No matter whether you are young or old, ever wonder if board games make you smarter? From strategy to memory, there are variety of board games that are good for your brain in every aspect.
Board games boost critical skills, intelligence and provide great exercise to your brain. Additionally, they are a source of laughter, entertainment, communication and building strong bonds of connection.
Do board games make you smarter? Yes, playing board games improve logical thinking and make you a better learner for young children or seniors alike. By using logic, strategizing, engaging reasoning skills, and being competitive strengthens mental health and improves cognitive skills.
Board games are not only fun, adventurous, exciting to play, but also increase intelligence and critical knowledge overall. Some of the board games provide techniques, strategies, and tactics to aid kids and adults engage in enhanced cognitive functions.
Exercising the brain while playing board games also helps to slow down or prevent decline from Alheimer’s or dementia as you get older. Studies show that using your brain more when playing board games can help you ward off the development of similar disorders in your brain.
Furthermore, board games provide healthy way to bring family, friends, and other relationships closer by giving them time together. It helps to bond with new people as well with enhanced cooperation.
In this article, we will discuss all the ways that board games make you smarter. Answered below are frequently asked questions about how board games make you smarter and ways that you can further enhance the gameplay with learning.
Are board games good for your brain?
Board games are good for your brain as they stimulate the regions of the brain that form memory and shape complex thought patterns for kids and adults alike. They act as a brain gym since engaging in board games helps to practice cognitive skills like strategical thinking, decision making, problem-solving, and cooperation.
Board games help the brain in:
- Challenging the cognitive skills.
- Provide a mental workout/exercise.
- Provokes critical thinking.
- Help people with cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s, dementia, and others by minimizing the learning process.
- Allows you to engage, absorb, and have fun.
- Improves logical thinking.
- Makes you good learners.
Depending on the type of board games you select from, they can provide benefits to improve math and language skills starting at a young age. That is why board games are better than video games to get children to interact with each other instead of being alone.
Also, people who play board games are more likely to stay mentally sharp later in life since these games help to boost brainpower.
Why playing board games improve intelligence?
Because board games are all about strategizing, logic, and engaging reasoning skills, which is why it improves intelligence in all ages. It also enhances and improves your mental mathematics that can protect your thinking skills into old age and also advance early childhood developmental skills.
Board games improve intelligence in:
- Tools for early childhood development and learning.
- Staying mentally sharp in old age.
- By scoring better memories.
- Enhances and protects cognitive health.
- Improves logical thinking.
- Support mental balance and helps with relaxation.
Playing board game triggers the parts of brain that are responsible for memory and complex thoughts processes. Engaging in gameplay assists in practicing decision making, higher levels of strategic thinking and problem solving.
How do board games make you think critically?
Boards games can improve critical thinking by strategizing and planning. Players can retain information and comprehend the information much better, which can improve social and mental development at all ages.
Board games improve critical thinking by:
- Gathering information in any format.
- Comprehend and digest the information.
- Analyze the information as needed.
- Provide efficient solutions to multiple problem sets.
- Enhances the capability to blend both educational and social learning for efficient results.
Any guessing or detective game that conducts reasoning encourages critical thinking at an intellectual level. Analyzing and solving problem is part of the steps to play board games, which leads to good communication and open minded thoughts.
Identifying specific games to develop critical thinking is important. Whether you are playing board game alone or with groups of family and friends, choose the required strategy for the game genre to enhance your skills.
Benefits of Board Games
Board games help in enhancing cognitive skills, work out for the brain, enhances critical thinking, builds memory retention in old age, and improves overall intelligence.
It strengthens relations by playing board game with wife or as couple for romantic date night.
Additionally, with new groups you can be able to meet new people. By connecting with others, board games help to reduce stress and makes for laughter with fun times.
Some other benefits of board games are:
- Teach you to be patient and set objectives.
- Makes your mind adaptable to challenging situations with a stress-free gameplay.
- Minimize stress by having fun, being together, and laughing a little bit.
- Laughing gives your enjoyment, happiness, and joy with the experience of playing a board game.
- Enhance creativity and be self-confident.
- Stimulate release of endorphins that make you naturally feel good without intoxication.
- Happy hormones improve unconscious and conscious mind functions.
- Gives you content, compassionate and cheerful attitude.
- Increase connection, opening up and being togetherness, thereby enhancing mental skills.
- Boost self-esteem, creativity, and being in a team, perfect for introverts and timid children and they feel a sense of being included.
- Bring your family and friends together and engage in an interaction.
