7 of the Most Exciting Online Brain Games to Try For Fun

Everyone knows that to keep your body fit, you must do a certain amount of exercise. You might like to go dancing a few times a week, or you might run after work or cycle to work, lift weights or do pilates: it doesn’t matter as long as you’re getting exercise. Mental fitness is just as vital as physical fitness if you want to be able to perform well at work and, if you want to absorb all the information laid out for you in university classes, or if you want to understand the strategies used in gambling. Metal fitness is important to any activity that you undertake using your brain or mind: which is pretty much all of them.

Staying mentally fit sounds like a lot of work. After all, many of us use our brains at work or at school all day, setting our minds to the tasks laid out before us and finding practical or sometimes creative solutions for problems that might arise. Do we really have to put more work in during our spare time? Well, let’s take a step back and reframe the idea of mental fitness. What if we told you that mental fitness could be achieved and maintained by playing games? Well, we’re telling you just that! Playing certain games can not only provide a relaxing after-hours hobby but also keep your brain active and working out in all the right ways. Brain fitness doesn’t have to be work if you know which games to play! We have a list of our seven favorite brain games to get you started. Read on for the good stuff!

1. Sudoku

Our first pick is hardly an unknown entity. Sudoku is a math game that took the world by storm. We know that “math” and “game” don’t typically appear in the same place, but they’re best of friends in this case. This game works your short-term memory muscles as you follow number trails and calculate the consequences. You can play Sudoku on paper or online, and don’t let the fact that it’s math-based scare you off! The game will test you on different levels. Try Sudoku.fm to test your skills.

2. Crosswords

Crosswords are the original brain games, working on your language center skills and your creative thinking. There are probably hundreds of thousands of places to do a crossword, from the morning paper to an overwhelming supply of sites and apps that offer you new daily challenges. Crosswords are loads of fun to play on your own on a daily basis or in two teams on family holidays.

3. Elevate

Elevate is a great brain training option for youngsters, since the games in the app all have a very educational feel. The games center around reading skills, writing, language, and math skills. Fortunately, you can customize these games to focus on the areas where you feel it’s most needed. The app tracks your progress to see where you are improving and which areas could still use a little more work. This is a helpful tool to have on hand if you feel that your youngsters could use a little extra-mural learning.

4. Happy Neuron

Happy Neuron, aside from having the cutest name in game history, has five main categories: you can train your brain’s language center, executive functions, memory, attention span, language abilities, and visual or spatial understanding. Like Elevate, this app allows you to track your progress. Not only are the games fun, but their scientific approach offers a unique opportunity to learn and play at the same time.

5. Wordle

There is no such thing as too many word games! The New York Times gave us the gift that keeps on giving, in the form of Wordle, and we are all obsessed. Earlier this year, the new game exploded onto the internet and garnered an enormous fan base within days of its release. The game is not complicated: players are given six shots at guessing a five-letter word. These challenges help you work on your language and problem-solving skills at the same time.

6. Lumosity

This is one of the best-known brain training games of all brain training games in existence. Lumosity offers the option to subscribe for unlimited access or to get three free games every day, which is great for the commitment-phobes among us! The games, tests and activities offered on the app are backed up by copious scientific research, and the sister app, Lumosity Mind, offers meditations to wind down after a mental workout.

7. Peak

If you feel like you need to start working on your memory, focus, and problem-solving skills, then Peak is the way to go. Peak is unique in that it offers users a chance to see how they perform compared to others. If you’re the competitive sort, this might be the right brain training game for you. If this doesn’t sound like it’s up your alley, you can ignore everyone else’s scores and get on with the games that you’re most excited to play.

Bonus – Freecell

Freecell is a classic solitaire card game that’s easy to play but challenging to win. The game is played with a standard deck of 52 cards, which are dealt into eight columns on the tableau. The goal of the game is to move all the cards to the foundation piles in the upper-right corner of the screen in ascending order, separated by suit. To do this, you can move cards between columns on the tableau, but you can only move one card at a time, except when moving a sequence of cards of alternating colors. You can also use the four free cells to temporarily store cards and strategically create longer sequences. The game is won when all 52 cards are successfully moved to the foundation piles, but, be careful: the game is lost if you can’t make any more moves. Try playing FreeCell Solitaire here.

Wrap Up

With these apps, websites, and games at your fingertips, you have no excuse, so start training your brain right now! While it might not seem like a priority while we are in our younger days, we should all remember that our brains and minds will be with us for the rest of our lives, and they deserve to be looked after as well!