You will have already heard about the importance of having healthy habits. It is that in reality, what we do day by day is what, in the long term, determines who we are. And believe it or not, some bad habits can even reduce your IQ, since they directly affect the brain.
Perhaps you know that alcohol or drugs can affect your brain, but surely you did not imagine that these six things could also reduce your IQ to unsuspected levels.
1. A bad diet
Yes that’s how it is. Eating a diet rich in saturated fats and sugars not only leads to weight gain, heart problems and other problems. It is also lethal to your brain.
Studies have shown this type of unhealthy diet affects our cognitive ability, can reduce our reaction time and even impair memory. It also negatively influences mood.
2. Multitasking
The speed of day to day leads us to do many things at once, because we believe that we can do it. But in reality, the brain can only do one thing at a time; it’s just that you can switch so quickly from one task to another that it seems like you’re doing everything at the same time.
But each of these rapid shifts from one task to another comes at a cognitive cost. By multitasking, you don’t delve too deep into any one thing, and everything becomes shallow. No deep thoughts are generated and, over time, it ends up lowering your IQ.
3. The mobile
In relation to the above, mobile phones and new technologies also affect the brain. On the one hand, because constant notifications inevitably lead us to multitasking or multiple tasks.
But technology and social networks also affect our attention span, which is becoming less and less. As if that were not enough, they also have a negative impact on memory: more and more, people deposit processes into technology that we used to do before. Very easy to realize… How many phone numbers do you remember by heart? How many did you remember 10 years ago?
4. Stress
Being stressed doesn’t just affect your mood: it can also lower your IQ.
Brendan Kelley, a neurologist at Ohio State University warns that: “High stress levels are not only associated with poorer brain function, but may even be linked to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease.”
It is that when we are under the effects of stress, substances are released in our body that negatively affect physical and brain health.
5. TV Overdose
Since the advent of television, much has been said about it and how negative its excessive consumption can be. Various studies have found that after many hours of watching television, people respond worse to tests and have less critical capacity.
6. Interrupted sleep
Our body has a very precise biological clock; he knows that the night is the time to sleep, and the day to be awake. In addition, to sleep well and healthy, it is necessary to respect the sleep cycles, and sleep between 7 and 8 hours. in a row
For this reason, constantly interrupted sleep, sudden schedule changes or having bad sleep habits are things that affect memory and the birth of new neurons. Thus reduce our intelligence.
Did you know that these things affect your IQ? Do you do them often?