Keeping your eyes shut makes you cleverer

There's the weirdest claim about to be made in a BBC documentary to be broadcast on Saturday. The producers apparently claim that various exercises in spatial awareness can make you cleverer. The suggestions that caught my eye (ho ho) include:

1) Shower with your eyes closed

2) Walk around the house with a blindfold on

The rest is probably silly, even if it's intriguing: loads of mental puzzles to keep the grey matter ticking over. I liked the comment by someone Richard from Alicante on one website:

Unfortunately, whilst playing scrabble in the shower with my eyes closed and brushing my teeth with the wrong hand, I slipped on the computer mouse and broke my arm so I am writing this with my nose. However, my IQ has increased to 180. Thanks for the interesting ideas.

I'll watch the programme if I can do it without my glasses on but I've tried this. It means sitting right up close and feeling the horrible buzz of the static electricity coming off the screen. One thing not wearing glasses does is that it makes you aware of how thingy things are, and not always in a good way. But I have to say that walking around with my eyes closed, which I've been doing to try and understand what it would mean to be blind, or walking around without glasses, have made me more aware of myself and my body, and of space. It's definitely good for a person.