It is essential to challenge yourself with new problem-solving tasks to keep your brain functional, full stop. As people, we want to simplify things and avoid solving new problems or managing new tasks. Our brain is wired for simplicity and doesn’t take new things lightly.
However, even if we are not forced to solve new problems, we must exercise our brain. Games and puzzles, particularly those that are innovative, can activate and test important areas of the brain and thus keep its functions fresh. Reasoning, language, logic, visual perception, attention, and problem-solving are all crucial not only per se but also to keep us mentally able as we age.
Games additionally aid in slowing or stopping reductions in cognitive health, especially if the person lives a slow life and especially if there are tendencies for mental or cognitive health deterioration.
The more you work out your brain, the greater the benefits. Here, “use it or lose it” principle works full force. Engaging your brain in any manner is creating new links between neurons in the brain and stimulating the existing ones.
Why Games?
Why play useless games? Why not just read a newspaper? Why not check out a new game review or bonus analysis at the CasinosHunter Canadian website?
Completing crossword puzzles or engaging in other word games not only helps pass the time, but it can also benefit our brain – more than reading a newspaper or watching a new movie on TV.
Our brain and nervous system collaborate to enable us to see, smell, taste, think, feel, and move. The brain receives signals from the nervous system to regulate these essential functions. It additionally transmits signals from the brain to the muscles, organs, and skin.
If there is an issue preventing the signals from being transmitted, people might encounter neurological symptoms like dizziness, weakness, and trouble with movement and speech. It might also manifest as seizures or a neurodegenerative condition, like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s.
While it is crucial to also engage all the organs and tissues in the body to keep the brain and the nervous system functioning, it is also essential to exercise the other way around, working out our brain specifically using things that trigger and challenge its functions.
Along with remaining socially engaged and physically active, regularly solving brain puzzles has been proven to support cognitive function and memory retention. This allows people to stay more self-sufficient as they age, especially, as it has already been said, if there is an obvious tendency for cognitive function deterioration – or if the person has a bad family history in this regard and wants to prevent the issues as early as possible.
How Playing Word Games Is Beneficial for Anyone With Cognitive Issues
Engaging in games such as the Spelling Bee can aid almost anyone dealing with cognitive difficulties. Interestingly enough, cognitive difficulties are not some generic conditions. This includes people with head injuries, strokes, sleep apnea, “chemo brain,” and attention deficit disorders.
It is totally possible to preserve the signal connection between the brain and the body through games that challenge the intellect. A 2014 study published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry found that regularly participating in Sudoku or comparable puzzles was positively linked to scores in grammatical reasoning, spatial working memory, and episodic memory.
Consistently engaging in word games such as crossword puzzles can enhance the ability to maintain attention on a particular task for extended periods. It also stimulates normal working memory. So, skills and abilities trained or developed with the help of word games are actually quite practical – the ones we use in our everyday lives.
A study published in the American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and other dementias found that individuals engaging in an hour of mentally stimulating activities each day retained their reasoning and thinking skills longer than those who participated for only 30 minutes a day or not at all. Furthermore, participating in these hobbies for an hour or more each day could help guard against dementia in later years.
Other Activities That Improve Brain Health
While it makes sense to play word games or engage in other brain-stimulating activities for some reasonable periods of time, there is no set minimum or maximum duration.
It is also recommended to increase the difficulty of the games, because our brain gets used to things very quickly. If the tasks do not present any type of challenge, it will manage them on autopilot, and no real exercise is going to happen.
Most experts agree that the key here is to engage in brain-stimulating activities consistently and on a regular basis.
Brain games are important for several reasons:
- They can help to increase focus, concentration, and memory.
- They help people stay flexible and creative, and sometimes, to socialize;
- They slow down or delay age-related cognitive decline.
However, it is also important to acknowledge that some people really enjoy word games and feel that these games help them relieve stress, but other people absolutely hate these games because they feel stressed out playing them.
If playing word games increases anxiety and stress, it is crucial to be gentle with yourself and choose alternative activities that similarly stimulate the brain.
Anything that provides a learning opportunity or mental challenge is what matters most. To maintain sharp memory and thinking, the essential factor is truly challenge and learning. Creative writing (even blogging and studying social media), photography, learning a new language, learning to play a musical instrument, or learning any new skill will do the job.