Top 5 games to keep brain active
WE ALL know how important it is to keep our bodies active, but what about our brains? According to research in neuroscience, your brain reaches its peak performance at 16-25 years, and thereafter cognitive functioning declines.
Not very cheery news is it? However there is some great news – we can all do something about it.
Just like we train for the health and wellbeing of our body, we can train our brains to be healthier and more alert.
Here are the top five games to help your grey matter stay ahead of the hands of time.
Bingo
According to research from Southampton University, bingo players performed mental tasks faster and more accurately than those who did not play the game. The studies, conducted by Julie Winstone, a psychologist from the University, found that bingo required mental speed, accuracy, concentration and ability to recognise patterns.
While these cognitive skills are all affected by ageing, in number recognition tests, bingo players significantly outperformed the non-bingo players in speed and accuracy - and older bingo players were more accurate than the younger ones.
Sudoku
According to research from Trinity College in Dublin, mental stimulation from puzzles such as Sudoku can help ward off decline in brain function. Similar studies from The University of Edinburgh found that Sudoku can trigger “survival genes” in the brain that normally lay dormant. These survival genes are thought to make brain cells live longer and resist disease, strokes, and the effects of drugs.
Crosswords
Oxford University has also conducted research into brain games and puzzles, and found that brainteasers such as crosswords can help generate new brain cells. The research states, “It used to be thought that the brain only lost brain cells with age, but there is evidence now that you can acquire new cells throughout your life if you continue to stimulate the brain.”
Trivia
According to About.com, when you play trivia you’re asked to recall information that you don’t often use.
This act of reaching for this information is a sort of mental stretching that is a great exercise for your brain, improving your general cognition skills.
The combination of the multiple topics and the different forms of thought work to significantly improve your cognition. This will in turn help you to learn and retain information more easily.
Dance
If you don’t think dance is a brain game, think again. Learning choreographed dance routines such as line dancing, tap dancing, swing, or ballet is fantastic exercise for both the body and the brain.
The act of remembering dance steps and continually sending those messages from your brain to your body improves mental reflexes and general cognition.
So what are you waiting for? Get playing!
And start with our Bill-Busters Bingo competition which kicks off this Saturday! You’ll have the chance to share in $64,000 worth of prizes over four weeks.
All you have to do is grab a bingo card in your paper this Saturday and look out for daily numbers to cross off.
Plus, head to www.thechronicle.com.au/bingo and enter in the weekly major prize which is $1000 vouchers every week.
More information is available online.