Human Brain Optimization: How To Get Smarter Every Day And Boost Your Intelligence

Did you watch the movie Limitless? I love the part in the movie where Bradley Cooper’s character takes the limitless pill and then magically begins solving problems that his previous “lesser intelligent self” couldn’t seem to grasp. Almost everybody thinks they’re fairly smart but I have yet to meet anyone who wouldn’t want to be smarter.  In fact, our research team at Bioptimizers have used a ton of different techniques, gadgets, and processes to improve virtually every aspect of our brain function. Let’s dive into some some these to help you maximize your brain function and capacity. Do you want to reach the pinnacle in brain function and learning? What if I told you that you could get smarter every day if you just did a few things differently? Most adults, once they reach a certain age, rarely grow and develop their brain. Instead, the brains of adults remain fairly stationary. They may learn some new information from time to time, but for the most part, they aren’t learning like they did back when they were younger. This is largely to do with the types of brain waves they’re maintaining on a day to day basis. If you want to get starter, you have to learn how to utilize different types of brain waves more often. For more information on these brain waves, check out the video below. The good news is that while you may be in beta brainwave states most of the time, there are certain activities that can move you more towards the other waves, which are required in order for you to get smarter every day. Basically, by changing your day to day, you can get smarter as the weeks pass by. Interested? Let’s look at the various types of brain waves.

Gamma Waves

Gamma waves, which occur both during a waking state as well as during the REM stage of sleep, are the fastest documented brainwave. They have the smallest amplitude on an EEG and are often thought to be the waves that are going to link and process information from other parts of the brain. Those who spend the most time in gamma wave brain activity tend to become very intelligent individuals, and are also known for being compassionate, having good levels of self-control, and generally have an all around level of happiness that many others do not. So much goes on during sleep – when REM is taking place – that you don’t even realize. Those who experience higher levels of gamma brainwave activity also tend to have improved memory levels. Those who are struggling with ongoing learning are often those who are not experiencing much gamma wave brain activity at all. So what are the real benefits of spending more time in gamma brainwave states? You will:

•      Improve Memory – the more time you spend in gamma waves, the better your memory recall will be
•      Increased Perception – by utilizing gamma brainwaves more often, your five senses will typically function better, so you’ll experience improved vision, hearing, sight, and taste
•      Enhanced Quality Of Memories – in addition to remembering more, you’ll find that your memories tend to be more vivid. You can remember more characteristics about each memory
•      Improved Brain Processing - you’ll be more prepared to process information quickly and rapidly, allowing you to learn high volumes of information in a short time span
•      Increased Socialization Skills – You’ll be more equipped to showing compassion to others, relating to them and any problems they may be facing.
•      Enhanced Levels Of Enjoyment - you’ll experience an overall happier state on a day to day basis and may not show as many signs of depression or moodiness

As you can see, there are plenty of benefits to increasing your time spent in gamma waves. How can you make this happen? Here are a few steps to take. Learn A New Language As adults, learning a new language may feel next to impossible. Kids pick up languages at a very early age quite easily, however once you are past that ‘window of opportunity’, it becomes far more challenging. Don’t let this defeat you. Yes it will be hard, but at the same time, it will be incredibly rewarding. Not only can you then say you learned a new language (and put it to use wherever you go), but you will enrich your gamma wave experience. If you’re struggling with this, try speaking to others who know the language well. Simply being around them and trying to speak it can help improve the time you spend in gamma wave activity. Spend Some Time With Your Ideas Chances are right now, you have a number of ideas that you don’t really pay much attention to. This could be ideas about what you’d love to do with work, ideas about how to improve your home life, ideas about inventions you’d like to create, or otherwise. They linger there in the back of your mind, never really seeing the light of day because you simply are too busy with the day-to-day busyness that we call life. It’s time to slow down. Focus on those ideas. Spend time just thinking about them. Give yourself a good 10-15 minutes to ponder an idea. As you do, you’ll start experiencing gamma wave activity. Memory Recall With the advent of social media sites like FaceBook and Instagram, there is no shortage of pictures around. Just opening up one of these sites can instantly give you a glimpse back into years past. While you may have heard spending too much time on these social media sites is a bad thing, don’t discount the gamma-wave boosting benefits they provide. Recalling past memories is actually a great way to produce more gamma waves. So open up that photo album you’ve saved and start reliving those experiences. Remember as much as you can about the event. The more often you do this, you’ll come to find, the better able you are to recall those past memories. Some people naturally have very good memory recall and others need to spend time working towards it. Often these individuals are not just naturally ‘gifted’ however, it’s that they have trained their brain to remember better than others. Meditation Perhaps some of the best ways to improve the human brain is meditation. Meditation has been heavily proven by research, yet many people are still not taking advantage of what it has to offer. For example, one study published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Science noted that regular meditation can help to improve cognition and memory in patients with neurodegenerative diseases. It’s not just those with disease that meditation can help either. Meditation can also help regulate the natural sleep cycle as well. Those who meditate regularly are better able to fall asleep faster and sleep more soundly than those who don’t, noted a study published in the Frontiers or Neurology. If you have never given much thought to meditation, now might be the time to get started. Just 10-20 minutes per day can have a remarkable benefit on your cognitive functioning and performance. Active Awareness Meditation not for you? If you really just cannot master the art of meditation, active awareness can also be used to help increase your gamma wave production and enhance cognition. Sit still for a few moments and take in your surroundings. What are you experiencing? What are you hearing? Seeing? Feeling? Becoming more consciously aware of the here and now is a great way to help boost human brain function and lends to a higher level of learning later on. So there you have some of the best ways that you can enrich your gamma wave experience. The more time you spend in gamma waves, the better you’ll be priming yourself to get smarter every day.   Now let’s talk alpha waves.

