturally every task has a minimum requirement. My point with the math example is effort to reduce the minimum hardware requirement yields far better results than trying to overclock your hardware. I think many people are dumber than necessary because their thinking processes are inefficient. Same as bad algorithms can break a modern computer while an efficient one will perform even on a 1990 system. >But the fact is that exercise more intense than walking is a new phenomenon among the intelligentsia. IMHO exercise often increases levels of stress h I believe exercise helps from personal experimentation trying no exercise vs exercise each for months, performance was better with doing gym & jogging. There is also a large meta study how fit people perform better in research. I think extreme sports like marathon could be too much but a reasonable level of exercise outperforms no exercise. Its the same as lying in bed without moving causes issues. Extremes always tend to be bad, gotta find the optimum value. Maybe just walking is enough but that would be already more than the common behavior of doing overtime in office and driving everywhere which means you never leave sitting on a chair all day.

>>85789 > Why do you call it philosophy when you have factual evidence of the split? A "split" is a philosophical concept. In reality nothing is split and everything depends on everything else. > We know brain structure comes from genetics and there is a learning process which builds on top of it. Not really. Brain structure is pretty heritable but not decisively genetic (these are different things). And the learning process (as well as genetics) is nothing but the ossified interaction of brains with the environment talking to other brains. You don't get to skip out on improving this system. Popular culture promotes dualistic perspectives for political reasons, it makes it easier to pollute the environment and pretend you aren't harming people because the mind is entirely genetic or something. "Let them eat cake". > Naturally every task has a minimum requirement. My point with the math example is effort to reduce the minimum hardware requirement yields far better results than trying to overclock your hardware. I think many people are dumber than necessary because their thinking processes are inefficient. Same as bad algorithms can break a modern computer while an efficient one will perform even on a 1990 system. Humans are not computers. "Treating humans without the concept of energy is treating dead matter." Albert Szent-Gyorgi

>Humans are not computers. using gauss formula over manually summing up all numbers remains faster doing mental math... differences between brain and silicone chips change whats the most efficient approach but it doesnt change that there is always a efficient and less efficient way.

>>85792 All knowledge comes from interacting with Reality. Very few genuine life problems, which intelligence can solve, are comparable to adding up a series of numbers. In fact they are problems because the solution is not yet readymade and intelligence is required. Efficiency is ultimately a limited metric, "because you can only approach 100%" and no better. To do better than that you need to have command of more resources (bandwidth), more physical resources such as compute and food and ATP and so on. It also doesn't account for the fact that more efficient ways can actually have higher mental requirements as well. The classic memory-time tradeoff in dynamic programming if this is the way you must think about it.

>>85794 I dont think a theoretical limit matters because nobody caps out at 100% and your last point is why. People assume "im capped/further improvement not worth" and stop.

>>85791 >A "split" is a philosophical concept. In reality nothing is split and everything depends on everything else. First of all, differentiating things is not dualistic, read a book. Topology defines like 10 methods of varying strength to distinguish points from each other. Secondly, your notion of "depends" sounds exactly like the separation by a function. What exactly is your point? >Humans are not computers. Humans are precisely computers, as everything else in reality. Your concept of a computer is limited, read about analog computing and realize that it is about motion and not about stiff discrete symbol shuffling.

>>85850 Found a picture of you Bro

>>85722 Thread has been murdered by insufferable Peatbros...

>>85722 Haelou~ OP! Really liked theme that you've opened. Want you to know, that you're not alone in it and it's a shame that nobody probably about things like this. I personally feeling really bad about it, because when you start to think about it it somewhat hurts. I suppose that depression is not quite right interpretation of the main reason. From the early age I started thinking about mortality and death itself and from this time my anxiety only getting bigger, because what kind of motivation can make you appreciate that in the every moment of your life it runs away from you further and further, many things that you would like to do in the age that compliments it, you are not really interested in it shortly after when the best time is passed. I don't know what to say, I think we just got not much time on this planet for living how we want it. Hope for a better future and thoughts that I could've known 10 languages, build immortal future for close ones, build spaceships to conquer distant planets and rise above human limits. It was like ultimate goal for me, the absolute motivation. And now... I understand that I don't get any younger, and I lost my first and second prime, but I believe that I can regain control over everything and stand higher than ever I been in the past. Why am I telling you this bitter-sweet story of mine? Because for me emotions and feeling of control over your life and your goals have straight link in my experience. When you haunted by it, even if you're disciplined enough, and still pushing, productivity drops significantly. Regain control, overcome your fears, set your goals. That's my advice. Your expectations lead to anxietations. Also, running with hitting HIIT zones really helped me with clear thinking after and boosted my mood significantly. But if you're going for it, buy good running shoes, that's for your ankles health. Other thing that significantly helped me is remove not a smartphone, but a smartphone that connected to internet overall from my life. That thing, that every time you want to get entertainment, even reading a book or something, or search for any info that you need on the internet, softens your brain. I could even say, when you remove something from your life and that leads to anxiety, that means you somewhat addicted to it. Before I said about reading books and phone thing, why it's important for me and what I find out: when your attention could be quickly fade, and if you don't like something, and you changing your activity, it's very bad for you. We are, people, not working better in compartmentalised environment with parallel execution. All books and movies that I've read and watched prepared, when they were getting my full attention, I remember them, even now, except ones I watched in the background. This is really something to think about. Only one exception for me is music, but even I have really big discography, I don't listen to it much often. And the news... That's everywhere, all the interesting journals, sites, blogs, et cetera. What I recommend is make them RSS feed of yours and give it a time on schedule. Accept that any news that you read, you got no control over it, basically it's just propaganda of somebodies opinion. Getting our BINGO all together: General Health Staff 1. Check quality of your sleep. 2. Check quality of your nutrition, food. 3. Check quality of your sport activities. 4. Test your blood, and check your deficiency for staff. Regular check-ups will be a good measure too. Environment 5. Check your house/flat (CO2, Pollution, Other) 6. If you live in a big city, know, light and sound pollution, as EM are real things. I personally sleep much better in my small hometown city because of it 7. Be aware that your surroundings can change your mood and perception, starting from architecture, ending the people and their culture on the streets. Living in the dirty areas full of criminals affect most people, except ones that familiar with it. Psychological 8. Check your social climate, maybe there a lot of people that make you feel miserable or just spreading their depressive tendencies on you 9. Be aware of your social and income status. Many things in our life lead to our status and sometimes we are feeling bad because we are not in the right place were we think we should be. Be reflective about it, and try to do something with it if it's the reason. 10. Dating and all this staff, that can be depressive for young people. Dopamine 11. Get rid of your addictions, make them a reward to you, if you can't give them up 12. Get rid of information overdose 13. Get rid of mentality where "multitasking" is great. Maybe it is, but try do things without it. 14. Every activity has it's own time and don't try to interrupt it because you feeling bored or don't feeling it 15. Train your will power, do first things you want to do least.

