Spending summer indoors gives you the perfect opportunity to pick up an old hobby or learn a new one. While some hobbies exercise your body, others help you sharpen your mind. You will find that a simple game that improves memory and concentration will allow you to take on everyday tasks with clarity and renewed passion. This summer, Tree Classics is bringing back those timeless board games and puzzles that boost brain power.
It’s all about strategy, strategy, strategy. In a game of chess, a lot of analytic thinking is used to come up with a strategy. You must bolster every attack with a purpose. Winning every move may not always guarantee winning the entire game. This forces you to concentrate and lengthen your attention span as you move towards your ultimate goal of taking down the king on your opponent’s side. Players can never be complacent even for a moment.
This 3D puzzle is about aligning cubes to show only one solid color on each side of the bigger cube. The activity brings you to focus on each step and analyze each shift. It also improves your short-term memory when you recall the tricks you’ve learned. The toy may come in different forms. Some puzzles merely use colors; others sequential numbers that make it even more complex. The point is to use both the left and right sides of the brain for logic, memory, and creativity.
If you want to sharpen your semantic memory – your ability to remember meaning – Scrabble is for you. This 75-year-old board game looks simple. But it is engaging because you have to use your faculty for language as well as your analytic and logical thinking. Since each letter tile has a corresponding value that adds to your individual score and extends the word connections, the amalgam of letters you create not only improves your ranking but also paves the way for you to add on more words as the game progresses.
Crossword also exercises language by tapping into the parts of your brain involved in semantics, word association, and spelling. A way to expand your vocabulary by examining the witty word clues, crossword puzzles may be the mental push-up you need to keep sharp.
These mentally stimulating board games have never faded from our memory! In fact, they help improve memory and focus. What are your favorite brain games?