5 Contributions of Scrabble to Cognitive Health
You do not have to adhere to strict, tasteless diets or hire pricey professionals to enhance the effectiveness of your intellect. Try something else that will not cost as much or be as challenging to follow. How about playing a game of Scrabble!
Since its creation eight decades ago, Scrabble seems to have been a beloved board game for both the youthful and elderly, and everybody else. This straightforward but tricky board game for two to four players revolves around words and simply has some squares and characters.
Similar to a crossword puzzle, each player is assigned 7 alphabets at a time to form words and put them in the right spaces on the grid. Let’s explore the cognitive advantages that Scrabble can provide.
1. Stimulation of Different Brain Areas
Many of us believe that games that engage specific brain regions will improve our intellectual ability. Normally, that would be true but not with scrabble.
Researchers discovered in a 2015 neural correlation study that scrabble professionals used a different part of the brain compared to those with minimal scrabble experience when making lexical choices. Professional players used brain areas related to the memory system and visual acuity rather than those typically linked to content retrieval in visual phonemic awareness when performing the lexical decision task (LDT).
This suggests that Scrabble could be advantageous for those who suffer from neurodegenerative diseases that target a specific area of the brain. It is not a treatment, but it can at least halt the progression of neurological problems.
2. Approaches and Techniques
Although words are the primary focus of Scrabble, there also exists an additional strategic component. The right characters must be placed strategically to collect significant two and three-word bonuses.
Simply making a big word is not enough. Concentrating on the possibilities you give your adversary is much more crucial. Sometimes a brilliant performance is not worth it as it would give your rivals a chance to score even more points.
Even though Scrabble is a word-focused game, competitors do not always need to understand the meaning of new terms they come up with to get points, just recognizing that they prevail is enough. Higher point vocabulary is difficult to find, especially if they are unfamiliar.
However, sometimes it is hard to remember all the words. For this reason, there are cheat guides that can teach participants unfamiliar words, some of which are typically lengthier than 3 and 4-letter words and have a higher value.
3. Improved Focus
The world is running swiftly these days, making it challenging to concentrate. Our ability to focus has significantly decreased. We are accustomed to multitasking and swift executive functions.
Again, that ability can be helpful, but it becomes more difficult when trying to focus for extended periods. Regardless of what you are doing say, running, doing the housework, or tidying your bedroom, you have an ingrained urge to look at your phone.
It is like an addiction that demands to be satisfied. You can never guess when there could be a sale on those stockings you have been dying to get your hands on, or perhaps your mother has just texted to say she will be dropping by unexpectedly.
You can try engaging in more tasks that need sustained concentration to offset those efforts. It could be difficult at first, but it will help you succeed in several aspects of life that demand strong concentration.
4. Improved Memory
You have probably heard about all the things you ought to be doing to raise your IQ, get smarter, or become as swift as a bullet. The majority of those techniques are not very useful, however, one has been shown to considerably raise cognitive function.
Exercising your memory increases your cognitive capabilities, which makes your mind more capable of handling difficult activities. Learning vocabulary is one benefit of playing Scrabble, but the activity also has an immediate influence on how well your brain functions.
5. Better Social Interactions
Although most of us do not perceive social interaction as being particularly good for cognitive functioning, it is high on the list of strategies to maintain mental acuity. It challenges us to weigh our viewpoints against those of others and enables us to perceive things differently.
Playing frequently with your buddies can help you feel less stressed. It is essential since sustained stress has a detrimental effect on our cognitive function and may result in permanent brain alterations. It means that while playing Scrabble is fun, who you compete with is equally important; the more varied the company, the better.
Final Thoughts
It needs not to be tiresome to look after your brain. Even while the best medicine should not necessarily taste terrible, if our presumption is incorrect, we tend to be more skeptical of its effects. Enjoying Scrabble with mates regularly may be not only entertaining but also a wonderful way to keep your skills sharp.