the only things you can do to seriously increase your intelligence are going to be seriously difficult e.g. getting a math degree, becoming fluent in a different language, etc. to be able to do those things on your own involves a degree of self-direction that most people struggle with, it also means having certain basics down as you proceed into adulthood. school is designed to provide the structure that most people seem to need but its also expensive and kind of a time sink without the best returns. if you do school would suggest studying both a hard science like biology or physics with a soft one like linguistics, socio- or anthropology with elective courses in something more creative like art or writing. i would avoid CS as your focus because its oversaturated and often CS curricula are both behind the times or too abstract for tech jobs anyway. cybersecurity would be better if you want to do a CS-related thing but you want to supplement that with certifications and serious reflection on the industry you're trying to get into. there's some other basic lifestyle changes you can make if you're not *already* doing them, like ensuring you eat enough food, and also not overeating at meals as it can waste some of your body's resources on digestion. on a longer timescale, making a schedule for your diet helps because you will not be spending your time worrying about what to eat 3 times a day, and then you can focus more on things that aren't basic needs. this is basically the case for most stressors in your life and how they impact your intelligence - worrying about the stability of certain essentials will distract you from focusing on what you want, allocate less attention, and be less able to think clearly about given problems. you should be getting at least 1500-2500 calories per day from a primarily carb-based diet with a decent amount of protein and fiber, fat and sugar are not something to fear but it is not what your diet should wholly consist of, and avoiding sugar can actually lead to problems too, like low blood sugar which makes you lethargic. I would recommend rice-based products because they are the most neutral, cheapest, and easiest to make but anything like bread, oats, pasta is ultimately fine too unless you're severely overweight. basically the trap you want to avoid is using sugar to stave off hunger which will wind up being more expensive and wasteful as sugary products are used to make money off of you, are not ultimately that filling and reliance on them will mean worrying about food more often. and then if you consume them in excess it will cause other health issues. i would recommend fruit instead for sugar cravings, bananas are cheap and nourishing, as well as a decent source of fiber and other micronutrients. if you are trying to lose weight i would only recommend semaglutide or keto. another aspect of diet that people seem to neglect is your micronutrients or micros, e.g. the vitamins you should be taking in. you can basically eat whatever you want if you pay attention to how your body feels after eating, you don't want to feel uncomfortable as that affects your reasoning. to know your exact levels of each vitamin and if you have any deficits, you can get a blood test, if you have healthcare i would recommend talking to your general practitioner who will probably give you a referral, there are also companies like Quest you can pay directly for lab tests. getting this taken care of will result in less stress, better focus, etc. another important factor is sleep: ideally, you should be getting ~8 hours of sleep in darkness, this is because your body has adapted to sleep during these times, biphasic or monophasic doesn't matter that much although some say its more natural to do biphasically. you need a proper amount of N3 or deep sleep (some will say its N4) and rapid-eye-movement or REM sleep, your body will fluctuate from waking, N1, N2, N3, REM, then back to N1 or N2 over the span of about 2 hours to 1.5 hours. at minimum you should try to get 2-3 of these per night, you will not be functional the next day otherwise, i have tried to do just one cycle before and it didn't help me at all the next day. the optimal time to wake is during an N1 or N2 phase after you don't enter deep sleep anymore, controlling this is obviously hard when you're sleeping but isn't too difficult to achieve by simply listening to your body. if you do not wake during this time you will be tired and nonfunctional during the day. some people will tell you that its better to wake in the morning but thats not true insomuch as we live in a society that prioritizes morning people, this is because aging causes you to wake up earlier and meritocracy dictates older people tend to have more resources. the reality is that people are actually stupider in the morning in general. exercise is also an important factor, you only really need ~30 minutes a day unless you're trying to shape your body in some way. sunlight goes hand in hand with this so going for a run or a hike, biking around, swimming are the best forms of exercise. you don't need a gym if you have self control and are just trying to increase mental clarity but they do have specialized equipment. if you want to also increase spatial reasoning in terms of your own body as well as getting a serious workout i would suggest something like gymnastics, parkour, rock-climbing, martial arts if you don't want to exert as much energy. the last and probably simplest behavioral change you can make for daily basis is to meditate regularly. "meditate daily" is often fetishized by techie types because there is a wide range of meditative states that overlap with hypnotic ones. as far as they go i would say jhāna is the most effective, along with self-hypnosis, or even reading a book. which book it doesn't matter, but simply reading is not enough as posts on social media or articles are often too short to put you in a contemplative state for a long period. to say nothing about the blaring light of your computer monitor, or narrow screen of your smartphone. self-hypnosis seems to be the shallowest kind of experience but is still very useful for managing stress which might be all you need. jhāna is just the sanskrit word for meditation, but i use it because it specifies the meditation practices in buddhism which are distinct from e.g. gnosis meditation, abrahamic prayer, or the kind pushed nowadays by therapists in the mindfulness movement. jhāna is meant to builds two aspects of your mind: Samatha meaning tranquility or calm awareness, and vipassanā meaning insight. both are necessary. some traditions, like theravada separate them into different forms of meditation as well, and the popular book mindfulness in plain english basically pushes the theravada version of vipassanā meditation. the issue here is not that vipassanā meditation is bad, but rather that calling vipassanā meditation "mindfulness meditation" as the meditative aspect of a greater practice of "mindfulness" which applies to all your affairs is a horrifically misleading bastardization of the practice misses the point entirely. the sanskrit word for mindfulness is smṛti or sati in pali, NOT vipassanā, and it refers to both remembrance and observation, often translated as "to remember to observe" typically of the principles of buddhism and its meditation but ultimately of all reality. it is the first of 7 factors of awakening that proceed one towards enlightenment the others being investigation, energy, joy, relaxation, concentration and equanimity or acceptance - when english-speakers talk about meditation and mindfulness, they often have relaxation and equanimity in mind but those are both distinct from mindfulness nor the goal of the practices they are obfuscating - sati is not even itself considered a virtue of the eight (or ten)fold path, rather sammā-sati or right-mindfulness is which means doing it properly. to learn more about this i would recommend wikipedia for general information and primary or research texts for specific practices. any book or article sold to you is going to messing it up considerably because they know that in order to get your money or attention, they can simply present you with a consumptive experience that produces change of some variety. because people who desire change can achieve it if they calmly focus, all they're really doing is giving you permission to do that, which might just mean meditating on certain ideas or your own breathing. all that being said, its actually very simple to jhāna properly. there's different techniques to get to this state but they all involve something like finding a singular point of focus and paying attention to it while, additionally, paying attention to everything else without becoming absorbed in anything. the trick is to watch yourself breathe without consciously controlling your breathing, and likewise doing this for every other autonomic process, followed by mental processes as well. at this point you label every single thought you have and watch them fade away (as thoughts do), during this process things like swallowing spit build-up and even feeding yourself if hungry become natural and not processes you are involved in psychologically. your thoughts may naturally turn to deeper philosophical concerns like the nature of the self, your own values, and philosophy, which you observe the unfolding of and subsequent fading. this is all much easier said than done, as it is typically divided into 4 phases the first few times you meditate will likely not get past the first one or breathing. doing this regularly will change you fundamentally, increase your intelligence, ability to act, manage stress, intentionality, and if you truly believe perhaps even bring you enlightenment. this post was originally twice as long with a huge section on drugs that I will post soon, but body too large so i hope all this is at least helpful.

