If you don't strain your brain, your memory and cognitive skills will deteriorate in the same ways muscle shrinks when it's not used.
What are you doing to get out of your comfort zone and really working your mental abilities?
Reading alone doesn't seem to satisfy the criteria for "strain" the vast majority of the time.
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Writing, if done persistently, give me good mental exercise.
Also, believe it or not, debating politics and history with friends or strangers.
>I like to break a mental sweat too.
I don't feel I get the same mental stress when I read or write as I did when back in school I sat in mathematics exams trying to solve problems under the ticking clock. In fact nothing has compared to that feeling of intense mental strain.
I don't know about you but I used to love that feeling of intense concentration.
In exam conditions i would somehow be able to shut out everything around me and concentrate entirely. Nowadays i need adderall or something to get into that 'zone'.
I really liked maths back at school though but I honestly feel as if my IQ has decreased since then. Damn.
I still remember that I used to try to make a new theory on combinatorics.
It took so many damn hours and days, but it's worth it.
It happened that when I looked up for it on internet other people already had their journal published on whatever that I had been working on.
We came to the same conclusion but it felt good doing that. Now I try to navigate my focus on film theory, and any interesting philosophical bubble that popped off in my head
You could try programming. When you write code you need to think about several things simultaneously all while solving the problem at hand. Things like how much memory you've made available, which variables the data is stored in, how it affects other parts of the program, how the data is formatted in the database, what the function names are etc.
Sometimes you're just there staring into space for 5 minutes before you can actually write anything.
Wolfram Alpha is what killed my brain.
This is completely true and I feel like I'm in the process of deterioration.
I have trouble putting my thoughts on paper, I'm too lazy. It's gotten worse and it's making me feel worthless and depressed.
I have this important project to do and prepare a presentation for a conference, it's almost coming up and I just can't concentrate and stop being a lazy fuck.
learn another language
recapitulating diary entries i stored in dedicated memory palaces
can be done under shower or on toilet, gets the Myelin flowing
>Reading alone doesn't seem to satisfy the criteria for "strain" the vast majority of the time.
I think it might for me, since i don't read
I play piano, compose, and most importantly sight read music. The latter is probably one of the most demanding activity there is.
I refuse to succumb to this theory of yours'
I'm a brainlet so reading a book is a pretty good strain for me. I have to look up words and reread things all the time. Some words I have to look up over and over again. Some passages go over my head and I continue, blankly, onto the next one hoping it wasn't too important.
Learning a new language is probably one of the best ways to strain your brain.
Trying to read in another language with minimal understanding is enough to make your brain literally hurt.
didn't know britney spears read james joyce whoa!
I get my mental strain from playing CSGO. I'd wager I'm one of the more intelligent individuals on this board as a result.
Oh dear... it has been proven time and time again that video games do nothing but marginal (and I mean insignificant) improvement in hang-eye coordination and reaction time. You're better off playing a real sport that way you get some exercise too.
Video games are literally an addictive waste of time unless you're playing for 30 minutes or less to relax to enjoy company.
It has also been proved that they increase your aggressiveness
I have 2000 hours in csgo and the only thing that's changed is I now hate Russians
Perhaps it isn't simply thinking but also the manner in which you think. That is to say, for example, reading a huge book may not be as stimulating as cross referencing many and drawing connections. One book is by one author, the collective offers many perspectives and perspective helps brings true growth in terms of character.
Пиcдy
Idi nahuy suka blyaaaaat
>tfw russian
>tfw when pretend to be non-russian when play csgo
Exactly, you need to engage all aspects of mental challenges. Do some arithmetic, test your memory, take part in something creative, read a difficult books, try something that takes concentration.
Any specific advice? My memory isn't so bad, I take a trigonometry course, I read constantly, I spitball poetry when I can. Not trying to be cocky btw just wondering what sort of thing you'd think is a good idea
I guess uncomfortable is anything you find so difficult you avoid it. Whenever you think ah fuck that it's too, that's when to push yourself.
start reading the stanford encyclopaedia of philosophy...
retard
Sound like you have nothing to worry about.
Taking a shitload of Adderall
jealous man. I have always wanted to be able to play the piano and read music. I feel when i listen to the great pieces that I would appreciate it ALOT more if i had any understanding how complex it actually is
Lol, you can't actually become more intelligent. A 150 IQ fatso who plays video games all day is and always will be smarter than you.
