5 Card Games To Sharpen Your Mind While Having Fun

We previously discussed the importance of helping our beloved senior citizens keep their minds sharp through various activities. One of the activities we talked about was playing games.

Truth be told, we could all benefit from an early leg-up in making sure we stay on top of our game – pun intended! In this article, we're taking a look at card games that are not only fun to play but also help improve our cognition and keep our brains healthy:

BRIDGE

Bridge is typically played with four players, where they form partnerships with the player seated across from them. The goal of Bridge is to gain points by making a bid to defeat the opposing partnership's bid. A bid, which is made up of a number and a suit, aims to relay information about the advantages and disadvantages of their hand to their partner.

Whoever has the most points wins. The intellectual and social stimulation from this game sharpens your mind. It develops reasoning, patience, and concentration skills.

In addition to the mental benefits of playing this game, a study from the University of California, Berkeley, published in 2000, also found out that the area of the brain activated while playing Bridge also stimulates the immune system.

POKER

Poker is a card game where participants compete to have the best hand in order to win the pot. Players may bluff to appear to have a strong hand, convincing their opponents to fold, or they may wager in the hopes of having a better hand. 

A lot of awareness and focus is required to get better at poker. It also requires you to control your emotions and make split-second decision-making that increases your cognitive capacity, therefore keeping you mentally healthy.

Playing poker consistently is like doing push-ups for your brain. It can help rewire your brain and create new neural pathways – making it great at reducing your chances of developing brain-related diseases like Alzheimer's by over 50 percent.

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SOLITAIRE

The objective of the card game Solitaire is to arrange the cards into four piles, one for each suit, in ascending order. When moving your cards, you must learn how and when to take risks because you cannot see all the cards simultaneously. This forces you to consider your options and postpone your decision until you have a better card.

As you learn from prior mistakes to be able to boost your chances of winning, it also helps to strengthen your memory. Since Solitaire is a game of strategy, it stimulates your mind and forces you to make decisions that may affect your upcoming movements.

BLACKJACK

The aim of the game is to get a hand as close to 21 as possible without going over it. It appears simple, but there's more to it than it seems. Players must understand how each card impacts their hand and the dealer's, so the game requires the use of short-term memory.

Exercising the part of the brain in charge of short-term memory is important in the fight against senility, as studies show that individuals who keep busy with activities that require serious thought and concentration seem to age slower. These individuals tend to retain their mental capabilities better than those who just spend their time around the house or spend their time going fishing.

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GIN RUMMY

This game is typically played with a single 52-card deck. However, Gin Rummy is best played using two decks of cards so the opponent can shuffle the other deck while one player deals with the cards. In this game, each opponent starts with a hand of ten cards. Each player draws a card from the top of the deck or the discard pile and then discards a card over ten.

The goal is to create as many runs (consisting of 3 or more cards in a row of the same suit) and sets (3 or 4 of the same ranking card) that will out-score your opponent. This turn-based game requires each player to be constantly watching out for which cards appear on the discard pile and adjust their strategy accordingly. Gin Rummy develops concentration and teaches your brain to adapt quickly.

Last Words

As people get older, we stop using some regions of our brains. These areas become prone to degeneration, therefore, making the areas weaker, ultimately leading to faster senility. Luckily, there are a few things one can do to help slow down this inevitable process and keep the brain strong well into the latter years of one's life.

The key to strengthening your mind and keeping your brain healthy is consistency. Consistent mental stimulation, like playing these card games, helps the brain build new neural paths works and strengthen existing ones. Which of these card games do you think you can play consistently?