>>86700 maths > sex every single time as regard for sleep , sleep is a scam if your body needs sleep it will make you collapse like it mine does.

>>86702 if you want to simply increase your IQ score, getting a math degree is the most straightforward way to achieve that as IQ tests basically consist of math problems. "general reasoning and problem solving" is more or less just abstract math. However I don't think IQ is super meaningful, it does have correlation with success but having a high IQ won't cause you to be seen as intelligent except by people who also have high IQ and are proud of themselves, or people with low IQ who are insecure about it. it has some meaning but mostly only has power if you believe in it. >>86700 Pt. II Using Drugs and Nootropics theres plenty of nootropics that people will wage slave you and some of them may actually work, piracetam to my understanding seems to be the most helpful. however these things will do nothing for you if you do not have your basic needs - the right amounts of REM and N3 (deep) sleep which occur in cycles that are about one and a half hours long. they will also do nothing or have masked effects if you're deficient in some other vitamin that the nootropic / supplement / whatever can be processed into, which is why getting everything else in check first first is essential. one reason why less-common nootropics will work is if you have other mental health issues such as those resultant from trauma, starving yourself, clinical depression etc then certain nootropics have neuroregenerative properties that will help you more than somebody without that trauma. in terms of "harder" drugs stimulants are the most obvious choice in terms of making you more intelligent, but you must be able to manage the stress they come with and the appetite effects. there will hopefully soon be novel acetylcholinisterase inhibitors on the market besides nicotine which will probably be the best stimulants due to their anxiolytic properties, until then however your options are going to be some kind of amphetamine like vicodin or adderall, phenidates, caffeine, or modafinil. each of these works differently and whether they work for you is highly dependent on your own nervous system, amphetamines and caffeine tend to be overrated whereas phenidates like ritalin or 4f-mph, and modafinil tend to be underrated. I'm pretty sure modafinil can be obtained without a prescription, it is used for wakefulness so i would recommend it in place of caffeine which does not actually increase your body's energy levels and only suppresses melatonin, which your brain produces to sleep properly. some people will tell you that psychedelics can boost intelligence and it is true that they can increase learning while you're on them, and give you some interesting experiences to reflect on but if your problems are obvious then like meditation any psychedelic trip you're on will feel like some sort of hell where you're being repeatedly in different strange ways what those problems are. so i would recommend them last, you can take LSD if you like uppers and shrooms if you like downers, and DMT if you want a very short, clean-feeling experience that feels kind of like mushrooms. i would recommend against substituted amphetamines as a source of insight because they are not good for your brain even if they can enhance some behavioral issues like empathy, there is limited trials success of MDMA therapy but if you deal with that you might want to simply look into oxytocin supplementation. MDMA and other substituted amps like MDA can be fun for parties and don't necessarily give you brain damage if you're careful with them, but my experience with MDMA users is that most aren't, even the ones who act like they are wind up doing something absurd with them. another drug, dissociatives are highly recommended if you deal with any sort of depression, which if you're posting on lainchan you probably are. ketamine is the best one for you, potentially followed by memantine although it is not fun because it causes you to dissociate for a whole day without any euphoria. the others are kind of a bust although FXE seems to be the most common ketamine-like many people's bodies are sensitive to it, its clinical outcomes are not as researched, it is more euphoric than K without being unmanageably manic like PCP is and likewise find it more fun for partying. the others are either going to be some modification on PCP variant (nobody really has legitimate PCP these days) that often give people insufferably violent god complex, a modification of ketamine like DCK thats a downer unrefined and headachey in some capacity, or something like amylnitrate or nitrous that literally give u brain damage. i would suggest foremost ketamine therapy as your source because most ketamine is going to be cut with DCK these days especially after FXE production was derezzed in china. managing stress in general is going to be your goal both for increasing your intelligence and acting intelligently. using weed for this purpose is fine, but it can decrease motivation and harm memory if overused long period. this is in part because of its relationship to choline which you can actually affect through l-theanine, tyrosine, (which also help for caffeine anxiety and can be found in green tea or acquired independently), and NAC. in general I would recommend against anxiolytics that aren't ketamine or weed and I would also recommend against direct THC because half of the effect from weed comes from its terpenes. anxiolytics have a tendency to build dependence very quickly, they are imo the most dangerous to try and withdrawals or even hangovers from them are the worst. on the note of trauma, you can use weed, kratom or even opiates for pain management but often this is just a recipe for ignoring your body's needs. if the pain is overwhelming and prevents you from what you want to achieve, it can make sense but be careful not to neglect yourself in other ways if you do so. there are other drugs / research chemicals tend to have a less deep effect and are mostly used to have novel experiences, but they do have some niche usefulness or some people have specific preferences for them. there's a few paragraphs on drugs here because i have a lot of experiences, but please keep in mind that drugs are the easiest thing to fuarrrk up and you're better off avoiding them. many people who use drugs to increase their intelligence / productivity / etc often are just using it to distract themselves from the cognitive dissonance of the retarded decisions they are making even if they tell themselves otherwise. this is especially true of tech worker types who want to "work smarter". the only way to actually work smarter is to seriously reflect upon your actions and how they impact others.

