One of my favorite things on the internet right now is the focus on people having intellectual glowups. Rather than focusing on how you look and how often you go to the gym, people are thinking more about what they're consuming and how they're actually interacting with the world around them. And I think this is so powerful.
So, in this video, I'm going to be breaking down five of the top habits that you need if you want a proper intellectual glow up. These are going to be quite nuanced and I'm going to give you some really good examples and they're all things that I am currently trying to implement into my life or have been implementing over the past sort of year and a half as I've been thinking about the idea of an intellectual glow up. If you are new here, my name is Aaron.
I'm a second year student at the University of Cambridge. I post about learning science, neuroscience, student life, productivity, and I would love for you to join me here. So, please do subscribe.
I'm also active on Instagram and Tik Tok under the same handle and I'd love to see you guys there as well. without any extra waffle. We're going to go straight into it.
When people say that you want to be not consuming as much, the default that they give is therefore you want to be creating. This is true, but I think there is a bit more understanding that needs to be had. And there's actually something slightly more powerful that you can be doing that will really push the boundary in terms of you having an intellectual glow.
And this is that when you are consuming, because you have to consume, right? Long form content is still consuming. But even when you're consuming short form content, when you're scrolling on Instagram, Tik Tok, X, whatever you like to scroll on LinkedIn, you want to be thinking actively as you are doing that because passive consumption is what is so dangerous for us.
Passive consumption is what trains your brain to be unable to sustain attention for a long period because all that is going on is you are getting these uncertain short-term dopamine boosts. Now when you change that and when you are thinking actively you are able to actually process these ideas because most people they consume information but they don't actually understand it. Understanding comes from thinking about ideas not just seeing them presented to you.
I think one of the best ways of understanding this is let's say you're watching a YouTube video or you're watching a longer Tik Tok or you're reading an article. Once you have finished if you move immediately onto the next few piece of content all this content blurs into one. Even if you're ostensibly doing something that you think is good for your brain, even if you're watching like an explainer on how volcanoes work or on the Renaissance period and the different art styles that emerge, if you immediately move on to a new piece of content, you're not actually going to retain any of that information.
You might as well have watched the most brainwashed video on the internet. It's going to be the equivalent in your brain. To avoid that being the case, you always want a period of time where you're going to reflect upon the content that you have just consumed and actively think about it.
What did I just learn? What new thing just came to my mind? What was interesting?
What was not interesting? Do I have any critiques of an argument that was proposed? Do I disagree with anything?
Do I agree with anything? You really just want to be interacting with the content on a thought bythought basis where you're not just taking what is shown to you as the given. You're actually engaging in some level of critical thinking and some level of sort of contribution of your own ideas to what it is that you have just learned.
And the more that you do that, the more you will see that you become a much you have much clearer thought processes. You're much more able to articulate your own ideas. You're much more able to actually recall what it is that you consume because you're being much more intentional about it.
And I think also the mental prompt of knowing that you're going to have to think deeply about what it is that you've consumed makes you much more intentional in your choices of what it is that you do consume. And this again can lead to you spending less time on social media and more time with information that is valuable to you and doing things that you actually want to be doing. Sticking on the theme of consumption, you want to be giving yourself at least one piece of high quality material to consume every single day.
Because we live in a society, whether we like it or not, where we have to consume things. We've got to read our papers to write our essays. We've got to go on Instagram or Tik Tok to be able to reach our friends.
and that can lead to us scrolling and seeing things etc etc. So you want to be giving your brain something that is genuinely going to be improving your intelligence as a person or your understanding of the world or your comprehension of your place within it. You want to be challenging yourself and actually enjoying the process.
So reading, yes, it expands your vocabulary, but when you read fiction, it expands your understanding of people. When you read non-fiction, it expands your understanding of the world. And you want to be giving yourself the ability to do that.
So for me personally, my favorite resources for this all the Penguin Classics fiction books. I think they are fantastic. You can find a lot of free books on Project Gutenberg non-fiction and fiction alike.
I use this website a lot. Then in terms of non-fiction, I love the long read on the Guardian. I think that's very good.
I think that there are a lot of podcasts as well that are very fascinating. So the story by the times uh the rest is politics is very good. There's a whole collection of these as like the rest is entertainment, the rest is money.
Um, and I quite like listening to interviews as well. I think that again the rest is politics leading has some good interviews, but there are so so many podcasts out there, so many sources of fiction and non-fiction. I think filter through, see what you enjoy.
