Brain fog is that sensation you have when you just can’t think clearly. Perhaps you can’t concentrate, or even figure out what you need to be concentrating on. You might stare at the paper in front of you or at the job you need to do. There may be thoughts swirling in your head, but they aren’t organized or helpful. What can you do about this? Try the following quick tips, and then the powerful techniques that follow.

Create clear space to prevent brain fog. It’s rare that a person can work better in clutter. At the very least, an organized home or office means you won’t have the thought “where is that…” distracting your mind.

Avoid sugars. To understand the concept of brain fog, eat sugary cake on an empty stomach, then try to do math problems twenty minutes later. I think you’ll get the point. This is called the “sugar blues.”

Try walking. I’m convinced the research will eventually show this to be one of the best things you can do to improve the quality of your thinking, but don’t wait for the proof. Walking has enough other health benefits anyhow.

Try more or better quality sleep. People’s sleep requirements vary, but the bare minimum for most is somewhere around five hours, and many of us suffer if we sleep less than eight. Some research indicates that after a minimum quantity (say, four hours), the quality of sleep is more important than the quantity for normal brain function.

Avoid getting bored. When it is difficult to concentrate because you are bored with what you are working on, you need to stop and consider why it is important (if it is). When you see the benefits clearly it is usually easier to concentrate.

Powerful Techniques For Dispelling Brain Fog

Thinking problems are often due to stress and worry, so take care of these in order to start thinking more efficiently. First try a simple stress reliever. Close your eyes and take several deep breaths through your nose. Allow the tension to run out of your muscles as you do this, and try to pay attention to your breath, so any other thoughts can slip away.

When this doesn’t get rid of your brain fog, try a more involved mindfulness exercise. It will take just a few minutes, and will work better the more you use it. You basically just stop what you are doing and watch your own thoughts and feelings. With practice you’ll start to identify the thoughts that are busy sapping your concentration just below consciousness.

As you identify these energy-wasters, you need to do something about them. If it’s a worry about a loved one, for example, call him to see if things are okay, or just make a note on your calendar to visit him. The idea here is that by either directly resolving the issue or “categorizing” it, you’ll be able to drop it. This can work even if all you do is tell yourself “I can’t do anything about this until Tuesday.” Saying so gives your mind permission to drop the thought for now.

You see, concentration is automatic once you focus your attention – until you are distracted by your surroundings or your own thoughts. This may be every few seconds for some of us, but by using the tips above and the simple exercises, you can learn to remove the distractions, and control your wandering mind. In other words, you can clear out the brain fog.

Does a high IQ (intelligence quotient) mean better grades in school? Does it mean a better life? Is your IQ score even a valid measurement of your intelligence? Let’s take a look at these questions one-by-one.

High IQ – Intelligence

There is almost certainly a correlation between a high IQ score and being more intelligent. These tests are imperfect, though, and you can find examples of cultural biases on many of them. Also, there are specific skills that have been proven to raise scores on many tests, including IQ tests.

The last point makes sense, doesn’t it? When you know how to efficiently “work” a test, you are likely to score higher. For that matter, even a cup of coffee may boost your score. Even the fact that your score can vary from test to test shows there are factors which can be manipulated to raise your score. There may be a general correlation between IQ score and intelligence, but certainly it’s an imperfect one.

High IQ – Better Life

What evidence is there that people with higher intelligence have better lives or are happier? None that I am aware of, and how do you scientifically measure “better life?” How about a negative correlation? Many with a high IQ have committed suicide, such as Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, and Sylvia Plath, but this is just anecdotal. Various studies have shown that people with a high IQ AND a low IQ are slightly more likely to commit suicide, but even if these studies prove true, this doesn’t prove causation, only correlation.

High IQ – Academic Performance

A study reported in the journal ‘Psychological Science’ found that IQ level correlated with academic performance, but there was a much stronger correlation with self discipline. Students with high self-discipline have better grades than high-IQ students. They found no correlation between IQ and discipline, meaning they are traits that vary independently.

High IQ – What Does It Mean?

Intelligence is an important tool, but it is just one of the tools we have to shape our lives with. As are money or power or abilities, it is beneficial in the abstract, but it only becomes beneficial in reality if applied in ways that better our lives. Raw computing capacity doesn’t make a computer or a human more effective if they don’t have the other necessary components.

Consider what people of average intelligence, like Henry Ford, have accomplished, before you place too much emphasis on a high IQ.

“Thinking games” are games and exercises that help develop thinking skills and so boost your brainpower. While some brain games exercise memory, or test knowledge (usually trivia), the following require analysis, creativity and imagination.

They can all be played alone in theory, but try to get a friend or two to participate. Two or more minds interacting helps you generate more ideas and gets you thinking in new directions. By the way, these produce no clear “winners,” so they’re not truly competitive games, but they are fun – and good for the brain.

The Survival Scenario Game

You can do this simple exercise in imagination anywhere. Invents a survival situation, like a plane crash in the mountains or a boat lost in the ocean. Make up some details like time of year, weather, and maybe specify no rescue for a month. Player then consider only what they are wearing or carrying at the moment, and try to think of ways to use each item in that survival situation (along with whatever things can be reasonably assumed to be part of the scenario).

Try for the most original and plausible ideas. For example, a paper clip could be a fish hook, or a needle for sewing together warm clothing from airplane seat material. A hat could be used for cooking by filling it with water and dropping heated stones into it until it boils. A straw for drinking from coconuts could be made from a pen.

For an alternate version, you can choose just one object at a time from any in the room. Then everyone can try to think of uses for it in the given survival scenario. Either way, this is a real exercise of one’s imagination and creativity.

The New Perspective Game

For this one, you and a friend start with something about which you disagree. It could be in the area of politics, philosophy, law, economics, or about any issue that is complex enough for reasonable people to have differing positions. Then you each try to make the best case you can for the other person’s position, and see who has the best argument. Another way to play this is to find any issue that you agree on, and both take the opposing view, to see what kind of ideas you each have.

This little debating game can change how you think about an issue. Once you effectively argue for anything, it’s very easy to start believing some of what you say. It demonstrates how powerful your mind is. When it adopts a given perspective, it can usually make sense of it quickly and defend it easily. That makes this exercise a warning as well. It suggests we can convince ourselves of almost anything, so perhaps our current thinking isn’t as rational as we like to think.

The Make-A-Joke Game

Trying to invent jokes can really get you thinking, and possibly laughing, but it can also be very frustrating. For this game, have someone choose any object in the room (or car, if you are driving). Players then try to come up with a joke or two about the object or involving it in some way. A reasonable time limit is perhaps five minutes. See who can create the funniest joke in that time.

Trying to create something funny is more difficult than it might seem. It will really exercise your lateral thinking abilities above all. I just chose the calendar on my wall as my random object, to give an example. A few minutes later, this is all I could come up with:

Bob, my friend, was tired of winter, so he tore January out of the calendar and pasted July in its place. The next week I asked him how this was working out for him. He sighed and told me “I just can’t get a break it seems. I mean, who would have thought it would snow on the fourth of July!” (My other one was about a guy who fell in love with the girl on the calendar because he could always get a date with her.)

Creating truly funny jokes is tough, but it will get you thinking, perhaps even  more than the other games here. For an alternative you could start with ideas or issues instead of objects, or you could specify that players have to create a funny riddle. And by the way, if you learn a few humor “algorithms,” this process gets easier.