Evolutionary perspective on raising intelligence (2013) [pdf]

I&#x27;ve been thinking about this A LOT as a football player (American). I&#x27;m certain I&#x27;ve dropped a few IQ points after seven years of being a defensive lineman. It takes me a little longer to process things; my memory is a little worse. Right now I&#x27;m debating if I&#x27;m going to make this past season my last.<p>That being said, if I could do it all over again, I&#x27;d still choose to play. Totally worth it. On one hand, I get protecting your intelligence as much as possible (intelligence being a critical component in my career path). But on the other hand, there&#x27;s more to life than simply maximizing your brain power.

So essentially, the most beneficial course here is getting into healthy habits and pursuing loss prevention. I haven&#x27;t seen much evidence at all that otherwise well nurished and healthy people can raise their actual intelligence, but there seems to be a lot of things which can effectively reduce it, both short term and long. Removing or mitigating these can get folks closer to their potential. I think this has a lot of applications for people who worry about this. Like I&#x27;ve read studies quantifying I.Q loss per day of losing just 1 hour of sleep a night. After a few days parts of cognition can be effected heavily.

It&#x27;s very important for the brain to be in a thriving environment where all it&#x27;s faculties are being used.<p>Great study!