>>86703 >if you want to simply increase your IQ score iq will drop out to dogs level thanks to females thats why only males reproduction is so appealing

>>85727 just hoping OP got this is the only real answer in this thread lol

>>85722 The best way to increase intelligence is to start physical exercise and use your brain. Learn new things and so on. I would imagine that playing chess or igo could help. Omega-3 supplements are also recommended. >https://senseis.xmp.net/?PagesForBeginners Of course, you can always use substances that improve neuroplasticity like classical psychedelics or certain non-toxicating mushroom supplements like chaga or lion's mane. Note that some have a bad reaction to lion's mane and do not use any mushroom supplements if you have allergy to any mushroom or penicillin. Some say that meditating regularly increases neuroplasticity, too.

>>86704 makes sense. male/male is the power combo >>86706 drop your pandanet or OGS account? im bored i want to vs you

take care of your physical health and be very active mentallt. duh. don't box or play football or ingest substances that cause brain damage. solve a lot of problems of all kinds.

>Over the past few years, I've felt like my focus and mental processing speed have both dropped off. It's something to do with your will. Limit your screentime and meditate.

>>85722 Things I do: >Good Quality Sleep >Good Quality Diet >Read Lots of Different Books >Write About Difficult Concepts >Have Conversations About Different Concepts >Solve Difficult Coding/Math Problems >Workout >Meditate >Chew Gum When Studying To Retain Information

>>89271 >Chew Gum When Studying To Retain Information that reminds me of how jews do that head bobbing thing to increase information retention, very interesting, there is a definitely something very real to all that.

>>89273 Yes, chewing retains memory because it's an evolutionary trait that tells the brain where to remember where it found its food.

>>89302 I tried it and all I did was think about food and read about if fasting is actually worth it and feel tired and like fainting

Realise that it's hard to be intelligent and practice intelligence in an rapidly dumbing down and emotionally illiterate soceity. If a tree falls yada yada, but with intelligence in a society that doesn't recognise it. It feels like the world is becoming immaterial because we're entering a new age of emotional and intellectual self-deceit brought on by evil manufactured social concensus on social media designed to atomise and animalise us for profit and create a cattle class. You need to find a community that reflects and understands your intelligence to survive in this cultural schizophrenia that we are living through. We are going through massive changes, books written 20-50 years ago might not feel relevant because the world is changing so rapidly, so you don't feel like reading. But you likely have 60 years ahead of you and were always going to die anyway before the world shat itself, so still improve yourself, reading is really important mentally for a good life. It's not you getting dumber in your early 20s, everyone in society regardless of age is getting dumber at the same time currently, and it's very difficult to fight. Your best bet is finding intellectual refuges even though the anti-meritocracy and social media whoring-out push from everyone and every institution (looking at you sci-am+nat geo) has shattered smart communities, like smart-broad minded podcasts (whale hunting, what it was like, the gray area, econo, small brained am, wontong don, peter signer etc), paid news/magazine services with a non-clickbaity global lean (econo is probably the last news service that doesn't write for idiots), Edge magazine is basically the economist for gamers, still nuanced and prosaic, find your local arthouse cinema community-> real people and real art and real emotions are still everywhere, for now; social media just doesn't want you to know that, find your local book festival and figure out what speakers are interesting<- these are still worth going to, . Figure out what ideal life you can still have. Know which countries haven't lost the plot and listen to them. Chat to strangers from those countries. Find youtube channels of people going on wild adventures that actually have the spirit of travel in them. Practise values, contentment and integrity that have been lost to a lot of society. If you need to cut out 99 broken down people in your life to see the 1 who is still truly alive do it. UK establishment academia and media still has a strong breath of intellectualism and good inherent knowledge of life and the world. The elites love the uk and will never fully destroy it, so cling to that for dear life. I shouldn't need to tell you not to touch short form video. The global contented middle class is a sinking ship, you have to live like the elites if you want contentment or anything intellectual. It is like kicking dead whales down the beach but it's true. Step back and have a deep think at what they are pushing the consumer class towards. They will always want comfort, quality, beauty and interest, and have the means to get it, even if they aren't always the best at appreciating it. Make pacts with yourself about living the good, interesting life, one that breaks people minds because most people are just soykaf circling the drain and that suffocating hopelessness and apathy will intensify in the years ahead. Don't watch porn that doesn't actually align with your ideas of true beauty, it's damaging, switch to the arthouse photoshoots if you really can't quit it. When the dust settles after this shifting world (10-20yrs) you will have a much richer life, and be able to make the changes you want. A good life isn't easy, but it still exists. You will be the vessel of good things ready to help out those who need it or have lost their way. You need to protect these things in you to make the world, and your world better.

