Improve your cognitive skills
25 evidence-based guides covering each cognitive sub-test, cross-domain skills like working memory and processing speed, and the lifestyle interventions (sleep, exercise, nutrition, social engagement) with the strongest cognitive evidence.
By cognitive sub-test
Improve Pattern Recognition
Pattern recognition — the ability to detect rules embedded in novel symbolic or visual material — responds modestly to targeted practice. Research by Susanne Jaeggi and others has …
Read guideImprove Numerical Reasoning
Numerical reasoning improves with two complementary forms of practice: building automaticity in basic arithmetic (so that working memory is freed up for the rule-search) and develo…
Read guideImprove Verbal Reasoning
Verbal reasoning is the cognitive ability most responsive to long-term lifestyle changes — specifically, sustained reading volume across years. Cunningham and Stanovich's classic s…
Read guideImprove Spatial Reasoning
Spatial reasoning is the cognitive ability with the strongest documented response to short-term targeted training. Mental-rotation practice produces 0.5 to 1.0 standard deviation g…
Read guideImprove Logical Deduction
Logical deduction depends on two cognitive resources: working memory (for holding premises) and inhibitory control (for suppressing 'sounds right' responses in favor of 'follows lo…
Read guideBy cross-domain skill
Improve Working Memory
Working memory is the cognitive system most studied in the brain-training literature, and the findings are sobering. Targeted training (n-back tasks, complex span tasks) produces r…
Read guideImprove Processing Speed
Processing speed responds modestly to targeted practice and substantially to lifestyle interventions. The cognitive operations themselves (digit-symbol coding, visual search, simpl…
Read guideImprove Attention Span
Sustained attention — the ability to maintain focus on a single task for an extended period — is one of the most affected cognitive abilities in modern life. Constant notifications…
Read guideImprove Mental Arithmetic
Mental arithmetic improves with targeted practice and produces durable gains in numerical reasoning fluency. The relevant skills decompose into automaticity on basic arithmetic (mu…
Read guideBuild Your Vocabulary
Vocabulary depth — knowing fine distinctions among similar words — predicts verbal-reasoning subtest performance more strongly than vocabulary breadth. Building vocabulary effectiv…
Read guideImprove Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension is a multi-component skill: decoding fluency, vocabulary depth, working-memory capacity, prior knowledge of the topic, and metacognitive monitoring (the abili…
Read guideImprove Executive Function
Executive function refers to the higher-order cognitive processes that coordinate other cognitive functions: planning, inhibitory control, set-shifting, and working-memory updating…
Read guideImprove Inhibitory Control
Inhibitory control — the ability to suppress a prepotent or habitual response in favor of a goal-relevant alternative — is one of the core executive functions. The classic measure …
Read guideImprove Cognitive Flexibility
Cognitive flexibility — also called set-shifting — is the ability to switch between different mental tasks or rule sets without significant cost. The classic measure is the Wiscons…
Read guideImprove Mental Rotation
Mental rotation is the cognitive ability with the strongest documented response to short-term targeted training. Practice with rotation tasks produces 0.5 to 1.0 standard deviation…
Read guideLifestyle interventions
Sleep Strategies for Cognitive Performance
Sleep is the single most powerful cognitive intervention available, with the largest evidence base of any cognitive enhancer. A single night of total sleep deprivation reduces work…
Read guideExercise Routines for the Brain
Aerobic exercise is one of the most reliable cognitive interventions in the literature. Meta-analyses by Smith and colleagues find moderate effect sizes (Cohen's d around 0.4) for …
Read guideNutrition for Cognitive Function
The relationship between nutrition and cognitive performance is less straightforward than the supplement industry would have you believe. The strongest evidence concerns gross defi…
Read guideMeditation and Cognition
Meditation training, particularly the focused-attention and open-monitoring practices common to mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), produces measurable improvements in susta…
Read guideBuilding a Reading Habit
Sustained reading is the single highest-leverage long-term intervention for crystallized intelligence growth. Cunningham and Stanovich's classic 1998 study estimated that a child w…
Read guideLearning a Second Language
Learning a second language as an adult is one of the most cognitively demanding sustained activities available, and one of the most documented for producing cognitive benefits beyo…
Read guideLearning a Musical Instrument
Learning a musical instrument produces some of the most well-documented long-term cognitive benefits available. Musicians show improved auditory processing, working memory, executi…
Read guideSocial Engagement and Cognitive Reserve
Social engagement is one of the most reliable predictors of cognitive maintenance across the lifespan. Adults with rich social networks, frequent meaningful conversations, and acti…
Read guideStress Management for Better Cognition
Chronic stress is one of the most reliable cognitive impairments documented in the literature. Sustained elevated cortisol levels produce measurable deficits in working memory, exe…
Read guideManaging Screen Time for Cognitive Health
The cognitive effects of screen time depend heavily on what is being done on the screen. Active engagement with cognitively demanding content (reading, learning a skill, video conf…
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