People with these 10 quirky habits often have brilliant minds

Someone with a brilliant mind may not always look that impressive from across the room, as they might be the one doing things that seem rather strange.

When thoughts become a conversation

Nobody else is around, yet these smart people are talking out loud. It could actually be a way to help themselves think, as studies have found that people who talk to themselves often do better on memory tasks.

Not everyone who talks to themselves has a brilliant mind, of course. But those willing to describe their problems out loud are able to turn big mental messes into much smaller things. It helps them to break the issues down.

The question that won’t leave

You’ll find that intelligent people get focused on trying to find the answers to seemingly pointless things. They’ll try to research things like whether pigeons recognize themselves in mirrors, along with other random stuff. What makes it so bizarre is that there’s no obvious reward.

They just want to know the answer, simple as that. Studies have found that such behavior is common among those with greater general knowledge and better creative problem-solving. But some people would argue they’re just wasting time.

Playing both sides

It’s normal to have an internal debate sometimes. It’s different when you’re smart. Intelligent people will sometimes argue with themselves so they can see another point of view. They’ll think that an idea is right, and then immediately explain why it’s wrong. Then they start defending it again.

They’re trying to see whether the argument can face criticism, and they’re also trying to reduce any sense of overconfidence or confirmation bias in the wrong idea. To put it in other words, they have an annoyingly persistent opponent who’s imaginary. It’s also them.

Disaster movies with no screen

A bridge collapses, or the electricity goes out for six months. These disasters don’t really happen, but smart people like to think about them and what they would do if they occurred. They invent ridiculous disasters because they want to figure out the consequences.

It’s not because they’re trying to be morbid or anything. They’re just producing as many outcomes as their minds can think of, and then figuring out which of them would be the best. No actual emergency is needed.

A change of altitude

Look at where a person stands when they’re trying to solve a problem. Highly intelligent people usually end up leaning over the back of a couch or standing on a piece of furniture. That’s pretty important.

Experiments have shown that people tend to perform better on tasks when they’re standing, rather than sitting down. Participants who stood on furniture seemed to perform the best. It’s unclear why, but researchers believe it could be that body position can affect creative thinking.

The sudden lap around the room

They don’t always stand on furniture either. A lot of smart people feel like they can’t solve their problems while they’re seated, so up they get, across the room and back again. They might walk into another room for seemingly no reason whatsoever.

There is a reason, however, and it’s that they can come up with stronger creative responses while they’re walking. The benefit to their brains tends to stick around after smart people sit down again.

The unnecessarily homemade solution

It doesn’t matter that they could simply buy a replacement for something that’s broken. They’d much rather make a solution themselves using the things they have around the house, and it’s often because making the thing is more interesting than buying it. 

Smart people find the most incredible uses for ordinary objects. It has a lot to do with how they don’t see objects as having fixed uses or just one role. No, they refuse to accept that, and they’ll choose instead to think outside the box.

Making up extra rules

One way that smart people like to make easy tasks interesting is by making them harder for no reason. They’ll set themselves challenges, like cooking without using a knife, just because having unlimited choices feels boring.

They’d rather be creative and set a limit for themselves. It helps them to invent more out-of-the-box solutions, and having restrictions forces them to move away from the first answer. They don’t like going with the obvious choice.

Hands with a mind of their own

You’ll notice something else with smart people when they’re dealing with a tricky problem. Their hands still start performing. Yes, their fingers will point at empty spaces, and one hand will hold an imaginary option.

They’re not doing it for an audience, as researchers have noticed it happening during silent thinking. Gesturing helps smart people lighten the load on their working memory during harder tasks. They’re using their hands to help their thinking. Smart people are funny like that.

Making little pictures

Just because someone has drawn little stars in the margin doesn’t mean they’ve mentally checked out. Research shows that, actually, smart people tend to doodle while they’re listening to the other person. They were able to recall what the speaker was talking about later.

That means they weren’t distracted and were actually paying attention to them. A lot of these drawings tend to be repetitive and mindless. They’re just simple doodles, really. But that small bit of activity stops their attention from drifting completely off course.

Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.

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