ArchiveOriginally published 2010

9 Ways to Hack Your Brain to Think Faster: What Held Up

Between 2009 and 2011 this site ran three popular brain posts: nine ways to think faster, forty-nine brain teasers, and twelve myths about the brain. The teasers still work. The hacks and the myths deserve a second look against what has been learned since.

The nine hacks, graded

What happened to brain training

In 2010 brain-training games were a booming business and the original post recommended them. Over the following years, large studies found that practising the games made people better at the games and not much else, and a consensus statement signed by dozens of researchers said as much. In 2016 the United States consumer regulator fined the best-known brain-training company for advertising claims it could not support. Cognitive training has since retreated to specific clinical uses, where targeted programmes can help with particular deficits, and left the general claim of making healthy adults smarter behind.

The twelve myths, quickly

• We use only 10 percent of our brains. False. Imaging shows activity throughout the brain over a day, and damage almost anywhere has effects.
• People are left-brained or right-brained. False as a personality type. Functions are lateralised, but everyone uses both hemispheres constantly.
• Brain damage is always permanent. Partly false; the brain rewires around damage to a surprising degree, especially with rehabilitation.
• Alcohol kills brain cells. Mostly false at moderate levels; it damages connections and, at high levels over time, causes real harm, but not by killing cells outright with each drink.
• Listening to classical music makes babies smarter. The original study was on adults doing a spatial task for a few minutes; the baby claim never had evidence.
• Memory works like a recording. False. Memory is reconstructed each time and changes with retelling.
• You cannot grow new brain cells. Contested; some regions appear to add neurons in adulthood, though how much is debated.
• Bigger brains are smarter. Weak at best across individuals; organisation matters far more than size.
• Learning styles. People have preferences, but teaching to a supposed style does not improve learning.
• Crosswords prevent dementia. Engaging activity is associated with better ageing, but no single activity has been shown to prevent disease.
• Sugar makes children hyperactive. Controlled trials do not find the effect; expectation does most of the work.
• You think faster on an empty stomach. No. Mild hunger is distracting; a normal meal helps more than it hurts.

Forty-nine brain teasers, and why they still work

The teasers post was a list of the classics: the river crossing with a wolf, a goat and a cabbage; the two ropes that burn unevenly; the nine dots and four lines; the man in the elevator who only goes to the seventh floor. They are still worth doing, not because they make you generally faster but because each one teaches a reusable move: restate the constraints, question an assumption you did not know you were making, work backward from the goal. That is a real skill, and it is the honest version of the promise the hacks post made.

What actually helps you think faster

1. Sleep enough, consistently. It is the largest single lever and the one most people neglect.
2. Move every day. Twenty to thirty minutes of brisk walking is enough to show measurable effects on attention.
3. Do one thing at a time. Close the other windows, silence the phone, finish the task.
4. Practise the actual skill you want to be fast at, in short spaced sessions, with feedback.
5. Learn something hard and new every year; the novelty and difficulty are the point.