Alpha Waves

Another brainwave that’s important to know about is the alpha wave. Neuroscientists have discovered that spending more time in this brainwave state is important for enhancing your natural creativity and for providing mood boosting benefits. Those who are regularly spending time in alpha brainwave states tend to be the more creative individuals who excel at things like drawing, music, and other art related hobbies. Likewise, those who are heavy alpha wave users are also more upbeat, tend to experience fewer depressive symptoms, and just generally, have a more positive outlook on life. Sounds pretty great, right? Alpha brainwaves are most frequently seen when you are in the daydreaming state. Ever let your mind wander off only to realize five to ten minutes later you were completely unaware of your surroundings? If so, you’ve just drifted to alpha waves. This state can also be produced when you are consciously creating mindfulness or during meditation, so once again, meditation becomes useful. Interestingly enough, alpha brainwaves can also be present more frequently during aerobic exercise (during which you are working hard, but still comfortable). Ever hear someone say they need to go for a run to clear their mind? It isn’t just a figure of speech. When they are engaging in running, their brainwave pattern will be changing and it may allow them to better clear their mind, getting away from all that’s bothering them. So in essence, alpha waves can be great for stress reduction. While you can’t spend all day daydreaming, spending a few minutes thinking about something else entirely can help you temporarily escape your stressors, helping you feel less anxiety. The focus on alpha waves started to take center stage during the 1960’s and 1970’s when biofeedback was first introduced. Through this practice, which called upon an EEG device to measure brainwave activity, scientists were able to help regulate the type of brainwaves that were being experienced. This in turn was able to help reduce the perception of chronic pain in those who were suffering as well as help relieve symptoms related to depression or anxiety. What do you have to gain by spending more time in this brainwave state? You will:

•      Experience greater relaxation - when in the alpha brainwave state, your entire body and mind will be more relaxed, so this is often associated with improved stress reduction and greater moods.
•      Creativity Will Be Enhanced - as you move into alpha wave state, your levels of creativity will be increased, allowing you to perform optimally in tasks realted to art, music, and creative thinking.
•      Improved Ability To Problem Solve – you’ll notice you can better work out solutions for problems you are dealing with, increasing your chances of success in all areas of your life. You’re less likely to find yourself ‘stuck’ in a problem you can’t work out a solution for.
•      Stabilized Mood – those who spend more time in alpha states tend to have less emotional fluctuations, be more upbeat, and remain calm and collected at all times.
•      Improved Performance – spending more time in alpha brainwaves is associated with improved athletic performance, so professional athletes generally naturally tend to show greater levels of this wave pattern than non-athletes. Many athletes will use alpha brainwave optimization techniques to improve at their sport and reach peak levels of performance.
•      Decreased Stress And Anxiety – along with feeling more calm and collected, you’ll also experience lower amounts of stress and anxiety on a day to day basis. This is in part due to the fact you are able to better resolve problems without getting worked up over it.
•      Superior Learning Capacity - those who spend more time in alpha brainwave states tend to have a superior learning capacity. Meaning their brains are able to soak up information quickly and easily, retaining the knowledge they learn.
•      Improved Immune Function - alpha brainwave activity can also boost your immune health, increasing your ability to fend off illness and disease. This is largely also to do with the fact that you’ll experience less stress on an ongoing daily basis.
•      Enhanced Serotonin Release – this feel-good neurotransmitter will be more readily released in those who spend more time in alpha brainwave states. This brain chemical helps induce a good mood, lower stress, and promote a general sense of wellbeing.
•      Improved Self-Introspection Tendencies – individuals who spend much time in alpha brainwave states have improved awareness of both their body and mind, which can help put them on a path to greater self-discovery.

