What Games Exercise Your Brain?

Games aren’t just fun and entertainment–many of them offer an effective mental exercise that stimulates your brain as they require you to practice critical thinking, decision-making, and strategic planning. Are strategy games good for your brain? Yes!

Strategy games are some of the best games to exercise your brain; examples of these include card games, video games, and puzzles. A free Spades card game, for instance, challenges you to make predictions and play smart moves to meet those accurately to win the game.

How Games Exercise Your Brain

We exercise to maintain our health and improve our performance. This practice focuses on the body, but the brain needs the same amount of attention. A great way to exercise our brains is through games that stimulate the mind. By engaging in these activities, we’re able to access and practice parts of the brain that we may not use as much in our day-to-day lives.

By playing certain games, we challenge the brain. In turn, this develops our cognitive and computational skills and helps improve memory, language processing, motor speed, and attention. It also enhances the mind’s ability to adapt to new experiences. Moreover, games can help boost neuroplasticity, which slows down your brain’s aging and can lower your risk of age-related cognitive decline.

Card Games That Exercise Your Brain

There are plenty of games that exercise your brain, but card games, particularly those that entail strategy, are among the best ones out there. Here are some that you can start playing immediately with just a regular deck of cards or online!

Solitaire

Is Solitaire a good brain game? It is, and it’s great for solo players. That means that you can play it whenever you want! It involves arranging a deck of cards in a specific order, calling on your strategy and critical-thinking skills.

There are over 150 variations of Solitaire, so you can play a different one each time. Despite varied objectives, setups, or gameplays, the general goal of the game is to build up a foundation of cards from the Ace through the King in sequence and suit. You win the game once you play all the cards in the right positions.

Poker

In Poker, players must make quick decisions based on the limited information given to them. They must also learn how to read other players and perform bluffs, which also enhances social and emotional intelligence.

The goal of Poker is to win the ‘pot,’ which is the combination of all bets made by all players in a round. This can be done by having the highest-ranking poker hand (five cards, with a ‘Royal Flush’ being the trump) or making a bet that no other player challenges.

Spades

Spades is a classic four-player trick-taking game that requires you to pay attention to the cards being played and think strategically about what moves to make during your turn. It’s a social game that exercises your memory and concentration.

Each round of Spades starts with a bid in which players predict how many tricks (plays) they’ll win in the set. For every accurate bid (called a ‘contract’), they win ten points. More points are awarded or deducted based on different moves. The winners are the first to score 500 (or 250 for shorter games) points.

Exercise Your Brain on Spades.co

Even if you don’t have a set of cards, you can play card games like Spades for free online. Spades.co allows you to learn the ins and outs of the game and practice your strategic and critical thinking skills by playing against computers. Give your mind a mental workout on Spades.co today!