How to Increase Your IQ: What the Research Actually Says

Let us get the uncomfortable truth out of the way first. There is no supplement, app, trick, or 30-day program that will reliably raise your IQ by 20 points. Anyone selling that idea is selling you something.

But the more nuanced answer — the one the research actually supports — is genuinely interesting. Cognitive ability is more malleable than most people assume. Specific, evidence-backed interventions can meaningfully improve the cognitive functions that IQ tests measure. Whether that constitutes "raising your IQ" depends on what you mean by the question.

Here is what we actually know.

First: What Would "Raising IQ" Even Mean?

IQ is a relative measure. It tells you where you stand compared to other people. If everyone's cognitive performance improved equally, nobody's IQ score would change — even if everyone got smarter in an absolute sense.

So when people ask "can I raise my IQ," they usually mean one of two things. Either they want to improve their raw cognitive performance — processing speed, working memory, reasoning ability — or they want to score higher on IQ tests specifically. These are related but not identical goals.

The research is clearer on the first goal than the second. There are well-established ways to improve specific cognitive functions. Whether those improvements translate to a higher IQ score depends on how much overlap there is between what you trained and what the test measures.

What the Evidence Actually Supports

1. Aerobic Exercise — The Strongest Single Intervention

This is the most robustly supported finding in cognitive enhancement research. Regular aerobic exercise — running, swimming, cycling — produces measurable improvements in executive function, working memory, and processing speed across multiple well-controlled studies.

The mechanism is well understood. Aerobic exercise increases production of BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), a protein that promotes the growth of new neurons and strengthens synaptic connections, particularly in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex — the regions most involved in higher reasoning.

The effect sizes are meaningful. A meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials found that regular aerobic exercise improved cognitive performance by approximately 0.5 standard deviations on average. That is roughly equivalent to 7–8 IQ points if the effect transferred directly to IQ scores — which it partially does. Three to five sessions per week of 30–45 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous cardio is the dosage most consistently associated with cognitive benefits.

2. Sleep — The Most Underrated Factor

Chronic sleep deprivation is cognitively devastating in ways that are dramatically underappreciated. Even mild sleep restriction — getting 6 hours instead of 8 for two weeks — produces cognitive deficits equivalent to two full nights of total sleep deprivation, while subjects subjectively feel only slightly impaired.

The cognitive functions most affected by sleep deprivation are exactly the ones IQ tests measure: working memory, processing speed, attention, and novel problem solving. Studies have found that going from poor sleep to adequate sleep can improve cognitive test performance by the equivalent of 10+ IQ points in some populations.

This means that for many people, the single highest-return intervention is not some exotic supplement or brain training app — it is simply sleeping 7.5 to 9 hours consistently. The research on sleep and cognition is among the most unambiguous in all of neuroscience.

3. Working Memory Training — Partially Effective

Working memory — the ability to hold and manipulate information in short-term memory — is one of the strongest correlates of fluid intelligence. This made working memory training programs (Dual N-Back being the most studied) extremely exciting to researchers in the 2000s and early 2010s.

The findings turned out to be more complicated than hoped. Working memory training reliably improves performance on working memory tasks. The evidence for transfer to general fluid intelligence is mixed — some well-controlled studies show modest transfer effects, others show none. The current consensus is that working memory training produces specific gains that may partially transfer to similar tasks, but probably does not produce large general intelligence improvements.

That said, if working memory is a specific weakness for you — which your domain breakdown on the DesperateMinds test can help identify — targeted training in that area is worth pursuing for its own sake.

4. Challenging Reading and Learning — Real but Slow

Crystallized intelligence — the accumulated knowledge and verbal reasoning ability built over a lifetime — genuinely grows with sustained intellectual engagement. Reading widely and deeply, learning new languages, acquiring complex domain knowledge: all of these build the verbal and reasoning foundations that IQ tests partly measure.

This is a slow process. It does not produce dramatic IQ score changes in weeks. Over years and decades, it is probably the most powerful force shaping cognitive development in adults. The Flynn Effect — the documented rise in average IQ across the 20th century — is largely attributed to exactly this kind of environmental enrichment at population scale.

5. Stress Reduction — Often Overlooked

Chronic psychological stress impairs prefrontal cortex function through cortisol's effects on neural plasticity. The prefrontal cortex governs working memory, inhibitory control, and fluid reasoning — all core components of measured IQ.

Studies of people in high-stress conditions consistently show reduced performance on cognitive assessments. Removing or reducing that stress restores performance. For many people, apparent cognitive limitations are actually stress-mediated impairments rather than fundamental capacity limitations.

Effective stress reduction strategies with cognitive research support include mindfulness meditation (shown to improve attention and working memory in multiple RCTs), regular exercise (again), and addressing the sources of chronic stress directly where possible.

6. Nutrition — Foundation Matters

Severe nutritional deficiencies produce measurable cognitive impairment. Correcting them produces measurable improvement. This is well established for iron deficiency (extremely common globally and strongly linked to reduced IQ in children), iodine deficiency, and omega-3 fatty acid insufficiency.

In populations without frank nutritional deficiency, the evidence for specific supplements improving IQ in healthy adults is weak. The popular claims about nootropics — racetams, various herbal extracts, microdosed psychedelics — are largely not supported by rigorous controlled research at this point.

The baseline matters more than the supplements. A nutrient-sufficient diet, adequate hydration, and minimal processed food creates the neurochemical environment in which optimal cognitive function is possible. That is a foundation, not a shortcut.

What Does Not Work

Brain training games like Lumosity and BrainHQ improve your performance at the specific tasks they train. The evidence for transfer to general cognitive ability or IQ scores is not convincing. The companies behind these products have faced regulatory action for overstating their claims.

Most nootropic supplements sold online have little or no rigorous evidence for cognitive enhancement in healthy adults. Some (like high-dose caffeine) have temporary performance effects that are not improvements in underlying ability. Others are essentially inert at marketed doses.

Intelligence-boosting music (the "Mozart effect") was essentially a myth. The original study showed a brief improvement on one specific spatial reasoning task after listening to Mozart. It did not replicate well and never supported the broader claims made about it.

The Honest Summary

You cannot hack your way to significantly higher measured IQ in a few weeks. But you can meaningfully improve the cognitive functions that IQ measures through consistent, evidence-backed practices — primarily exercise, sleep, sustained intellectual challenge, and stress management.

More importantly: IQ is a measure of a specific set of cognitive skills under specific test conditions. The actual cognitive qualities that determine what you build with your mind — curiosity, persistence, creativity, the ability to synthesise across domains, the willingness to be wrong and update — are only partially captured by any standardised test.

Improving your measurable cognitive performance is a worthy goal. So is developing the qualities that no test measures well.