Newsweek‘s The Daily Beast has come up with 31 ways to get smarter in 2012.  Some of them make perfect sense and others will surprise you.

1) Play Words With Friends

The popular smartphone game gets your thinking juices flowing! Research has shown that word puzzles help reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Just turn the phone off if a flight attendant asks you to, okay?

2) Eat Turmeric

I’ve never heard of this one and I’d be surprised if you have. It’s a common spice in Indian and Thai curries. The spice contains curcumin, which may reduce the risk of dementia.

3) Take Tae Kwon Do

Or SOMETHING physical, it can be anything: playing tennis, dancing, play certain games on the Nintendo Wii or X-Box Kinect. Any activity that raises your heart rate and requires a lot of coordination says John J. Ratey, author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.

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