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7 Everyday Ways You Are Lowering Your Intelligence

7 Everyday Ways You Are Lowering Your Intelligence post image

How feeling like an expert, googling it and more could be lowering your intelligence.

1. Saturated fat reduces cognitive flexibility



The research was carried out on laboratory mice.



2. Multimedia multitasking shrinks the brain

Using laptops, phones and other media devices at the same time could shrink important structures in the brain, a new study indicates.


Multitasking might include listening to music while playing a video game or watching TV while making a phone call or even reading the newspaper with the TV on.

3. Googling it makes you feel cleverer than you are

Searching the internet makes people feel they know more than they really do, a new study finds.

And it doesn’t seem to matter much that people don’t actually find the information for which they were searching.

Matthew Fisher, who led the research, said:




4. Too much sugar damages memory




5. Experts know less than they think

‘Know-it-alls’ don’t know as much as they think, new research finds.

The more people think they know about a topic, the more likely they are to claim that totally made-up facts are true, psychologists have found.

Ms Stav Atir, the study’s first author, explained:




6. Poor sleep ruins thinking skills

The damage that poor sleep does to your thinking skills is mammoth.


Attention and planning are worse and it’s easier to follow habits and difficult to create new strategies.

Sleep deprivation even damages the ability to read other people’s facial emotions.

Read on: Lack of Sleep: The 10 Most Profound Psychological Effects

7. Physical exhaustion hits mental performance

Both mental and physical stress can interact to cause fatigue, a new study finds.

The brain’s resources in the prefrontal cortex — an area used for planning and control — are divided during physical and mental activity, the research found.

The research is one of the first to show how mental and physical tasks can interact to fatigue the brain.

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