practice thinking outside of the box- roam the corridors of your mind as if you are discovering hidden rooms in a large mansion- practice visualization on a regular basis-have mental conversations w/ yourself- you may be surprised at what you learn. most importantly, its a use it or lose it system- so keep mentally engaged and growth is inevitable-eleanor sawitsky

Yes I totally agree with this.

I do all of the above and I believe I am at peak or near-peak intelligence.

I started DJing a few years ago and I knew this would not stimulate my brain enough in all aspects, so I began mash tutoring during the week and switched from FM radio to talkback. Everytime I hear a word on radio or tv I don't understand I google it's meaning and use it within the first 24hrs and don't forget to eat lots of vegetables and salads and meat - what our ancestors ate that developed the human brain to today's intelligence

Great article thanks!

I took a career test that evaluated what areas I'd be good at and what I'd be bad at. The test indicated that language was something I should avoid. Well if I'm trying to find something challenging then language was the thing. Studied Japanese. I took a bit of it at 11 years old. Never could speak much. Studied a bit more as a result of an interest in Japanese anime but never could speak anything worth a lick. Read the July 1994 Life Magazine article about the nuns who lived to be over 100 years old on a regular basis. The scientists wondered why they showed no signs of dementia also. They wanted to examine their brains after they had died. The nuns agreed to do it. They found that the brains had in fact dementia cells BUT that their brains had grown other normal brain cells that literally created pathways around the dementia cells albeit a bypass brain highway. I was amazed. How did they do it? The nuns told of how they constantly quiz each other and did puzzles and such. I was determined to learn Japanese. I found a great teacher and learned as much as I could then I either had to go to Japan or get a job using it. Well since going to Japan was out of the question, I got a job. I did learn to speak it. I am not fluent by any means but I can hold a basic conversation about common things and life in general. Fortunately for me I have lots of people to practice with whenever I want to use it. I did however back off of the writing and reading and would really like to get back to that since it is so challenging. Learning all those Chinese characters (the Japanese adopted Chinese characters) is tough. Even Japanese people have problems remembering them all. There's about 2000 in order to get to understanding everyday things like a newspaper. In addition there's the basic syllabary called Hiragana and Katakana each consisting of 46 characters each which is easy. Kanji is what the Japanese call the Chinese characters. Gotta get to it and grow those dendrites before I get dementia. Getting up there in years and sometimes can't remember crap. Wish me luck !