5 Mind-Building Games to Improve Your Professional Skills

Mind-building games are a billion-dollar industry, and they are currently on the top of the list. The revenues of these mind-training games were predicted to surpass $6 million by 2020, according to research published in Cerebrum.

In today’s youth-obsessed culture money, attention, and fame are given more priorities. But what about staying mentally sharp? Mind-building games have become a necessity in this present era.

Since brain cells, i.e., neurons, generally lose their capability over time, these brain games are assumed to be helpful to keep your mind husky and sharp.

Jaeggi, while exploring neurobiology, stated in apa.org that she used functional MRI and found that working-memory training increases neural activity in the short term. As time proceeds, people’s cognitive skills improve. The regions of the brain that are solely responsible for memory shows slight activity when called to action. In other words, it means a well-trained brain does not have to work that hard. The neurons are wired together at best and are the most efficient.

Are Mind-Building Games really training your brain, or is it merely a splurge?

Well, it all depends.

According to a neuropsychologist Glenn Smith, providing training to people in one cognitive skill through mind games can be beneficial in other areas of cognition too.

These mind-building games will not just make you smarter on their own but will also help you improve your performance. The more you practice them, the better you will get.

Consider cognitive training like lifting weights at the gym; it strengthens your brain. Several brain-training games provide you with comparison statistics as well. This helps you to analyze how “smarter” you are as compared to others.

Obtaining a higher score on these brain games translates better attention and faster reaction time. Research by entpreneur.com shows that after playing brain-training games, subjects score slightly well on tests that measure cognitive abilities.

Few mind-building games to improve your professional skills

There are unlimited mind-building games available for any software you use either, iOS or Android. These mind-building games are a fun way to develop professional skills such as problem-solving, planning, multi-tasking, leadership, team-work, flexibility, time management, and pattern recognition.

Below are listed several games that you can play to enhance your professional skills.

1. Chess

Chess stimulates your brain in such a way that it helps to exercise your creativity. The right side of the brain, which is responsible for creative skills, is activated while playing chess. Hence, it endows you with expertise in planning and problem-solving and expands these skills to figure out the solution to ever-changing scenarios.

At first, when you begin playing chess, you mostly rely on memorizing the moves of different pieces. Once you understand the game and your skills expand, you move into more logical thinking.

Chess is not always about winning, but it makes the person capable of playing under pressure. Daniel Goleman, who is the author of the book Emotional Intelligence, wrote that it is not only our pure intelligence that aids us succeeding in today’s society, social-emotional competence also matters.

Chess makes you capable of controlling your impulses, manage feelings, allows you to set goals, identify the consequences, and helps you to make decisions.

2. Board games

What if I tell you that adding board games into your weekdays can really benefit you?

Board games like Monopoly and Settlers of Catan present the reality of the financial scenarios but in a safe environment. Through these board games, players learn to manage the resources. This teaches you about business and leadership skills, i.e., how to protect resources, how to make a good trade, and how does it feel when the resources are scarce.

A board game called Boggle encourages the players to make creative decisions under pressure. Another game called Pandemic is a collaborative game that allows the players to work as a team, communicate, and use their strengths to reach an end goal.

Harvard business review stated that board games educate us by “pushing us into the spotlight, allowing us to communicate in uncomfortable and unusual ways, and encouraging us to take giant leaps in thinking and strengthening our relations with friends and family.

There are several other board games available that can improve your problem-solving skills and critical thinking. Playing board games with friends and families improves your communication and teamwork skills. They also enable us to use logic to resolve multi-step challenges.

3. List games

List games are a type of challenge in which you must develop ideas from one foundational concept. To win the game, you need to recall each item on the list.

For instance, you made a list of grocery items, and you jot down milk on top of the page. The next person must repeat milk and then should add the next article, bread. The third person will have to jot down milk, bread, and the next grocery item. The list will go on.

This game uses your creativity. To make this game more difficult, add rules such as only write those items that begin with the same letter.

4. Sudoku

Sudoku may help to keep your brain younger, according to recent researches. A recent study mentioned in Health line stated, the more the subjects over the age of 50 engage in games like Sudoku, the better their brain functions will be.

Sudoku – a logical puzzle uses the left side of the brain, utilizes numbers, and entails you to identify the pattern to complete this game. It is a great game that boosts skills of logic, pattern recognition, and analysis. An important skill that Sudoku encourages you to do is to think mathematically.

Playing Sudoku extensively exercises your brain by improving your memory, and think strategically. It also helps to take actions and make decisions quickly with less hesitation, and most importantly, it makes you happy once you have accomplished a quite tricky level.

5. Crossword puzzle

Crosswords are one of the productive ways to pass the time. Did you know solving crossword puzzles daily can gradually improve your brain function?

In the Wall Street Journal, a renowned researcher Ann Lukits wrote, “Puzzles improve verbal skills and also cut dementia risk.”

Unlimited gamez mo is the new hot-key when it comes to mind-building games. They have a great puzzle that improves your cognitive skills and compels your brain to think more. Once you get into the game and continue to complete the crossword puzzle, the time and accuracy will improve. You must increase the challenges of the puzzles regularly to test yourself.

Playing a crossword puzzle like this one can enhance your memory. As puzzles are intricate, it forces you to think outside the box. It boosts your problem-solving skills making you more creative and innovative.

Tips to utilize memorization game for the betterment of your career

1. Swap the game you play: To give your memorization skills a challenge, it is beneficial for you to change the game you play. Changing the type of game will eventually make you adjust to the new challenges.
2. Exercise, by playing a game every day: To remain current in your skills, make sure to play games each day. Give fifteen minutes a day at least to play a game to ensure that your knowledge is increasing.
3. Monitor your progress actively: Track your progress of skill development by recording how long does it take you to complete Sudoku or crossword puzzle. Make sure to review your improvement, as this will motivate you to keep practicing.

Summing up

Creativity and critical-thinking skills can be developed just by playing games. Mind-building games give new challenges to the cognitive abilities of the brain and strengthen them.

By playing these sociable and entertaining games, you can develop time-management, problem-solving, multi-tasking, and develop short- and long-term memory abilities.