My IQ TestHow to Improve Your Cognitive Skills: An Evidence-Based Guide
The most reliable ways to improve thinking are unglamorous: sleep well, exercise regularly, keep learning challenging skills and look after your heart health. Brain-training games improve the games themselves but rarely transfer to general intelligence.
Start with sleep
Sleep is when the brain consolidates memories and clears metabolic waste. Even one night of poor sleep measurably reduces attention and working memory. Most adults need seven to nine hours. Keep a consistent schedule, dim screens an hour before bed and keep caffeine to the morning.
Move your body
Aerobic exercise increases blood flow to the brain and supports the growth of new connections in the hippocampus, an area key to memory. Meta-analyses link regular moderate exercise to better executive function at every age. Around 150 minutes a week of brisk walking, cycling or swimming is a sensible target.
Learn things that are genuinely hard
Education is one of the few interventions shown to raise IQ scores. Pick a skill that stretches you — a language, a musical instrument, programming or advanced math — and practise it deliberately, focusing on your mistakes. Spaced repetition and testing yourself beat rereading notes by a wide margin.
- Use spaced repetition: review material after one day, three days, a week and a month.
- Practise retrieval: close the book and write down what you remember.
- Interleave topics instead of studying one thing for hours.
- Teach what you learn — explaining exposes gaps quickly.
Train focus and working memory
Constant task-switching taxes working memory. Try single-tasking in blocks of 25 to 50 minutes, silence notifications, and use a written to-do list so your mind is free to think. Mindfulness practice has modest but real effects on sustained attention.
Puzzles such as logic grids, chess and the matrix problems used in our free IQ test are enjoyable practice, but expect gains mainly on similar puzzles rather than a dramatic rise in general intelligence.
Look after the basics: diet, health and social life
A Mediterranean-style diet rich in vegetables, fish, olive oil and whole grains is associated with better cognitive aging. Treating high blood pressure, hearing loss and depression protects thinking skills. Rich social connections keep the brain engaged too — conversation is a surprisingly demanding mental workout.
To understand how abilities shift over time, read our guide to average IQ by age, and see how reasoning ability differs from emotional intelligence.
Common questions
Do brain-training apps raise IQ?
Large reviews, including Simons et al. (2016), find that apps improve the trained tasks but show little reliable transfer to general intelligence.
How quickly can I improve my memory?
Techniques like spaced repetition and the method of loci improve recall for specific material within days. Broader improvements from sleep and exercise build over weeks.
About the author
Dr. Elena Marsh — Elena has spent over a decade studying intelligence measurement and test construction, with a focus on fluid reasoning and fair item design.
Reviewed by Prof. Daniel Okafor — Daniel reviews item statistics and norming assumptions for our test and guides.
Sources and further reading
- Simons, D. J., et al. (2016). Do 'brain-training' programs work? Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 17(3), 103–186.
- Ritchie, S. J., & Tucker-Drob, E. M. (2018). How much does education improve intelligence? Psychological Science, 29(8).
- Erickson, K. I., et al. (2011). Exercise training increases size of hippocampus and improves memory. PNAS, 108(7), 3017–3022.
- Dunlosky, J., et al. (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1).