7 Things To Gain Intelligence & Increase Awareness

As we continue to talk about self-care, we can’t forget about taking care of our intellectual wellness. It is no less important than taking care of your own physical health. This is what keeps life interesting by encouraging us to participate in mentally-stimulating activities. 

By taking care of yourself intellectually, you develop a more balanced life. While this can be done through an academic setting, there are activities you should do in your everyday life to expand your intellectual health.

Intellectual wellness is the idea of broadening your mind, knowledge, and skills to live a more stimulating and enriched life. The ideas and skills you develop can then be applied to personal decision-making, social interactions, and community betterment. 

Learning does not, and should not, stop once you have left the classroom, but should continue throughout your life. To achieve intellectual wellness, you should continually seek to learn new skills, have new experiences, nurture your creativity, and feed your curiosity.

Your intellectual wellness has a big impact on who you are and helps you be more resistant to adversity. Signs of intellectual wellness include the ability to challenge your own belief system, see multiple sides of an issue, be a critical thinker, develop your own ideas and opinions, and be open to new ideas, opinions, and beliefs.

You may find that your intellectual wellness and spiritual wellness often overlap, and the skills you learned improving your spiritual wellness will help you improve your intellectual wellness. If you have not learned how to practice spiritual self-care, you may want to review those exercises. 

Here are some enriching ways you can practice intellectual self-care.

One of the ways you can practice intellectual self-care is to have new experiences. Being open to new experiences opens your mind to new ideas and new ways of looking at the world. No experience is too big or too small to learn something new from, and often, the new things we learn are about who we are as a person. 

Make it a goal to try new foods, visit new places, experience a new culture, and talk to new people. Learn about all the different things the world around you has to offer. You may be pleasantly surprised at what you find. 

Have you ever wanted to learn how to do something you don’t currently know how to do? Want to learn to play the piano? Change the oil in your car? Sew or knit? 

Most of us have a skill that we’ve always wanted to learn but don’t currently know how to do. It may be the skill needed for a new hobby or a skill that will help you further your career. Whatever it is, what are you waiting for?

Once you reach adulthood and graduate from school, it doesn’t mean the time for learning is over. You should always be trying to learn something new. 

Developing a new skill helps to keep your mind intellectually strong. Actively learning something new changes the way your brain works and improves mental performance. It also makes learning other new things easier, helps you make better connections with incoming information, allows you to adapt to change better, and may even help fight off dementia as you get older. 

Plus, it can make you a more interesting person – not that you needed help with that!

Of course, the best time to learn a new language is when you are a child, as it comes much easier, but don’t let this stop you from learning one as an adult!

Learning a new language can be a fascinating experience, and it can open you up to an entirely new world that was once beyond your reach. When you develop new ways to communicate, it helps improve your memory, opens you up to being receptive to new information, and stimulates the mind to better analyze linguistic structures that can help improve your first language.

Plus, it allows you to communicate and connect with a wider range of people and could help open up future career opportunities.

Whether you realize it or not, we read all the time. You are reading this all day, every day, and reading may even be a big part of what you do for your job. However, this is not the type of reading you should be doing to expand your intellectual wellness. 

One critical exercise of intellectual self-care is to read for fun. It is also often overlooked as we often feel like we don’t have time in our busy lives to sit down and relax with a book. And when we do, we feel guilty for it. 

Don’t feel guilty. Reading is essential for maintaining your intellectual health. You don’t feel guilty for taking the time to go to the gym or eat healthy, so why would you feel guilty reading to take care of your intellectual health? 

Reading has a variety of benefits. It can increase mental stimulation, reduce stress, expand our vocabulary and knowledge, improve memory, create stronger analytical skills, better our writing, and help with our focus and concentration. 

Whether you enjoy reading fiction or nonfiction, grab a book, find a quiet place to escape, and enjoy reading alone.

Many of us don’t do enough to listen, and we talk way too much. We talk with friends, family, and strangers. We discuss what is happening in our lives, opinions, and viewpoints, and share the knowledge we know. 

But how often do you listen? 

Invest in what other people are saying, rather than what you have to say. Learn what they think, what they have experienced, and what knowledge they have to share with you. 

When you speak less and listen more, you become more open to different opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints. 

Now, this isn’t to say that you should always keep quiet and never express your own opinions, and there are times when the people around you need you to speak up. However, listening more can strengthen bonds between others, who will be more likely to listen to what you have to say when you say it. 

Having a heated argument and engaging in a healthy debate are two entirely different things. When you debate, you are presenting a well-informed argument, rather an argument-driven by emotions. 

Participating in a healthy debate can have many benefits to your intellectual health. It teaches you how to take on the world around you and question your already established ideas. You also learn how to provide a clear argument that is supported by evidence and how to persuade others to see your point of view. 

When people participate in debate and are exposed to new opinions and views, they are forced to think more critically and logically. 

When engaging in a healthy debate, be sure to do your homework on a topic. Don’t come to the debate unprepared, not only will you lose your credibility, but you will be more likely to respond out of an emotional standpoint. 

Be sure that you stay calm, and don’t take anything personally. Don’t allow yourself to become emotionally involved in the match, or react to anything negative from the other side. 

Remain open to the idea of the other side. Never assume that your side is right, or that you know everything about the topic. Consider viewpoints you may not have seen before. 

Finally, in a healthy debate, know when to admit defeat. There is nothing wrong with being wrong. Being wrong means you learn

yourself to be open-minded. As in life, you will encounter ideas and opinions you don’t agree with, and that is okay.

Don’t assume that you have all the answers and that your ideas and opinions are more valid than anyone else’s. Be open to the idea that you could be wrong, and be open to learning something new. 

When you practice having an open mind, you learn how to let go of control, be more honest, and be more confident. When you are open to new things, what you are really doing is fostering your intellectual growth. 

For some, this is not the easiest step to take, but with practice and a change of mindset, it will come naturally.

A healthy mind starts with a healthy body. If you are not taking care of your health, you may find it difficult to be the best you can be intellectually. This is because the foods you put into your body affect the way your mind functions. 

When you are consuming a diet full of processed foods, you may find it harder to concentrate, and your mind may feel sluggish and foggy. This can make it difficult to learn new tasks or focus long enough to enjoy a good book. 

Studies have shown that consuming foods high in sugar can have a negative impact on your cognitive health and lead to brain insulin resistance, impaired learning, and memory. 

Consuming refined carbs has been shown to lower nonverbal intelligence, and processed foods, in general, are linked to decreased learning abilities.

Start by removing added sugar, refined carbs, and processed foods from your diet, and instead add a helping of Detox Organics Daily Superfoods. One scoop a day can help increase your energy and help eliminate the brain fog, boosting your concentration. 

Detox Organics Daily Superfoods is made up of over 25 raw, organic superfoods that have all been scientifically proven to boost your health. Don’t let your nutritional habits keep you from improving your intellectual wellness, and incorporate the tips listed above to lead a more enriched life.