Pose your brain with challenging activities regularly (math problems, sudoku, go, chess, writing, drawing diagrams about abstract concepts, reading, feynman technique to evaluate or dissect recently learned concepts) Do mental exercises (memory retention techniques such as n-back and mnemonics, practices to improve pattern recognition) Have an overall healthy life (diet, sleep, mental health, reduced access to quick dopamine, reduced distractions) Practice metacognition (philosophy books and scientific texts work well) Mindfulness (meditation, metacognitive methods) and willpower to actually apply all these.

>>89337 >>89337 You barely scratched the surface. Also to complete the cycle and glean anything from it, you need to break the fast in a special way and only when you return to your baseline diet can you judge the cycle. The cycle is not complete when you start eating. The cycle is complete when you have safely and efficiently returned to your baseline. Dry fasting is good. Water fasting is okay.

But I'll be honest, not even fasting comes close to simply directing your mind in the right ways. Tuning into the right things. Not as in righter than anything else, but as in - highly energetic... It's a catch-22, because without health or if you're a nigger, you're probably never going to do it, but.. yet... You don't need anything really TO do it... just to tune into certain perspectives. It's much more about beliefs than people realize. MUCH more. But it is catch 22...

>>85722 >Start journaling. Getting your thoughts down on paper could be a really good start on taking back your consciousness, as we tend to live our lives in autopilot mode. >Get creative. Start drawing, making music or writing poetry. This works as a gateway to acknowledge our feelings, which in turn can make us emotionally smarter. >Solve math problems If you really just wanna feel like you are getting smarter, you are better off just proving or even furthering your knowledge in math. It helps me sometimes where I feel like I'm useless. >You are not dumb, just overwhelmed and confused <3

I have heard that microdosing LSD could potentially help because it's supposed to increase neuroplasticity and neurogenesis but I don't have any personal experiences with it and I haven't even read too much about it.

Anecdotal but I think smoking weed really does make you subtly stupider. I haven't smoked for 2 months and I feel that mind is a lot clearer. Sleeping better too.

>>85722 To get smarter you have to exercise and challenge your mind. Something like learning a new type of mathematics, taking on a coding project, or reading a challenging book is a start.

>>89368 weed's mechanism directly hijacks your pleasure center (that's why it's called dope, as in dopamine) I'm not sure if it actually damages your mental abilities but it sure as soykaf does mess with your motivation, which is part of what you'd consider intelligence I guess without motivation it's pretty much impossible to focus, your brain just won't let you expend the mental energy, so all you want to do is sit around and stare at a wall

Lately I have so many things that need to be done but so little time to do them. And when you think about it, it's kind of boring stuff.

Understand the universals of ratios and sums - proportionality of things and things-in-themselves on sets - and our natural intuition, and how these fool you on how reality actually works.

Was hoping for a career as an academic but it might be over... What do?

>>90596 More than enough, what you really need to do is grease elbows and play office politcs. And you need to start early so you already have connections when you want to do your phd. Its much easier to have a academic career with social skills and mediocre performance than being an autist who autperforms but can work with noone

Quality of consciousness / morality.

>>85722 I had a similar experience when I was in the middle of college. What happens is you lose your routine so it's not that your cognitive ability drops, but your brainpower is spent on a lot of other things like what you're eating tomorrow or how you're going to be afford this that and the next. Trust me it gets better as you get older. Once I graduated and moved back in with my mom my cognitive ability when it came to technical/math problems jumped straight up. I'm 25 now and I can easily say I'm smarter than I've ever been thanks to life experience, having more time away from homework to read books, and having a schedule worked out for me thanks to having a job.

I'm just a rare sort of person :X >:) >:O \*,*/

I see a lot of food recommendations, how much food is gonna affect your intelligence? Any studies to look at?

>>90886 chronic inflammation = brain damage known sources for inflammation naturally includes food allergies as well as sugar consumption On the other hand sugar+caffeine also help to push through when you overworked. So you cant say its bad in general, its dosage + circumstances. That aside food contamination as well as malnutrition from gut flora destruction can lower performance. Note the malnutrition here doesnt mean you thin, it means you lacking in some essential micro nutrient etc. and that can be true even while fat. Empty calories is not just food itself but also what you can digest of it. The food however is guilty of empty calories too. Our nutrition suffered in general as hybridization and later gmo aiming for faster growth speed to increase yield came at lower nutritional values. They managed to sell this garbage because they only have to list calories but not all the micro nutrients that went downhill.

>>86455 good post. esp. agree about environmental factors because it's not often talked about. Air pollution and noise pollution are horrible. Being surrounded by dumb people in the long run will also make you dumb. >>85743 bad post. only agree with the reduce starch. Caffeine and sugar are short-term stimulants and break you in the long run. Sugar should only be tolerated when it comes from fruits and whole grains, because it's horrible for inflammation. Eggs, caviar, nuts and some seeds are literally one of the healthiest foods one can consume because as a rule of thumb they contain the most valuable nutrients since a thing is supposed to grow from them. Vegetables should at most be steamed, anything more than that can result in a loss. >Use your government name. Be more public, you will be more thorough and pure ??? pure ? anon wtf are you on about... please stay away from the internet. >>85742 good post >>86700 >the only things you can do to seriously increase your intelligence are going to be seriously difficult e.g. getting a math degree, becoming fluent in a different language, etc stopped reading after this it's proven time and time again, that skills aren't transferable. being good at math makes you just being good at math (I know this from experience, used to go on math Olympiads, still an idiot in other areas of life). being good at speaking a certain language is just that, being good at that language. Same for chess, etc. Learning different things continually is what actually promotes neurogenesis, but not IQ, and specializing in them does not provide benefits. They studied how juggling affected the brain and they found increase in density of gray matter, but when more than 3 balls were added, it didn't do much past that. OP, you can't increase IQ. You can increase attention span, neurogenesis, cognition and maybe working memory (see Dual-n-Back: https://gwern.net/dnb-meta-analysis) . Only thing in regards to IQ you should work on is prevent brain damage and prevent decreasing IQ. It's very simple actually: > 1. Do the big three consistently: good sleep (at least 7h, ideally from 10 pm-5am), healthy food (less processed, rich in omega acids, mediterranean-like, also intermittent fasting showed increase of brain hormone BDNF) and exercise (aerobics for oxygen, vestibular exercises for focus). If you do these 3 things consistently, you have already done 90% of all the work. > 2. Go out in unfamiliar places and socialize with (preferably smarter than you) people. Being stuck in room all day induces ADHD-like symptoms, and zero socializing decreases cognition. This will also improve your mental health. > 3. Meditation. There are various types so honestly this should be a thread on its own. The biggest benefit is increasing attention span and decreasing stress/anxiety which you can also do by avoiding degenerate and addictive behavior. Consume long form content, books, documentaries, movies instead of tiktoks or 10 min yt videos. Get RSS and ditch everything else. Obviously don't do the bad stuff > 4. Microdosing LSD/DMT. Supplements (Omega, Magnesium, Ginkgo, Ginseng, Cannabidiol (not weed!!!) + many others, again should be its own thread). This is my last point because I think it should be treated as an additional boost, not the main thing to rely on. Don't be lazy and put all your hopes on a pill. Do the work, the above 3 points, or even just the first one. Less is more. another good post from /drg/: >>17908

