Category: Intelligence

The ‘refreshment’ is linked to a slower brain and making more mistakes.

Drinking higher quantities of alcohol and smoking cigarettes are both linked to a lower IQ, research finds.

People who smoke and drink have a worse memory and poorer problem-solving skills.

Similarly, higher rates of binge drinking are also linked to a lower IQ, a previous study found.

Smoking may be even more damaging to thinking skills than drinking.

High levels of smoking and drinking both lead to a slower brain and making more mistakes.

The reason may be that smoking and drinking damage the blood vessels supplying the brain.

The conclusions come from a study of 172 men, some of whom were alcoholics.

All completed tests of IQ, memory and thinking skills and were followed up over nine years.

The results showed that the more they drank and smoked, the lower their IQ.

Drinkers and smokers also had worse memories and poorer thinking skills.

Dr Jennifer Glass, the study’s first author, said:

“We can’t say that we’ve found a cause-and-effect relationship between smoking and decreased thinking ability, or neurocognitive proficiency.

But we hope our findings of an association will lead to further examination of this important issue.

Perhaps it will help give smokers one more reason to quit, and encourage quitting smoking among those who are also trying to control their drinking.”

Professor Robert Zucker, study co-author, said:

“The exact mechanism for smoking’s impact on the brain’s higher functions is still unclear, but may involve both neurochemical effects and damage to the blood vessels that supply the brain.

This is consistent with other findings that people with cardiovascular disease and lung disease tend to have reduced neurocognitive function.”

The study was published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence (Glass et al., 2006).

People with efficient brains tend to have spare capacity.

Daydreaming is a sign of being more creative and having higher intelligence, research suggests.

Those who report more daydreaming have higher intellectual abilities and their brains work more efficiently.

People with efficient brains tend to have spare capacity, so it is natural for the mind to wander.

Wandering minds and intelligence

The conclusions come from a study in which over 100 people stared at a fixed point for five minutes while their brains were scanned.

The aim was to see how the areas of the brain worked together when they were given nothing in particular to do.

The results showed that those with more efficient brains were also smarter and more creative.

Dr Eric Schumacher, study co-author, said:

“People with efficient brains may have too much brain capacity to stop their minds from wandering.

People tend to think of mind wandering as something that is bad.

You try to pay attention and you can’t.

Our data are consistent with the idea that this isn’t always true.

Some people have more efficient brains.”

Brain efficiency insights

One sign of an efficient brain is being able to zone in and out of conversations without missing anything.

Dr Schumacher said:

“Our findings remind me of the absent-minded professor — someone who’s brilliant, but off in his or her own world, sometimes oblivious to their own surroundings.

Or school children who are too intellectually advanced for their classes.

While it may take five minutes for their friends to learn something new, they figure it out in a minute, then check out and start daydreaming.”

Ms Christine A. Godwin, the study’s first author, wants to examine exactly when mind wandering could be useful and when not:

“There are important individual differences to consider as well, such as a person’s motivation or intent to stay focused on a particular task.”

The study was published in the journal Neuropsychologia (Godwin et al., 2017).

Verbal IQ refers to being able to use language to achieve goals.

People who are anxious have a higher verbal IQ, on average, research finds.

In particular, people with high IQs are more likely to ruminate.

Rumination is the term psychologists give to the turning over of depressing thoughts in the head.

Rumination is a common symptom of depression.

While worrying is not normally considered beneficial, it may be that people who worry tend to keep out of danger — so passing on their genes.

The benefit may be that intelligence allows people to better imagine what might go wrong.

As a result, anxiety and verbal intelligence may have evolved together.

Verbal IQ refers to being able to use language to achieve goals.

Higher levels and anxiety and IQ are also linked to superior abstract thinking, problem-solving and critical thinking.

The study involved 126 people given tests of anxiety, depression and IQ.

The results showed that people with higher verbal IQ ruminate more.

The study’s authors write:

“It is possible that more verbally intelligent individuals are able to consider past and future events in greater detail, leading to more intense rumination and worry.

Individuals with high non-verbal intelligence may be stronger at processing the non-verbal signals they interact with in the moment, leading to a decreased need to re-process past social encounters.”

The study took into account that anxious people often perform worse on tests — including intelligence tests.

The authors write:

“…symptoms of acute depression might decrease an individual’s ability to perform optimally on an intelligence test,
and that the individual may not have lower intelligence.”

Previous research has shown that people who are low in intelligence are also prone to worry — possibly because they achieve less in life.

Average intelligence show less of a link with anxiety.

The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Penney et al., 2015).

People with high IQ are generally healthier, but they have one or two bad habits.

People with high IQs drink more alcohol, although they are unlikely to be heavy drinkers, research finds.

In other words, they drink more, on average, but spread it out, and are unlikely to be alcoholics.

The results fit with the fact that highly intelligent people are also more likely to use drugs.

It could be because the intelligent tend to be easily bored.

Study of IQ and alcoholism

The conclusions come from a large study of the links between IQ and health habits.

Higher IQs are generally linked to healthier habits.

People with higher IQs are likely to be fitter, as they do more exercise and strength training.

Higher intelligence was also linked to better oral hygiene, consuming fewer sugary drinks and reading the nutritional information on food labels.

The study included 5,347 American men and women.

They were first surveyed in their early 20s and followed up in middle-age.

The results provide an interesting picture of the way healthy and unhealthy habits are linked to intelligence.

The intelligent were found to be more likely to skip meals and snack in between.

Do smart people drink?

Drinking and smoking both have an unusual relationship because both high intelligence and low intelligence are linked to drinking more and smoking fewer cigarettes.

People of average intelligence tend to drink less or possibly be teetotal — however, they are likely to smoke more cigarettes.

The study’s authors conclude that they have…

“…found evidence of links between higher IQ and a number of more favourable health related habits (i.e. engaging in physical activity, nutritional literacy, and oral hygiene habits, as well as not smoking, binge dinking, or consuming sugary drinks),

[…]

These findings, support the notion that certain health behaviours may lie on a pathway that links intelligence in early life with various health outcomes in adulthood.”

The study was published in the journal Intelligence (Wraw et al., 2018).