A Review for – How to Become Smarter
June 19th, 2011 Filed under: Internet Home Businesses — Small Home Business Author
This book describes techniques for improving mental abilities. Some of the things it can help you to achieve include the following:
Depending on circumstances, use different lifestyles that improve one or another mental function.
Experience euphoria without drugs and come up with new ideas, when needed.
Slow down and prevent yourself from making rash, impulsive decisions, when necessary.
Sharpen your wit, become more talkative, and entertain people.
When necessary, lower your mood and increase emotional tension, which can help reduce procrastination.
Increase your score on intelligence or general aptitude tests.
Concentrate on reading and writing for many hours daily.
Increase your grade point average if you are a student or improve your job productivity if you are a knowledge worker.
Get along with people and live without arguments and conflicts.
The proposed methods are brief cooling or heating of the body (water therapy) and three different smart diets, each suitable for a different type of task. The text also describes a depressant diet, which is not a smart diet but can improve self-control and sleep. The strict diets do not have to be used on a permanent basis and the conventional food pyramid is recommended most of the time. Several useful social skills and studying/writing techniques are also discussed as well as the role of luck in personal achievement.
Most authors in this field will tell you that you should read more books, solve mental puzzles, buy their nutritional supplements, sleep well, exercise, etc., in order to get smarter. In contrast, this book is proposing moderately cold hydrotherapy and a smart diet (which involves avoiding all dietary supplements). To give another example, most books on anger management say that you should try to change your thinking in order to overcome anger, while this book suggests hot hydrotherapy and the exclusion of certain foods from your diet. The main focus of discussion in this text is on changing the biological workings of the brain, not on pop psychology. Particularly, the book describes various combinations of diets and hydrotherapy that have the following effects: sedative/sleep-promoting, stimulant/wakefulness-promoting, attention-enhancing, antianxiety, antidepressant, mood-stabilizing (mood-lowering), and euphoriant. Additionally, existing scientific evidence of pain-reducing, fever-reducing, anti-fatigue, immunostimulatory, antinausea, and anti-inflammatory effects of hydrotherapy is also presented. The possible side effects of the diets and hydrotherapy are discussed as well.
Despite its technical content, the book is written in an accessible language and has an informative summary for each chapter and a list of key points at the end of each section. Most of the claims in the bulleted list above are supported by a theory and the author’s personal experience (a healthy subject). About a half of these claims are directly supported by previously published scientific studies, including the claim about intelligence tests. The authors academic transcripts and test scores have been documented and can be verified independently. You can read 10% of the book for free, directly in your browser, if you visit the web page of the paperback edition on Amazon.com and click on “Read first chapter FREE” on the right-hand side of the page (this feature works in the majority of web browsers).
Review:
Initially, I had thought this book would fall into that particular category of How-to books, which are difficult to get through unless one is desperate to be/do whatever the title may promise. I was mistaken. In fact, I could say the primary critique I have to offer in this case is the choice of title; it is misleading, perhaps, to the point of deprecating this work.
With this said, I will now remark upon the meat of this volume:
It is commonly known that from it’s conception, the human body must have the correct balance of nourishment to form properly. It is also known that a person’s diet and dietary habits are essential to good physical health. On the other hand, it is not so rampantly understood just how crucial one’s diet may be in regard to the synchronous influence it offers to their mind and body’s overall health and performance. These days, if you search the bookshops you may discover a plethora of books that focus on the correlation of adult human diet and individual mental capacity. However, within How to Become Smarter, Mr. Shevchuk takes this line of study one step further. He not only draws a distinct relation of the human body’s consumption and consuming habits with the direct effect such has on the brain and it’s reactionary capabilities; he then categorically separates and defines the types of intelligence, as well as the brain’s utilization of each. Although I am of the opinion that certain intelligence or mentally stimulated reactionary occurrences are integral to humankind, and not developed or effected by human diet, Mr. Shevchuk does indeed earn the scientific/theoretical license he utilizes on more than one occasion within this opus. As an objective historian, I have ascended to the Socratic opinion that such an exercise in controversialism is the best method of ferreting out the truth. Hence, I consider the author’s suggestions on Fluid Intelligence and Crystallized Intelligence-Quotient/Academic, Emotional, and Social Intelligence to be quite intriguing and thought provoking. Furthermore, the author’s representation of natural foods – their values, consumption, and ultimate effects on one’s mind and mood are admirable. An important addition to the library of anyone pursuing a wholesome and complete lifelong eating regime; rather I should say, a science of daily hygiene–the general maintenance of the body, with specific emphasis on the choosing and consuming of mind and body rejuvenating foods, based on scientific/historical findings, to be utilized throughout one’s life, in an effort to maximize one’s mental, and in turn, physical capabilities. This work is an excellent effort, and a serious reference volume! Not to be purchased, read, and then shelved, it should actually be referenced until the concepts within may be adroitly applied to one’s daily approach to eating/thinking/living. By the way, once you have properly consumed the substance of this work, you will probably be a bit smarter for your effort.
