[nostrademons]

The author's sensory processing disorder is showing through in the writing, but there's an important insight there. People see through their emotions. Not just ones with sensory processing disorders or ADHD, but everyone. Emotional states influence what sensory information is able to enter our consciousness, and hence our decision-making process. Change how people feel and you can influence what they believe.

If you want the scientific background for this, you can Google something like [effect of emotional states on cognitive processing], and it'll take you to articles in neuroscience journals like [1][2].

This is also the principal by which therapy leads to better life outcomes. Learn to manage your emotions, so that your baseline emotional arousal goes down, and you'll have a clearer picture of the world around you and will be better equipped to make rational decisions. It's also spawned a whole multi-trillion-dollar industry (advertising & media), which is all about increasing your emotional arousal so you're more receptive to certain messages. Sex sells and if it bleeds it leads, because that's what generates heightened arousal states that make you more receptive to product messaging.

[1] https://direct.mit.edu/jocn/article-abstract/28/3/446/28496/...

[2] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.0145...

[king_magic]

And that's cool and all, but - again:

  The single most impactful thing you can do to boost your intelligence is learn how to effectively self-soothe

That's a pretty big statement to make. The single, most impactful thing, eh? Reaaaaallly?

I don't doubt that there might be some scientific background, particularly for folks with sensory processing disorders - but to phrase this like the author did - as though it applies to general intelligence for pretty much anyone - just feels very intellectually dishonest.