Most of us go through life not knowing exactly how smart we are.

That’s because to find out the exact number that quantifies one’s IQ, you have to pay a trained professional, and one can also make an argument for someone’s EQ (emotional quotient) being just as important.

Then there are people who are wholly convinced of their intelligence, despite evidence to contrary. Look for these people in any comments section on the internet.

If you’d like to know how smart you are, but don’t want to fork out a ton of cash, then Forbes has some good news for you.

New research provides some interesting clues linking early life experiences to, among other things, high intelligence. If any of the following apply to you, you just might have a high IQ.

Rad. Let’s take a look.

1. You’re anxious

Anxiety isn’t usually something that we think of as a good thing, but it turns out it might not be so bad.

Psychiatrist Jeremy Coplan studied patients with anxiety disorders and found that the people with the worst symptoms had higher IQ scores than those with milder symptoms. Other studies have found higher verbal IQ scores in people with higher levels of anxiety.

People with high levels of anxiety were also proven to be the most focused and effective at executing tasks.

2. You were an early reader

Children who started reading earlier tended to have higher IQ scores.

British study of 2,000 pairs of identical twins found that, despite their identical genes, the children who started reading earlier had higher IQ scores (both verbal and nonverbal) than their siblings.

On the surface, this one seems easy enough to explain away: the kids who learned to read early did so because they were smarter. But that wasn’t the case. The researchers concluded that learning to read early actually had a developmental impact—it made the kids smarter.

You heard it here first. Read to your children.

3. You’re left-handed

Back in the day teachers would try and force lefties to write with their right hands. Looks like they were wrong.

While there is a small and, as of yet, unexplained correlation between being left-handed and being a criminal, there are some intellectual benefits to being a southpaw. One large study demonstrated that left-handedness is associated with divergent thinking, all the more so in males. This unique ability to combine two unrelated objects in a meaningful way is a sign of intelligence.

OK, I didn’t see the ‘criminal tendencies’ thing coming.

4. You took music lessons as a kid

Those hours of recorder lessons may have actually paid off in more ways than one. Not only can you do a horrifying rendition of Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On, but they might have actually made you smarter.

In a study conducted by psychologist Sylvain Moreno, 48 children between the ages of four and six participated in a computerized training program that was led by a teacher. For one hour per day, five days a week for four weeks, half the students completed a musical program, and the other half completed a visual arts program. At the end of the experiment, 90% of the children who received the musical training showed improvements in verbal IQ.

Nice.

5. You’re funny

Congrats, class clown. You made it.

Research shows a strong connection between being funny and having high scores in both verbal intelligence and abstract reasoning. It appears that your witty banter is the product of a sharp mind. Now, you just need to come up with a joke about that.

This isn’t the full extent of the list, but combined, these traits tend to add up to above-average intelligence.

If you didn’t tick off any of the traits in the list, remember you’re unique and special, just like everybody else.

[source:forbes]