Even if this means you listening to audio books, for example, whilst you're at the gym, just making sure you're having some high quality input is genuinely going to make you feel so much better about what it is that you're consuming and again hopefully make you more intentional. Now, when you're thinking about what specifically it is that you're consuming, so not the type of information, which is what I've just covered, but exactly what it is that you're going to be consuming, I think the most powerful thing you can do is something called building a curiosity habit. And basically, this revolves around the idea that the most intellectual people are the people who are constantly asking questions about the world around them and genuinely caring about the answers because they are curious.
So, when you're a child, when you're like four years old, everything is wonderful. that massive bus that you just saw, that interesting dog, that tree that's so huge in the sky. And you sort of over time you get taught to not ask those questions.
And that kind of leads to you losing that spark of curiosity that you used to have. And building a curiosity habit is all about reigniting that spark, making you more curious about the world around you once again. Because I think when you have greater comprehension of the world, when you're an adult, there's so much more for you to be curious about.
And you should really be leaning into that. So, what I mean by building a curiosity habit, I think when I go out and about, I always have, well, my mini notebook is just behind me at the moment, but I always take a little mini notebook with me and as I'm walking, I might have questions. I might chat to somebody and they might raise an interesting point.
I'll write it down. If I don't have access to my notebook, I'll put it in my notes app on my phone. I always have my phone on me and then I will make time to actually answer those questions to feed my curiosity.
And because I make the time to feed my curiosity, I know that when I write down those questions in future, I'm going to find the answer. So, I'm more likely to spot instances where I am curious, where I do have a question. Because at the moment, you are still questioning the world around you.
But your brain is sort of suppressing those questions from coming into your brain and kind of like popping into your main stream of thought simply because you've taught yourself over so many years to suppress those questions because you're not going to go and answer them. So, what's the point of asking them? You want to be changing that.
And you can do that by building this curiosity habit, following those curious rabbit holes and learning beyond your fields, learning things that are just interesting for you. I myself studied maths, further maths, economics and physics at a level. I was super super maths, super into maths.
Still am super into maths. I study land economy at university where there's a lot more real econ uh real real world application. I do a lot of law papers.
I look a lot at spatial theories, regional economics, urban development. My whole social media is all about neuroscience and productivity and how your brain works. I have so many different areas that I'm interested in and I'm so lucky to be able to pursue all of these things at once.
And there really is no difference between me and you. You can pursue everything you're interested in. And I really hope that you do actually go away and begin doing that by building up a curiosity habit.
In line with improving the quality of the information that you do consume, you want to be limiting the amount at which you are consuming lowquality information. So, you know what I'm going to say. Get off your socials.
Now, you might think that's a bit hypocritical because I am a content creator. I post on social media. I think social media can be a force for good.
And I think that recently, particularly on Instagram, for example, you can change your algorithm. So, in the top corner, there's like a little bar with little hearts and you can click on that and you can influence what your for you page is showing you. My for you page shows me almost exclusively educational content.
Right now, I get astrophysicists talking about the latest discoveries. I get nutrition scientists telling me about which food groups I might be missing. I get engineers talking me through the latest Formula 1 car designs.
And it's fascinating. And every time I open on Instagram, I feel like I'm genuinely learning something. And that is something that you can do as well.
So by limiting the lowquality information, I'm not saying get yourself off social media. I'm saying curate your social media to make it a place that you want to be and to make it a place where you're getting more highquality information than just these sort of lowquality brain rot reels. The final habit that I really cannot emphasize enough is writing.
I think that because we can type, because we can text, because we can make voice notes and have it written up by AI for us, we are sort of losing the art of writing. I think there's something very powerful about at the end of the day writing things down. How are you thinking?
How are you feeling? What is going on in your head, in your mind, in your brain? What has happened?
And where do you want to go from here? Because writing gives you such clarity of thought. And because it's a lot slower than typing things out, you really have to pause and be intentional with your word choices so much more.
And I think therefore, it is something that everybody should be doing a lot more of. Whether that looks like you starting up a new journal, whether that looks like you just taking the time to write your appreciation to a friend or a parent, do it. I think that the ability to articulate your feelings in pros is very, very important.
And I will say over and over again to not do that online, to do that with a notebook, with a pen and actually kind of go back old school because also the tactility of writing, so the actual movement that you're doing, it helps you remember the information that you are writing down. So, even if you're not doing this as a study strategy, right? Even if you're just doing this to recount your day, you'll find you have a better memory of what it is that you've done over the past couple of days, and it'll probably stop this feeling that a lot of people get, particularly now that people spend so much time on socials, that all the days compress into one, and there's no differentiation.
I think when you're writing things down, you notice those little moments of happiness quite a lot more than you would otherwise. That's all for this video. Thank you so much for watching.
I really hope that this has inspired you to have your own intellectual glow up. If you have any questions or any more tips, let us know in the comments. Give this video a little thumbs up.