There's no better feeling I've ever found than making some sort of mental breakthrough on adderall + nicotine and caffeine. It's like you just went into overdrive and maxxed out your own capabilities, and your brain has achieved lift off.
I play and sight read on guitar, but it obviously has many layers than piano. I think I'll begin reading some Bach chorales on one shitty old 4 voice keyboard I have
>less layers
Read more difficult texts, and then write about those texts.
This was never about increasing IQ, brainlet.
I'm working as an emt, learning to play the piano and I rock climb, I think that is a good bit of variety outside of reading
how long have you been 'progging for
I worked a software dev between the ages of 23 and 28. I'm now 32 so it's been a while...
virgin
I will learn japanese in 2 years so i can read japanese web novels for wet dream material about losers reincarnating as genius kids
i would think reading in multiple languages would be more "strainful"
also piano when i don't feel lazy. I have a stack of sheet music to go through.
learning languages is known to reduce the risk of dementia greatly, good for you
yeah but knowing myself, I think I will lose motivation on the way unless I find a better motivation than reading japanese fanfiction-tier stories.
I'm learning Japanese. It's hard because the Japanese seem to express everything you can think of, even the most basic concepts, in a different way. The grammatically simple, basic concepts in English tend to become convoluted and unwieldy in Japanese (and hence unused) unless you change them to something that is simple in Japanese, but is pretty much impossible to say in English due to the structural incompatibility of the two languages. Also, the words in a Japanese sentence will nearly always be in a different order that is impossible in English. As a result, together with the need to learn thousands of Chinese characters with several readings on average each, everything about reading Japanese is for me, mentally tiring. I just have no idea what they're thinking and what they're getting at with that Japanese logic of theirs mixed with opaque idiomatic slang as the cornerstone of understanding. It's also likely that I'm a brainlet seeing as Japanese is usually praised as a simple language, though.
Anyone needs more motivation than that, particularly for such a complex skill. Think about it this way:
Languages are used not only to read or speak but to think also.
Japanese is an entirely different way of going about things in language, it's really easy to get almost all the grammar, it's very different but easily understood once you get a feel for it.
Sorta like this guy .
Don't think and work it out, "the words in a Japanese sentence will nearly always be in a different order that is impossible in English" is a perfect example. Don't sit there and translate it in your head, get a feel for how it's used and understand how it works. Bingo bango bongo you learned yourself a new way of describing the world, even if you never speak it to anyone. Kanji is a bitch though but not so bad with practice, particularly if you learn compound words and their kanji rather than all of them individually.
I haven't translated for several months now, though I did at first unfortunately (I hope that didn't fuck me up too much). I just have to read Japanese several times slower because if I read fast, the content does not register. Like, it's just sounds and some words, I don't know. I have to read again and pay close attention to the particles and the structure they make. There are often structures and words I have never encountered before. The main point is contained in an idiom behind a kanji that I'm not certain about. 俎上の鯉? it's probably そじょう but how can I be sure? And what is that anyway? I reach an understanding of most things, but it's a mental drain. Why can't I be at leisure?
I listed factors such as Japanese being different from English in such aspects as the arrangement of words because if those aspects were similar then I would not have as much trouble comprehending Japanese syntax passively, I think. I have the systems in place for comprehending English-like syntax at lightning speed, there is just no such syntax in Japanese.
I mean, this all sounds like the attempt of a brainlet to justify his ways, but I guess it's okay if that's what it is. If this ends up being a mental workout for me instead of a walk in the park, then I know I need it.
flow my tears
Well, I mean, yeah, if your IQ is what you're concerned with, you'd think that.
...but anyone with a modicum of intelligence knows it's developed. Not to mention smarts and intelligence are two different concepts. And someone who's mentally wealthy, or rich of mind, knows neither smarts nor intelligence mean shit if you don't use them to improve the world.
Does obsessing on a specific subject until your head spins and you feel trapped inside your own mind count as healthy exercise for your brain?
Cope.
these. i miss hard math exams. the ones i do nowadays are just brainlet tier statistics and logic with no effort or thought whatsoever requires.
go to the maths department of any university and download the admission exams. or just look at maths olympiads or putnam or whatever. plenty of exams to download.
A crossword a day keeps the alzheimers at bay!
