Entrepreneurs need to keep their minds sharp to keep up with the labor-intensive process of starting and running their own business. Sometimes, you might experience forgetfulness at work or an inability to stay focused for prolonged periods. If you often feel distracted without a logical reason behind it, then you might benefit from trying out mind games.
Some mind games were designed specifically for the sole purpose of forming better habits, improving memory, and enhancing decision-making skills. While many might think that mind games depend only on short-term memory and cognitive skills, the truth is that some games also rely on engaging long-term memory.
Switching between different tasks effortlessly and handling finances are enough to fry anyone’s brain. This is why we have collected 6 games you can use to increase your alertness and mental sharpness.
Crosswords
This is one of the most beloved go-to brain exercises, especially when it comes to training cognitive skills. Some studies have proven that there is a direct link between taking up the habit of solving crosswords and delaying the onset of dementia. Other than giving your brain a boost and sharpening your mind, crosswords can also stimulate a very important hormone, dopamine, the “reward” neurotransmitter.
Completing a hard crossword puzzle would give you a sense of accomplishment that stimulates a certain part of the brain to produce more dopamine. This hormone doesn’t only give a sense of satisfaction, but it’s highly associated with regulating motivation, motor control, and other executive functions.
Word Finder Games
Truth is, word-finding games, such as Scramble, have more benefits than just sharpening your mind. For those who want to try playing them for the first time, it’s advised to use an online unscrambler until you get the hang of it. If you are unfamiliar with such self-help tools, you can read more info about them before you start.
Puzzles that depend on searching for words emphasize one of the most important key cognitive tools: pattern recognition. This means that your brain will be better at finding order and creating meaningful information from any given data. Other than this, Scramble and other word-finding games work great at expanding your vocabulary especially if you are trying to learn a second language.
Create Your Own Shopping Game
The majority of us resort to writing their shopping lists before heading out to the store to avoid forgetting any important item. However, this causes your brain to be more dependent on external methods. Next time your house is missing some essential items, try to make a shortlist with everything you need in a certain order and memorize it.
When you arrive at the store, try to remember the exact order and every item you have written on your list. You can even include more people in your game to make it more challenging by splitting the shopping list with your friend or a family member and compare your scores at the end.
Jigsaw Puzzles
Jigsaw puzzles depend on your brain’s ability to sort different colors and shapes to assemble a visual picture. This makes such puzzles the perfect way to engage your short-term memory. Puzzles with more pieces are more challenging because your brain has to work harder to reach the visual picture. If you tend to get bored quickly, then you can flip the puzzle pieces and depend only on shapes without relying on colors.
The Suitcase Game
If you are a team player, then coming up with team building game ideas for your team will not only give you the advantage of staying alert and sharp, but it will also help your team to work and cooperate without much effort. This roundtable memory game starts with the first person declaring a certain item they are packing in a suitcase. The next person should mention the previous item and add another. Players are out when one forgets to mention a previously added item to the suitcase.
Chess
Chess is one of the oldest, intellectually challenging, and interesting games that have been around for ages. Beginners usually rely on short-term memory to be able to analyze what’s going on the board and what their next move should be. Experienced and advanced players have to engage short and long-term memories to plot their next move and come up with strategies and memorize them.
Word games, memory games, and all sorts of mind-challenging games are the perfect activity for entrepreneurs. Not only during your free time, but you can also gather your team or staff for a memory teambuilding game to kill two birds with one stone. This way you can increase mental sharpness and improve your cognitive skills.
Interesting related article: “What is an Entrepreneur?”