(HappierDaily.com) – Your brain is a muscle too. The more you use it, the stronger it stays, even as you age. Here are some of the top 5 games and activities you can play to stimulate your mind. (You can either do these by yourself or with friends!)
- Chess: You can play chess with friends or even on a computer. Chess.com is a great place to start. Chess helps keep your brain fresh by making you think ahead, creating your own strategy, and predicting your opponents next moves, too.
- Sudoku: Sudoku can also be played online or on paper. If you’ve never played, it’s a fun game where you have to fill in all the numbers on a grid, but in each 3×3 section of the 9×9 grid, and in each row of the 9×9, you can’t repeat the same number twice. It stimulates your cognitive abilities and is good for conditioning your logic and pattern spotting skills. Not to mention, it’s quite satisfying and you feel accomplished when you finish the puzzle!
- Download a language app: Right up there with learning a new instrument is learning a new language — these two activities are huge when it comes to keeping your brain active and sharp. Although they are more intensive and may seem a little intimidating at first, these two make the most impact for your mental wellbeing. Babbel is a well reviewed, fun and inexpensive way to learn a new language or freshen up on an old one you already know.
- Scrabble: If learning a new language is not right for you right now, scrabble is another sweet way to boost your creativity and vocabulary.
- Card Games: Bridge, Canasta, Rummy, Cribbage, Solitaire are some fun ones! Follow the links for tutorials on how to play. Also, if vision is not your strong-suit, Amazon sells large font playing cards here so you can keep at it!
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