>>90897 addendum to my post: by bad stuff I mean: smoking, drinking and any drugs except maybe mircodosing lsd/dmt. something that isn't mentioned and is a big deal are neurotoxins https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/89715 obviously you should read more on it and avoid them. When consuming seafood opt for smaller fish like sardines and calamari since they have lowest mercury levels. the post from /drg/ that failed to link: https://lainchan.org/drug/res/17898.html#q17908

yeah, so definitely don't just smoke weed anon. soykaf like adhd is way more common cause of the Internet, try to get off it more. read more books, bigass ones that take you a good deal of thinking like house of leaves.

>>90897 >that skills aren't transferrable how can that be? every IQ test I've taken is just a series of deductive reasoning problems, even the especially hard ones are "spot the difference" type problems of pattern matching that feel very close to, say, identification of all elements in an algebraic group. the ones that weren't were cultural literacy and mathematical word problems. I'm coming from a background of majored in math and my IQ is apparently 134 or so. And no I'm not talking about the meme quizzes that get advertised to you on social media ads rather things like the JCTI or CAIT. its a shame you didn't read through the rest of your post because it recommends the same things you do.

>>90903 IQ tests are rigged, it's a "closed" problem that proclaims to be open and generalistic. Sure, some recognition is transferable, but the fact you're not "supposed to" train IQ tests says it all. Dumb, and rigged.

>>90904 I'm not disagreeing with you, like ive already stated a category of these questions are cultural literacy moreso than anything else and I agree the test is dumb, so it kinda of feels like you're being unnecessarily hostile. If you accept that some recognition is transferable over your(?) prior claim that that no it isn't, and it's in "the rules" of IQ testing that you're not supposed to retest IQ frequently or practice / study for it, how are we supposed to know that IQ can only decline as stated earlier? Is there any intelligence metric that actually meets our standards? I'm inclined to think no, using your distinction of closed vs open problems, there is either a complete system that can be statically memorized / solved or a variable, incomplete language that you can train proficiency in.

>>90904 Dont train doesn't mean anything beyond if you memorize solutions then we cant test you on anything aside memory. In that scope it should be alright to test young children with any test because they saw nothing of anything. With adults its hard because now you have to find challenged they wouldnt have encountered before.

https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39 IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

>>90924 >tapleb not reading, he's an imbecile, look at his twitter

>>90927 thank you for clarifying, and I agree. Even if math skills are transferable to IQ, that doesn't make you intelligent in other areas and I hopefully never claimed this was the case. Getting a degree promotes neurogenesis like you stated, it also tends to introduce you to other academic subjects and put you in a highly social and responsible environment. I want to defend the post in question because if you read further down you'll see it not only recommended studying math, but also studying something very different like a foreign language, in addition to a soft science and artistic pursuit - "e.g." is generally defined to mean "as an example" distinctly from "i.e." meaning "in essence". A follow-up post from the same author went on to state that IQ wasn't very meaningful and only has the power people believe it to - for instance, there are communities where having a high IQ is seen as being highly important for not great reasons that I kind of want to get into since I think it's relevant to your second point. IQ is highly correlated with success, which is the most common argument I've seen used to claim that IQ is a considerable factor of intelligent. I would argue that this is primarily a result of social inheritance, than anything else. Why not just because of epigenetic factors like wealthier families living in environments with less lead pollution, but for even more social reasons like how IQ has a strong correlation with SAT scores which are considerably associated with wealth. For instance, the kids who took the SAT multiple times in high school scored higher and had wealthier families that allowed them to do this, and because they had stronger home country language skills than e.g. first generation kids. That being stated, I think there is a portion of IQ thats genetically inherited, as well as an albeit lower proportion of general intelligence thats genetically inherited, but I feel that the intelligence-as-inheritable camp tends to overstate as a form of compensation for the intelligence-as-acquired who acknowledge any possibility of inheritance. As for your comment I don't think I've trained math excessively, simply got a degree in it and enjoy the field. take contracts applying those skills that gives some finances to seek out the next contract. In general, my life is pretty good, if a bit unstable at times. But anyways, I agree completely and nowhere in my post did I say don't leave the room and do sudokus all day or whatever else. Intelligence is a metabolic problem for the most part, with neurogenesis being a consequence of healthy metabolism. I would disagree with your points about waking up at 5 in the morning and microdosing psychedelics, however - if neurogenesis is higher while the psychedelics are still in your system that's no guarantee that you'll experience a greater rate of neurogenesis or "wisdom" after you've stopped taking them or if your tolerance to them has gotten so high you no longer experience their effects - am aware that psychs cause people to feel very intelligent, but don't know if that perfectly corresponds to the neurogenesis they seem to promote. You could look at everything you were doing while microdosing afterwards and realize that the connections between concepts in your work were more fraught or "creative", similarly to how people might feel after they stopped smoking weed. In general, I think that neurogenesis while a useful tool isn't as corresponsible to intelligence as you might think. For instance, brain damage survivors likely experience a higher rate of neurogenesis during later stages of healing, as it has been shown in mice [1][2]. would imagine trans individuals also experience greater neurogenesis at some points than gen pop due to the unusual hormonal situations they put their brains in. This doesn't mean people should go get brain damage or that they should trans, however. I would also disagree with your point about waking up before 5 AM - while it makes sense that waking up this early can get you ahead of things, and i personally do enjoy waking up an hour before sunrise, staying up late actually has a higher correlation with IQ[3]. As we've already discussed, IQ is a correlate and not the full picture, but it makes intuitive sense why people would be stupider in the mornings. In fact I believe it has been shown that people are categorically less intelligent in the hours after they've woken up - their senses are still dulled from sleep and they often use caffeine, sugary drinks, or sometimes other stimulants to compensate. I also wanted to make a statement about your mention of intermittent fasting. While it might do some good to a healthy-to-overweight individual, which comprises most of the population, to fast intermittently, I think this is the least likely portion of the population to do so whereas those who do fast likely have starvation disorders and do so in excess which likely causes more brain damage than it helps. [1]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25520428/ [2]https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-49299-6 [3]https://personal.lse.ac.uk/kanazawa/pdfs/paid2009.pdf

