Should You Make Room For More Word Games In Your Life?
Could it be that playing a few word games here and there is the healthiest form of gaming on planet earth?
Well, it would be a hard thing to quantify, but there is a lot of evidence out there that regularly playing word games can have benefits for your brain.
That’s why a lot of people like to turn to them on a 5 minute coffee break or when they’re sitting on the bus or subway on the way to work. Opening up a word puzzle app is a simple bit of fun, first of all, but a lot of people tend to feel themselves getting sharper through playing them as well.
Word Games are Pretty Easy to Access
That’s the first thing about them that makes them quite good for mental health. If you’re in need of a quick entertainment fix during an otherwise very boring period, you won’t need to have a console or gaming PC around or a couple of spare hours to make use of them.
Most word games can be downloaded straight to your phone or simply accessed via an internet browser, and that just takes a few seconds to load up.
The learning curve involved in a word game is pretty accessible too. There are very few rule intricacies to get to grips with when filling out a crossword puzzle. Once you know how to do them, you know how to do them.
There’s a Chance You Could Improve Your Literacy Skills
Using the unscramble website is pretty handy when you’re on your first few rounds of a game like Scrabble, but there might come a point where you’re finding you need to use it less and less.
After all, some regular word puzzles have given a small yet consistent boost to your memory word bank, and you’re getting used to the intricacies of the spelling conventions in the English language.
Both things make up the wider literacy skills we should all possess, and you didn’t even know your morning commute word game ritual was sharpening them.
They Get You Thinking
Word games aren’t the kind of game you can go into without some active thought. If you’re going to solve a puzzle, come up with the longest word possible from a random selection of letters, or work out the answer that fits in the space provided, you need to focus on what you’re doing.
And while there’s some debate out there over whether or not we’re actually losing our attention spans, if you’re keen to put yours back on track, a game like this can deliver.
After all, you’re secretly training yourself to focus on just the one thing at once. While your mind may wander off here and there, if the app uses a time limit to keep your head in the game, you’ll be able to bring yourself back to task in good time.
You Could Even Develop Your Memory Recall
Ever feel like you’ve got a terrible memory? Most people do at some point or another. But if you’re someone who finds it a bit difficult to trust your own brain, as you’re regularly having to rush things together at the last minute, a few rounds of a word game might be a fun way to help yourself out.
Of course, no word game out there can actively turn a bad memory into a good one. However, the more you play games that require you to think on learning you’ve already required, the more you’re going to flex the neural pathways between what’s come before and where you are now.
Do Word Games Deserve More Space in Your Life?
If you’re keen to pick up a new game or two when you’re otherwise unoccupied, maybe word games should be the genre you reach for? Indeed, if you’re not needing to use the time doing anything else, you could turn your hand to playing a few more of them.
Word games tend to be puzzle based, and they’re easy to play for all ages and skill groups. You don’t need to go into them with a realm of knowledge already behind you; there’s no lore to get to grips with and very few challenging mechanics.
All you need is the language you use every day already. At its core, that’s what makes word games quite beneficial for your cognitive abilities too. You already possess the skills the game requires – now they’re just helping you build on them.
