>>11459782>gaining intelligenceThat's a bad way to put it. First, your brain development is pretty much finished after your teens. Second, the word "intelligence" doesn't say much. There are many cognitive abilities we could be talking about, such as abstraction, strategic planning, memorisation, mathematical thinking, logical reasoning, pattern identification, and so on and so forth.
Playing chess and doing puzzles will only make you good at playing chess and doing puzzles. There's no general formula for intelligence.
That being said, there are still things you can do to become more skilled at certain intellectual activities. The two first things you should worry about are language and mathematics. You start by reading a lot and developing a deeper understanding of your native language, while also developing mathematical intuition and good mathematical problem solving skills. These two fields of knowledge are great starters for three reasons:
1. They'll provide the tools you need to learn everything else.
2. Once you get good at them, you'll start to think in a different way. You'll be in a whole different level than people who didn't master language and mathematics.
3. Reading, writing and doing math are great exercises for your brain.
After this step is concluded, you're free to chase whatever you want to learn. If you provide more information on what exactly you want to do, I'll be glad to try and help you. Just don't forget to be a perfectionist about learning. Don't content yourself with "kinda getting it", and instead, make sure you fully get the thing you're trying to study, even if you have to dedicate long spans of time to breaking down small details you didn't get.
