
Ask HN: Have there been any serious studies on how to increase intelligence? - HiroshiSan
Intelligence as measured by IQ.
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lettergram
Arguably studies leading to the discovery that lead is damaging to
intelligence is indeed one of those studies.

In fact, there is a whole ton of research also on google scholar:

[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C14&q=how...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C14&q=how+to+increase+iq&btnG=)

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HiroshiSan
Awesome! Thanks for the link I will sift through some of these. If you have
any that particularly stand out please post!

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bjourne
Yes, practice IQ tests.
[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-2389.00...](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-2389.00182)

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altairiumblue
There have been many attempts for interventions that increase IQ with little
to no evidence that it's at all possible.

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gtsteve
Yes this is what I have read also.

However, it seems that willpower can be trained and in some regards this is
more useful. After all, if you're super smart but can't complete a project
then that's a bit of a waste really.

Anecdotally, I would say most of the successful people I know exhibit
extremely good self-discipline but are perhaps only a little bit smarter than
average.

The theory is that if you are able to train yourself to be disciplined in some
ways you can become disciplined in others as well, much like building strength
in the gym. I think this might be the basis of the "tidy your room and keep it
tidy" advice meme that seems to be repeated a lot at the moment (I should
probably do that myself really)

A few years ago, I read the book "Willpower", which is quite a nice overview
of this topic: [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Willpower-Why-Self-Control-
Secret-S...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Willpower-Why-Self-Control-Secret-
Success/dp/0141049480)

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HiroshiSan
Awesome I'll check it out! Have you read The Willpower Instinct by Kelly
McGonigal?

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gtsteve
I haven't actually but I'll check that out when there's space on my reading
queue. Currently I'm working my way through "What to say when you talk to
yourself" which is so far interesting but not sure if I'd recommend it yet.