- Provide an opportunity to enjoy quality time with your loved ones.
- Play board games anytime and anywhere with adventure, excitement, and courageousness.
Board games offer mental and physical benefits in all aspects since gameplay leads to laughing and increases endorphins that help to lower or maintain blood pressure.
Studies also show that negative thoughts and feelings get reduced, which leads to improvements in your immune system. That is why children and adult therapists recommend some sort of board game to play for patients benefits.
Tips for board games to make you smarter
They benefit even when they are not created for educational purposes because board games enhance general thinking, behavioral skills, and other cognitive functions.
It can be taken as a leisure activity where they learn cooperation, dealing with frustration, having fun at odd times, handling failures, and so on. Otherwise, it can be taken as a learning activity where the cognitive, strategizing, learning, evaluation, assessment, and other brain skills are enhanced.
Here are additional tips for board games to make you smarter:
- Mentally stimulating games: If you are looking for mentally stimulating games, select board games with questions, brain-teasers, quizzes, memory matching, and games where you move forward by solving a question or challenge. These games will enhance IQ, color perception, acting skills, vocabulary, hand-eye coordination, spatial awareness, knowledge, and statistical analysis. Some mentally stimulating games include: Eclipse, War of the Ring and Settlers of Catan
- Benefitting games: Play games that interact with you on personality or relationship levels. They assist you in perception of personality and improve relationship with yourself and others.
- Intellectual games: Choose games where you have role-playing, analyzing the situation, and other related things like cards, bingo, or chess. To enhance intellectual skills, mystery or problem solving to identify suspect or murder type of games is improving your health.
- Educational games: If you are looking to improve your child’s math skills or general knowledge, then go ahead with such games. For example, Hi Ho! Cherry-O and Ludo are helping children to count, addition, subtract, or division.
- Modern games: For complex games such as zombie-slaying or city-building, detective games, and so on, then these games are best modern board games. They develop raw brainpower, diplomatic skills, strategy and also depend on luck.
Common board games that make you smarter
There are classic games that we grew up playing and didn't even realize that they were making us smarter. These board game classics have withstood the test of time because they really get our minds working and engaged in critical thinking.
Let’s take a look at some common board games and how they make you smarter:
This is a code game that has to be broken in the gameplay for 2 player that can improve critical thinking and reasoning. Mastermind game is fast and simple strategy, no wonder it has been one of the best-selling games of all time.
There are more than 2,000 combinations to make gameplay different every time. Also, teaches STEM principles including deductive reasoning and logic skills.
These classic games puts both sides of your brain to work. It enhances logical-mathematical intelligence. Adding chess and checkers to your board game routine will enhance the counting and arithmetic skills.
It’s a timed word searching game to improve proficiency in spelling, reading, and language skills. Each players have 3 minutes to find as many connected words as possible in a 16 cube grid.
Perfect for 2 or more player and suitable for ages 8 years to adult.
This is also a wording game where you form words that are meaningful and match with the linked alphabet. Gameplay enhances linguistic intelligence.
Currently, it is manufactured in 29 different languages and is best played board game in schools.
This game is also called a business game that aids your currency and commerce skills. The board game develops your strategic thinking and benefits math skills.
The Clue board game is mystery and guessing game that enhances deductive logic with the clues given. Playing Clue encourages critical thinking which leads to intelligence and reasoning.
These are practical and fun way to learn math games for children. They are often used to enhance addition and subtraction along with counting skills. From primary to middle school, this game helps to identify numbers and count easily in a fun way.
This enhances your logical and strategic thinking with color matching patterns of 4 dots connecting horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Connect 4 game is fun and entertaining, but also develops fine motor skills, improves basic counting and mathematical skills.
Are Board Games Making You Smarter: Conclusion
Board games can make you smarter irrespective of being educational for children or a fun family game. They improve fact learning, enhance math skills, cognitive thinking, strategic development, resource management, delay cognitive decline and encourage language dexterity.
For all ages, playing games increase brain functions. While playing the game, it stimulates both sides of the brain and releases chemical hormones to relax the body and reduce stress level.
In addition, it helps to improve logical thinking, problem solving, and makes you more intelligent. For elders, playing board games have been proven to lower the risk of Alzheimer’s or dementia by slowing the progression of the disease.
Playing games in early ages prepares them to become a better learner in life. Not only individual mental and physical health, but also brings family and friends together.
Other than making you smarter, board games are fun, exciting and provide family/friends together time to strengthen bond with each other.