Have you ever considered starting up a weekly poker night? Kicking back and relaxing with a round of cards is one of the most enjoyable ways to spend an evening, but research shows that poker offers benefits that extend far beyond fun. Playing poker has the potential to strengthen your brain’s structure, improving cognitive health and emotional well-being along the way. If you’re interested in reaping these mental rewards, read on to discover how it works and how you can get started today.
Strengthening Brain Structure
If you want to fortify your mind, poker could be just the ticket. Studies show that playing strategically challenging card games like poker can increase grey matter in several areas of the brain, including the hippocampus, gyrus, and cingulate. This additional grey matter strengthens the brain’s overall structure and its ability to function properly. Participants in one study who played games regularly displayed an increased capacity for memory and the ability to learn and retain information.
If you want to hop on the brain-building bandwagon, you can incorporate poker into your life easily enough. Consider joining a poker club in your city or getting the gang together for a weekly poker tournament in your home. Of course, you don’t necessarily have to host a game night in order to reap the cognitive rewards of poker.
If you’re too busy for all that planning, playing cards online could be your best bet—but if you’re going this route, remember to choose your website wisely. The best online poker sites offer a wide range of buy-ins, different poker variants, and solid software to ensure a seamless gaming experience. All the options available will give you true flexibility with your experience, allowing you to branch out into other styles of play and keep your brain sharp as a tack.
Preventing Cognitive Decline
Along with increased grey matter comes other benefits. Because poker helps the brain keep its structure as it ages, the game can aid in preventing cognitive decline in older adults. If you stick to a regular poker regimen, it could help slow the progress of degenerative neural diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia. And when you use poker in conjunction with technology that can help detect Alzheimer’s early on, you’ve got a real recipe for health success.
We already know that games like chess and sudoku help keep mental capacities sharp. However, poker provides a much more accessible and attainable way to flex those mental muscles, as it is simpler to learn and easier to play. Users can partake in games in a relaxed social setting, building up more advanced strategies over time.
Arguably, the entertainment factor of card games holds more mass appeal than that of other pursuits that have the same cognitive effects. This makes poker a more optimal choice for brain-building, as everyone is more likely to stick with a health regimen they actually enjoy.
Improving Emotional Stability
Not only does poker improve cognitive health, but it’s also been shown to correlate positively with good emotional regulation. Studies find that experienced poker players are more emotionally stable than inexperienced ones, possessing the ability to think strategically and perform tasks calmly under pressure.
While there may be several reasons for this, the social aspects of poker likely contribute most of all. Advanced players know they must not give themselves away at the table emotionally, lest opponents read their tells and intuit information about the cards they hold. This capacity for emotional stability provides a valuable tool for everyday life, helping to improve the general social experience so essential to humankind.
Ready to get your game on? The sooner you get started, the better. Poker has many brain benefits, from increasing grey matter to improving emotional regulation and preventing cognitive decline. If you want to reap the rewards of this popular card game, break out the deck or just log on to the computer. Rest assured, your brain will thank you later.