GET SMART(ER)

thinker.

While studying the brain structure of people who practice Buddhist insight meditation regularly, Massachusetts General Hospital researchers found meditators have thicker brain matter in the area that deals with executive function, which refers to our ability to plan, think abstractly, understand rules and initiate appropriate responses. The study didn't look at whether those with thicker brain matter have higher-functioning brains, says lead study author Sara Lazar, but the team aims to find out.

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In the meantime, Richard Davidson, professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and director of the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior, offers plenty of support for meditation. Davidson has long studied the impact of meditation on attention and concentration, and has found that "even relatively short-term meditation practice can substantially change certain aspects of attention and change the brain systems that underlie it."

Meditation can also help train people to regulate their emotions. Monks, it turns out, are masters of this, as Davidson found in a study. That inner calm "is extremely important for well-being and also very important for learning," he says. "If you are hyper-responsive to stress and to negative stimuli in your environment, it would interfere with your capacity to learn." Which in non-scientific terms means that getting all riled up every time your boss does that annoying thing with her teeth could be keeping you from your intellectual peak.

Discover, Experience, Learn

Although we're still studying the brain and intelligence, "for centuries there have been ways known for making you smarter," Gordon says. "We call it education. It's been known to work." Cute. But Gordon points out that it's not just what you learn in school but that you learn how to think. "You learn about different approaches," he says. "And that's part of being intelligent."

In addition, being in school gives you practice in memorizing things, a skill that fades with lack of use. Someone studying for an exam 15 years after they graduated from college, for example, probably will have a harder time memorizing lists of facts than someone with recent practice in cramming.

Exposing yourself to new experiences can also help improve inactive or less active parts of the brain, Linden says. "Do as many different kinds of mental exercises as you can," he advises. If you're a crossword puzzle nut, that's great, but you'll build up only the skills related to crossword puzzles. Instead, put down the pencil and try something else. Seek out new cultural experiences, visit new places, try a new hobby.

George Mason University neuroscience expert Jim Olds -- who is generally skeptical that you can improve your intelligence as an adult, by the way -- agrees that exposing yourself to new experiences can be a boon. "I watch adults at all ages right up to seniors become much more active intellectually as they become more engaged intellectually with their surroundings," he says.