Alpha waves are pretty powerful and need to be capitalized. Interestingly, children, meditators, and extroverts tend to have the greatest overall levels of alpha brainwaves. So how can you boost this type of brainwave? Here are some techniques to get you going. Brainwave Entrainment One of the easiest and straightforward ways to increase alpha brainwave activity is through a process called entrainment. This involves listening to a tone or stimulus for a period of time. This tone is designed to mimic that of alpha brainwave activity, so after listening to it for so long, your natural brainwaves will begin to match it. There are a number of products on the market that can be used to accomplish this task. Meditation Once again, meditation can prove useful. You’ll lower the intensity of brainwave activity while in a meditative state, allowing you to move into this area where higher learning can take place. Hypnosis Some people will also use hypnosis, either self-hypnosis or guided to get into the alpha brainwave state. This can in turn help to lower stress levels as your alpha brainwaves start to take over more regularly. Visualization Here’s an interesting fact: even closing your eyes will increase alpha brainwave activity. So visualization, where you sit somewhere quiet and close your eyes and imagine things can help bring out more alpha brainwaves. Many top level athletes or business professionals use visualization to see themselves having success at whatever they are doing in their life. This can in part be attributed to the fact they are increasing alpha brainwave activity. Yoga One of the best exercise varieties in the books, and one that some people are still not making use of, yoga can also boost alpha brainwaves. Yoga is going to help you center your mind and find an inner sense of calm, and while doing so, help shift you into alpha wave activity. Keep in mind that some of the more intense variations of yoga may not produce as many alpha waves as the relaxation-focused yoga varieties, however all yoga should help create this to some degree. Deep Breathing Again, if meditation is not something you want to get into, simply sitting somewhere quiet and practicing deep breathing can go a long way towards helping you reap the benefits of alpha waves. As you breath deeply, try and focus in on the breathing patterns taking place. This will help you shift your focus to the here and now, and away from anything else that may be stressing you in your daily life. Hot Baths If it’s been a while since you soaked in a hot bath, now might be the time to do so. As you sit there, you’ll notice your entire body starting to relax and your mind to grow drowsy. This is associated with alpha brainwave activity taking over. If you ever notice you feel a deeper sense of relaxation when in a hot tub (or in a sauna or on a hot beach), this demonstrates how these brainwaves work. By focusing on spending more time doing alpha brainwave activities, you can prime your brain for a higher level of learning and processing.

Theta Waves

Finally you have theta waves, which can also be called the relaxation waves. When you are in your everyday state of beta waves, you’re more likely to experience stress and anxiety. You’re conscious of all the tasks that are required of you, all the demands being place on you, and all that has to be done during your daily life. It can be exhausting! Theta wave activity however, is the deepest relaxation wave and is most prominent when you are sleeping and during light meditation. This wave is experienced just for a moment as you drift off to sleep and move from Alpha wave to Delta wave (which is your deepest sleep wave), so it’s not experienced for a very long period of time. Those who are experiencing Theta waves are in a state of deepest relaxation with their body, but will still be conscious of their current surrounding. The benefits of this brainwave are essentially improved stress reduction and full body relaxation. The best way to get into this wave is simply through meditation, or through going to sleep – which you’ll be doing every night anyway. Most people won’t really focus on this brainwave activity specifically, but rather, direct their attention to alpha and gamma brainwaves. So there you have a closer look at brainwave activity and how using brainwaves can help prepare the human brain to get smarter and learn more everyday. Through practices like meditation, thoughtfulness, and yoga, you can improve your chances of experiencing these brain-boosting brainwaves and taking your cognition to a higher level. Want to learn more on what you can do to optimize your well-being and brain function? Check out our 84 day course where you will focus on every element of your health. Follow the principles I’ve laid out and all the systems in your body will be taken to a higher level of optimization. References: Newberg, Andrew B., et al. "Meditation and neurodegenerative diseases." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1307.1 (2014): 112-123. Nagendra, Ravindra P., Nirmala Maruthai, and Bindu M. Kutty. "Meditation and its regulatory role on sleep." Frontiers in neurology 3.54 (2012): 1-4.