Can’t Hurt, May Help: Are Your Brain Games Helping Your Cognition?
Can’t Hurt, May Help: Are Your Brain Games Helping Your Cognition?
January 1, 2025
There’s no dispute at this point that engaging your mind and challenging your brain are important activities to keep your cognition and memory sharp and functioning into your later years. As one expert succinctly states, “If something is mentally challenging, chances are that’s probably pretty good for your brain.” There’s lots of evidence that “cognitively stimulating activities”- which might include puzzles, board games, reading or some other mentally engaging hobby- can help ward off cognitive decline. But whether any specific game, done repeatedly, can strengthen your mind or improve your cognition has not yet been verified by randomized controlled scientific studies. So while there’s probably no downside to playing something advertised as a “brain game,” spending your precious money on a technologically expensive game or app that may not have verified results seems foolish.
In a recent article in The Conversation, 2 cognitive neuroscientists underscore this point in a post entitled, “Brain Training Games Remain Unproven, But Research Shows What Sorts Of Activities Do Benefit Cognitive Functioning.” According to these scientists, claims that specific games can help prevent dementia have mixed evidence at best. Rather, the key is to challenge your brain to engage in something effortful, which could be any type of game or mental activity that forces you to get out of your comfort zone and into an unfamiliar and challenging arena. Repeating the same game over and over is unlikely to sustain or improve your cognitive functioning but engaging in a stimulating activity that makes you actively think and use your brain is key, whether it’s a video game, board game, new language, or new hobby. As experts from UCLA have stated, “Any activity that requires attention, focus, and engagement will challenge the brain,” and therefore support brain health. They suggest a range of possible ways to support your brain, including crossword puzzles, number puzzles, or 3-dimensional video games (such as Super Mario or Angry Birds). The neuroscientists writing in The Conversation even suggest that if you are a numbers person, then try the word-driven crossword puzzles and if you’re a “word” person, then try a numbers puzzle, such as Sudoku- just to provide further challenge to your aging brain!
There’s another way, however, that technology can support cognitive health, outside of game playing, especially if you begin to find yourself a bit more forgetful. In addition to using an activity to challenge your brain, researchers are finding that using technology as a “workaround” for cognitive weakness is also a viable option. In a new study published by The American Psychological Association, researchers documented the value of smartphone reminders as a way to effectively shore up your prospective memory (your ability to remember to do things in the future). According to this study, given that prospective memory tends to decline as we get older, using tech-driven reminders is a useful way to support your memory and independence. In essence, you can use available technology not to just support your cognition but to compensate for lapses by using technology-driven aids. This is an important example of adaptation as you age. To read more about this use of technology to adapt, read here.
Finally, speaking of adaptation, agebuzz Guest Blogger Dr. Katherine Schneider, who blogs about aging and disability, has her own list of “brain games” that she enjoys. These games are for those of you who have low or no vision or rely on Alexa or screen reading devices. Her list includes the following brain games available on Alexa: (To get the complete list, please feel free to reach out to Dr. Schneider (her email is [email protected]) or at [email protected].
- Anagram arena
- Are you smarter than a fifth grader?
- Audio rebus
- Bible quiz
- Bird song (say game after it opens)
- Brain teaser
- Broken Sequence
- Categories game
- Crazy palindromes
- Curiosity cabinet
- Daily question
- Difficult word quiz
- Fact or fib
- Feel the pressure