>>90959 >the IQ correlation with SATs and wealthy families agreed, that's what I had in mind when I said it doesn't account for the full scope of intelligence >but I feel that the intelligence-as-inheritable camp tends to overstate as a form of compensation for the intelligence-as-acquired who acknowledge any possibility of inheritance. I'm in the inheritable camp because I've seen no persuasive evidence of the opposite. There are late bloomers but I've always attributed their success to hard work + alignment of other factors. I'm not sure how much just raw intelligence accounts for success in general given how common is the case of gifted->burnout pipeline. 99% of people aren't John Von Neumann and as intelligent as they are, can't get away by relying solely on intelligence. Funnily enough, the guy himself didn't believe he accomplished anything grand or big-picture. I digress. This is speculation and observation on my part. Hence the reason I didn't focus on "increasing" intelligence in my original post, and instead on brain health, more specifically attention span, cognition, neurogensis and working memory (thought WM is debatable and I have yet to form an opinion on that), because those things can more or less be positively influenced and I believe people should focus on things they can change. I could've just posted "no changing genetics of intelligence" and left it at that but that's of no use to anyone. Most really successful people (not the eccentric genius type but those with moderately and above advanced careers/businesses) I've seen, tend to always check two boxes: 1) they are only slightly above average with IQ and 2) seem to have great social networks and connections both personal and working. Make of that what you will. >brain damage survivors likely experience a higher rate of neurogenesis true, which is why I specifically said prevent brain damage (1st post), and if someone were to read our posts and concluded to do that as a viable way to get neurogenesis so went to bash their head against the wall, I'm afraid there is no helping them. >waking up at 5 AM Have read about the correlation with staying up late and IQ. I rarely say this with confidence, but that is a classic case of correlation=/=causation. Dulled senses would be a sign of lowered cognition, you mean? I'm being pedantic again. Cognition should improve within an hour of waking up without stimulants if one had a full 7-8h sleep before and and didn't wake up in the middle of a cycle. Anyway, I've been a night person (not even a night person, just completely out of whack schedule person) all my life and from experience I see that in the long run your health stats start to tank. Don't quote me on this but iirc there were numerous studies which showed that night intervals of sleep are better, dare I say superior for quality sleep. I don't think any of the minmaxing will be worth it in the end if the general health of a person starts deteriorating, which tends to happen if you are a night person + you have responsibilities to attend to in the morning (work, school, etc.) which is often the case for many. Not coincidentally, those are the exact types of people that need a stimulant in the morning. Doesn't have to be 5 am, but if it's later than 9-10 am it becomes a problem, unless a person can afford to be a NEET. >microdosing I'll admit my knowledge on the topic is shallow at best. People have reported increased creativity, that's pretty much all I know. Not my thing, but if someone were to really push for the limits ig it couldn't hurt to try. Afaik you aren't in danger of psychosis from mircodosing. Definitely not a quick fix. Supplements are an entirely another story and while shouldn't be treated as a quick fix, can help compensate for whatever you aren't getting enough of from the food. >vague statistics about intermittent fasting I'm not going to be googling the statistics for this for the sake of the argument and to be honest I don't see why anyone would care besides for informational purposes. What matters I think are the many health benefits and I know one of those is the BDNF (which can be produced in many other ways already mentioned here in these posts). If someone chooses to do it, fine, if not nbd, just know the information. The quality of the food itself and not overeating it is what matters the most. What I attempted to do, was offer my version of the most *optimized* life I'd live if I wanted to keep my brain healthy and my attention, cognition etc to the max. When I skimmed the thread, the first reply is someone being vague and then listing a bunch of supplements which should be the last stop. It's such quick-fix kinda way and not at all a full, informative and complete answer to the question. And since we are talking, 3 things I'd like to add for anyone who reads: get screened for ADHD (or whatever you suspect) and minimize the decisions you have to make in day. This is getting more into productivity rather than intelligence, but more often than not there are hidden factors which we are unaware of that could contribute to feeling dumb. If you have to think about 1284243 different things during the day, and/or you have some form of neurodivergence that causes executive dysfunction, you are bound to feel like an idiot. The third and hopefully last thing are neurobics: mental exercises in the form of using non-dominant hand, taking a different route to work and some other which I don't remember, no pun intended. Though I feel like those are aimed at the older population that has concerns with dementia and I doubt the average person will have the time and patience for them but since OP specifically asked there it is. But yeah. That's all. I think I've personally exhausted the subject to no end and I really have nothing more to add, so I'm gonna stop posting for now.

>>85723 >cannabis I cannot think of a faster way to make myself giga retarded

>>90959 i.e. stands for "id est" and means "that is [to say]" (or "namely", "to wit"). It narrows and specifies meaning, as opposed to the expansive and non-exclusive role of e.g. ("exempli gratia").

