7 Great Reasons to Play Board Games

If you’re Clue-less about what to do for your next family night or need a break from screens, you might want to consider playing a board game. Although playing board games sounds like a Trivial Pursuit, it turns out that board games can provide a number of social, cognitive, and emotional benefits, according to HealthFitnessRevolution. They are a Risk–free way to develop patience, strategy, flexibility and social skills that can improve your life. Here are seven benefits to playing board games.

Fun to Play
Games are a fun way to spend time. Doing things that are enjoyable, get people feeling happy and laughing, and involve having fun with others, can boost your mood and is even associated with physical health benefits, like lowered blood pressure. Everyone needs a little fun in their lives and playing board games can provide it.

Can Help Your Brain 
Many board games require problem solving and strategy. Players need to plan out their own moves in advance and predict what moves other players will make. This requires focus, memory, and strategic thinking, all of which are cognitive skills that are useful in real life as well as in board games. 

Even games that are purely or mostly luck still can deliver cognitive benefits. These games force players to be flexible in adapting to conditions on the board. Boosting flexibility can help people face changes and challenges in life. According to HealthFitness Revolution, fast-paced games can also improve participants’ response times.

Boosts Creativity
According to a blog on Bandpass, some games, like Dungeons and Dragons and other role playing games, require participants to come up with a backstory. Other games require storytelling, picture drawing (like Pictionary), coming up with creative words and phrases, or making funny or witty connections (like Apples to Apples). These games promote and develop creativity. 

Helps Build Social Skills 
Board gaming can boost relationships by giving people the opportunity to spend time with others, according to HealthFitness Revolution. Board games allow a non-threatening and fun forum for communication and self-expression in a social context. Games that have cooperative elements force participants to talk with each other, exercise their leadership skills, and work together. Playing board games can be a family activity, promoting strong family bonds.

Helps People With Disabilities
Many board games require fine motor skills to spin dice, move pieces, and hold cards.  These games can be used in the context of therapy to help individuals with disabilities and those recovering from accidents to boost their fine motor skills.

A University of Plymouth study, published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, explored how people on the autism spectrum interacted with board games. The study consisted of three parts. In the first part, 1,600 people who play board games regularly were surveyed. It turned out that 7 percent of these individuals had an autism diagnosis, compared with only 1 percent of the general public that has an autism diagnosis. This suggests that neurodivergent people may be more drawn to playing games.

The researchers wanted to find out why that might be the case. They interviewed 13 of the study participants, choosing those who had an autism diagnosis, and asked them about their relationship with gaming.  According to the survey, many participants shared that board games allowed them to build community, socialize, build relationships, and achieve independence. 

Boosts Self Esteem
Playing board games builds self-esteem in a number of ways,  according to Bandpass. The most obvious is via the inherently competitive nature of many board games. It makes one feel good about themselves when they win, score, or earn points. 

Besides, games force participants to make decisions, take risks, and act independently in a way that has no real-world consequences. Choosing what house to buy in real life may change the course of your life, but choosing whether or not to buy Park Place on the Monopoly board is unlikely to. In this way, board games empower people to grow their confidence in decision making and risk taking.

Good for All Ages
Board games benefit people of all ages, from early childhood to late adulthood. Child psychologist Silvia Arcas tells El Pais that children can benefit from playing games. 

“They stimulate attention, memory, logical reasoning, the association of ideas, the establishment of hypotheses, the capacity for analysis, spatio-temporal processing, comprehension and linguistic expression,” Arcas explains.

Board games can also teach children how to act in a social context. “They offer the opportunity to establish agreements on the rules to be respected, learn to cooperate based on a common objective, develop skills for healthy competition and to manage conflicts,” explains Arcas. “They also allow you to train how you manage frustration, for example, when you lose, and to channel difficult-to-manage emotions, such as anger.”

But games aren’t just for children. An AARP survey asked 2,249 older adults, ages 50 and up, about their board game habits. The study found that most older adults feel that playing board games provides them with social benefits. Many of those surveyed who were grandparents reported connecting to grandchildren through board games as well.