it's only one life: advancing the old IQ

If I did not want to spend most of the day discovering whether my son's very swollen ankle is broken (thank goodness; it does not appear to be), I did try to make the best of it.  Time together is, after all, time together, and lost days are not retrievable.

I had this week's Newsweek with me as the three of us traveled from waiting at the doctor's office to waiting at the hospital.  Its Sharon Begley cover story:  "31 Ways to Get Smarter—Faster."  Its premise?  IQ is elastic; it can be advanced.

I quote:  "According to a groundbreaking study published this fall in Nature, IQ can rise by a staggering 21 points over four years—or fall by 18."

Oh, yes.  I forgot to mention.  IQ can also fall.

While we waited for our son's name to be called, we reviewed the full list of IQ advancers:  Play word puzzles with friends.  Get news from Al Jazeera.  Go to a literary festival.  Build a "Memory Palace."  Learn a language.  Wipe the smile off your face (!).  Eat yogurt.  See a Shakespeare play.  Hydrate.  Visit MOMA.  Drink red wine (in moderation) and eat dark chocolate.

Sleep.  A lot.

Toss your Smartphone.

Write in long hand.

And did I mention dance? 

So much of this is common sense.  So many of these things I already do.  But convictions grow while sitting in a hospital surrounded by people whose circumstances are far worse than one's own.  The misplaced New Year's resolution comes into sharper focus.  And besides, I cannot afford to lose a single IQ point.  It would be nice to acquire a few.

I had been thinking about ways to rearrange my life; we talked about that while we waited.  I have yearned for a quieter path—one less noisy with obligation.  I want fewer distractions, stiller waters.  It seems to me that spending less time on this computer and more time with pen and paper will help me get there.  It seems important to know who my friends are—my true friends—and to spend my time with them, on them.  It seems appropriate to leave my phone at home more often or, at least, to ignore the unessential messages until they become essential; some of them, amazingly, never actually do.  It seems about time for me to finally learn my husband's language—Spanish—so that I can speak to my mother-in-law after her own fashion.  It seems that I do just have to say no sometimes—and hope that others will understand.  And if they don't, if they need more than I can give—it seems appropriate to be okay with that.

It's a new year.  It's only one life.

I wasn't the only one who sat there thinking.

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Unconscious thought (for the writers among us)

While waiting for the dentist, a different issue of Newsweek on my lap, I encounter something that I have long known to be true for me (but hey, I just thought I was weird).  I walk away from the computer to dream or write.  I check no emails, don't carry my phone.  I seek, and nurture, a deliberate fogginess, retreating to a far somewhere before I allow myself to think about the story or sentence at hand.  Some people think I am sleeping.  I understand that I'm not.  I can't write unless I enter this fog state first.  It's the most peaceful—and productive—place that I go.

But don't take it from me.  This from a Sharon Begley story titled "I Can't Think," in the March 7 issue of Newsweek:

Creative decisions are more likely to bubble up from a brain that applies unconscious thought to a problem, rather than going at it in a full-frontal analytical assault.  So while we're likely to think creative thoughts in the shower, it's much harder if we're under a virtual deluge of data.  "If you let things come at you all the time, you can't use additional information to make a creative leap or a wise judgment," says [Joanne] Cantor (author of Conquer Cyber Overload).  "You need to pull back from the constant influx and take a break."  That allows the brain to subconsciously integrate new information with existing knowledge and thereby make novel connections and see hidden patterns....

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Brain training through ballroom dance

I've been a big Sharon Begley fan for years now, and so when I saw that she had written a feature Newsweek story titled "Can You Build a Better Brain?" (January 10 and 17, 2011) I flipped the pages and settled in.

After reviewing all the things that don't have any proven tie to enhanced brain intelligence (those vitamins, the Mediterranean diet, statins, ibuprofen), Begley begins to center in on things that are known to help—exercise, meditation, and complex videogames.  You have to read the whole article to get the complete and utter gist, but I'm going to quote from the paragraph that made me happiest of all:

... taking up a new, cognitively demanding activity—ballroom dancing, a foreign language—is more likely to boost processing speed, strengthen synapses, and expand or create functioning networks.

Ballroom dancing—did you see that folks?  It ain't just about the glitter and the gloves.

Speaking, however, of glitter and gloves, that gorgeous woman in the photograph here is our own Cristina, of DanceSport Academy, whose little Eva is turning two this month.  If learning the rumba doesn't keep us young, this wondrous sprite of a child is bound to do the trick.

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