>>92161 correct. but nobody will remember that, so I said i.e. means "in essence" for the sake of mnemonic

Define intelligence? There is a misconception about what's intelligence, our society often praises people with good memory thinking that's intelligence because they remember more things than their peers, but when you put this person in a scenario where they are given limited or no info they panic and are not capable of solving the issue, they aren't capable of self taught.

>>92228 The ability to make your mind follow its own plans? Artificially increasing it is like learning to control your own desires, since they decide the direction in which the mind flows. And destroying false beliefs that might force the mind to get a wrong solution.

>>92228 from my experience, those with poor memory have also more learned helplessness

>>92228 memory is very important to being able to make up your own mind well though. It is vital to be able to remember a lot of cases and relationships and observations etcetera because if you do not, you will not be able to perform the necessary tasks of intelligence which is to look at all these things and detect patterns and make predictions and plans correctly. Memory is holding things in your mind, intelligence is making use of those things.

>>89691 no it doesn't lol, that's not remotely how it works. for starters weed has zero immediate activity on dopamine. dope was used to describe weed and other drugs before people even used the word dopamine in vernacular. additionally, dopamine has very little to do directly with pleasure, being a neurotransmitter its primary use is by neurons to signal to one another with broad functions across the brain. the closest approximate function is "motivational salience" which means how much value a given outcome has to you. your brain does not have "pleasure centers" that can be damaged by weed. if you'll think slightly more abstractly for a second, you might notice that there's a lot of cultural logics that seem to rely on this too much pleasure = bad equivocation. I'll leave it on you to speculate why this might be the case. weed contains compounds known as cannabinoids including tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) which is active on two subclasses of cell membrane receptors known as cannabinoids receptors. CB1 class is mostly in the brain while CB2 class is mostly in the body (with some brain function we don't understand yet). CB1 through a complicated process causes a reduction in release of another neurotransmitter, γ-Aminobutyric acid or GABA. one interesting thing is that GABA is primarily implicated in anxiety suppression being the main inhibitory neurotransmitter (with some important excitatory action, especially in children), meaning that it primarily tells your neurons when not to connect and most anxiolytic tend to increase it for this reason. however THC decreases it through stimulation of the CB1 receptors. this is why a small amount can be anxiolytic (it also suppresses other excitatory neurotransmitters) but a large amount can make you very fearful and psychotic. CB2 on the other hand is primarily in the body and primarily concerns the immune system, where it seems to suppress immune response. this can be good in the cases or an overactive immune system and inflammation, where it can reduce physical discomfort. it also seems to play a role in nerve endings, contributing additionally to the feelings of physical comfort and the body high.

>2. Check quality of your nutrition, food. Yup! See, I am a sweet tooth who was forced to lent or eat "полуфабрикаты, "processed food" Result: less fish, less meat, less dairy, less eggs, more fats snd sweets. No wonder I am dumber than either of my parents

Read this scientific paper called Executive Functions by Adele Diamond. >https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143750 According to her the three executive functions are inhibition control, working memory and cognitive flexibility, and are called "executive" because they have a sort of conscious control over the mind. The paper even explains how to train them! Don't just force yourself to train your mental capabilities (and I assume you would because it takes effort), I think you should not force yourself to do anything and be stressed over it, but instead you should rationally determine whether it is beneficial, which _should_ be enough to make you want to do it, but often times this isn't the case; in such situation, the problem is not what you're doing, but your emotional response to it, so practice introspection, apply socratic questioning to what you feel and do, and be honest, so that you may figure out why you respond emotionally the way you do (this is like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). This I just talked about is relevant because if you master the art of introspection you will have the mental ability to stop self-sabotaging. Think lots, ask lots, wonder lots and for a long time, and most importantly, when you feel curious, indulge that curiosity. Living is a science.

>>86455 reminder: Lain had to deal with everything found in >6. If you live in a big city, know, light and sound pollution, as EM are real things The "iconic" EM hum! The street light! And her parents wouldn't buy her a curtain, let alone "blackouts"! So much for an "upper class family", sigh...

>>94370 it's 2026, everyone knows what THC is and does, it's the whole joke of weed.

slam green tea and start studying

>>90596 Cn you handle several neural networks?

>>96625 >>85722 Just in case: get cheat 32$ blackout curtains to *try* dark room AND cover your room's LEDs (router, some ddvices' blue leds and such)

>>96799 >>96799 Miho-san, if you cannot drill you can use small rolling blackout curtains. The price is also very low...

If you want to boost your brain power don't force yourself to learn quantum physics 10 hours per day it's not the way. Introduce change. Intelligence is about adaptability, it didn't evolve to make us good at math but to adapt to a changing environment. Change change, different beliefs, different perspective different people. Destabilize yourself and consolidate yourself over and over again. That's how you get smarter.

>>96855 this is the most helpful comment i've read on lainchan, thanks anon

>>96855 >>96857 Oh no. My stressor does EVERYTHING to trip me so I don't bother resisting, I should straight away.

intelligence isn't something you possess, it is something you participate in. if you want to increase the amount of intelligence you participate in, then you need to get out of the house more and do more things and interact with the world more, that is where intelligence comes from is the interaction between the mind and the world.

>>86455 >Environment >5. Check your house/flat (CO2, Pollution, Other) >7. Be aware that your surroundings can change your mood and perception, starting from architecture >Living in the dirty areas full of c**mi*als affect 57. Sometimes, they use cheap plastic furniture that looks like proper wood. Said cheap plastic furniture tends to release headache-inducing chemicals that smell like catnip or some other sweetish herb. I think this is what has been happening to me lately: in the summer, Apparently, I could have wrapped some cardboard into tinfol or white wrapper and solve the problem... had I thought about the fact there is a combination of expensive metal windows and cheap plastic windowsill No wonder my boss is pro-remote for himself and the sales crew.

>>100870 A plastic windowstill is the worst: it gets attacked by the sunlight. I literally got the plastic windowstill + weak ventilation combo hence the headaches, the ruined thinking, the nervousness maybe too.

>>100621 I should have run straight away, but my stressor have pretty much scared me into low self-esteem soykafe