It’s crucially important to keep our mind active, as it inevitably loses its sharpness over the years. It’s completely normal to become more forgetful once we get old or even if we often have to deal with depression, stress and anxiety. Memory problems are not always a sign of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease (the most common form).
There are tons of mind games out there that can help our mental health, and many of them are even free of charge. You can find such games with a simple search on Google, Facebook, Google Play Store, App Store, and so on. Feel free to check out our recommendations:
Circles
This game is simple, but it offers positive effects for short and long-term memory. You’ll have to watch coloured lights and sounds, and after that, you’ll have to repeat the sequence as accurate as you can. The sequence won’t be easy to memorate at all, and that’s the beauty of the game. You can also compete with your friends by playing together.
Lumosity
Lumosity isn’t called a brain training app for no reason. We’re talking about an online program that aims to improve memory, speed of processing, flexibility, attention, and problem-solving. With over 70 million users, Lumosity is more like a set of games that use fun activities to try giving your brain the spark it needs. You can choose daily exercises to keep your brain healthy and active, and the detailed progress tracking will maintain your addictiveness.
Sudoku
Sudoku online has so many different variations, and the most important thing to remember about this game is that it’s not necessary to be good at math to play it. Sudoku involves absolutely no math and language skills. For classic Sudoku, the goal is to fill a 9×9 grid with digits so that each row, column, and each of the nine smaller grids will contain all of the digits from 1 to 9. There are 6670903752021072936960 grids in Sudoku, so don’t you even think that there’s a chance that you can get bored playing this game. Play Sudoku from Easy level and progress all the way up to Expert level.
Scientists have emphasized huge benefits of playing Sudoku, such as reducing the chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease by keeping your mind active, increasing concentration power, learning to do things quickly, and more.
Chess
Chess is one of the most beautiful and complicated mind games. During World War II, many top Chess players were code breakers. That’s not coincidental, as chess stimulates pretty much all critical aspects of the mind: memory, attention, concentration, problem-solving, and more. The number of possibilities of a Knight’s tour (one of the pieces of the game) is over 122 million.
Chess is played between two players, and they’ll have to use everything they can from their armies in order to capture the opponents’ king. A game of chess is won when a player says the word “Checkmate” after his opponent has no way of saving the king. The word comes from the Persian phrase “Shah Mat,” meaning “the King is dead.”
These are our top recommendations, and there are plenty of honourable mentions: Backgammon, Crosswords puzzles, Hangman, 2048, Scrabble, and more. Feel free to mention any mind game that you would like to see on our list!
Frances might be just at the beginning of her career, but after attending a technical school, she has a fresh perspective on today’s technology. She contributes to the site with tech news.
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