There is a stereotype among children and teenagers that math is boring, so they are reluctant to take this subject and often perceive it as punishment. But in reality, the better a person’s mathematical and analytical abilities are developed, the bigger the job market for a person in the future.
After all, in fact, there are no exclusively humanitarian and technical professions – in most cases this is a symbiosis, so you often have to turn to math fun games to instill a love for numbers.
How Math Games Prevent Diseases
Doing math games often can help to prevent dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. The mental work helps your brain in several ways:
- When you solve puzzles or add numbers quickly, your brain works a lot, and this helps new brain parts to grow while also making old parts strong, which makes the brain more flexible and resistant to changes as you get older.
- Math games train critical thinking and improve memory and concentration, so they teach us to think about information and find patterns and make good decisions, which is a useful skill to have.
- The skills you learn from these games are also very helpful in our daily life, for example, when we plan a budget or when we want to understand risks.
Technology Helping Math
Today’s technologies have changed how we learn math, because they have made it more interactive and easy to use.
- Game apps and online platforms have turned dry theory into fun quests and puzzles, because the game elements like rewards and levels and competing with other people make the process of learning exciting.
- Artificial intelligence can analyze what a person does and can change the difficulty of the tasks for each person, so that it is possible to develop weak points effectively and keep the person interested.
- Virtual and augmented reality create real-like places where abstract math ideas like geometry or algebra become easy to see and touch.
Math in Daily Life
Many of us do not know how much math is in our daily lives, because from simple discounts in a store to understanding statistics in the news, math skills are at the base of many of our decisions.
Math games help us not only to practice these skills, but also to see how we can use them, for example, sorting data and logical thinking which develop in games can help directly with work or with a home budget.
Psychological Aspects: from Fear to Interest
The fear of math often comes from school, when the subject feels difficult, demanding, and boring, but math games break this idea by making learning an exciting adventure.
They take away the pressure of getting good grades and replace it with the pleasure of solving puzzles, and this helps a person to have a good feeling about the subject, and also reduces worry and makes a person feel more confident.
As a result, a person begins to think of math not as a punishment but as a fun puzzle that he or she wants to solve.
Using Games for Prevention
Here is a full guide on how to use math games to stay healthy:
- Choose games with different levels of difficulty. You can begin with easy games that you like, and then you can slowly make them harder so that your brain gets new work to do. For example, you can begin with easy Sudoku and later move to harder puzzles.
- Make games a part of your daily routine. To get results, you need to do them often, so you should find 15-20 minutes every day to solve puzzles. This can be in an app, on a board game, or just by solving simple math problems on paper.
- Involve your friends and family. Playing games with others makes the process more fun and gives you more motivation, and you can have a competition or just help each other to solve the problems.
- Watch your progress. Many apps and online places let you see your progress, and this helps you to see how you are getting better and keeps you interested.
Weekly Schedule Example
To make it easier for you to plan your time, we have made a schedule for a week, where each day is for different skills.
| Day of the week | Focus of the activity |
| Monday | Logic. Sudoku, number crosswords |
| Tuesday | Speed. Games like “2048,” apps for speed math |
| Wednesday | Strategy. Chess or board games with planning, for example “Settlers of Catan” |
| Thursday | Sorting and comparing. Games where you need to put numbers or expressions in the right order |
| Friday | Visual puzzles. Games for matching and finding patterns |
| Saturday | Social activities. A family board game that needs you to solve problems together |
| Sunday | Creative thinking. Tasks from the “Mind Elevate” or difficult puzzles that need a new way of thinking |
Games for Different Age Groups
The effect of games depends on your age.
- For young children, math games are a way to develop basic counting skills and also to learn about shapes and logic.
- For teenagers, games can be a tool to develop critical thinking skills which are needed to solve difficult problems.
- For adults and older people, games help to keep the brain flexible and fight the loss of memory that comes with age.
| Game Name | Genre | Short Description |
| Sudoku | Logic puzzle | A classic game where you must fill a grid with numbers from 1 to 9, using some rules |
| Number Crosswords | Number puzzle | It is like normal crosswords, but you have to write numbers instead of words |
| 2048 | Mobile game | The goal is to get the number 2048 by joining tiles that have the same number |
| Chess | Strategy board game | It trains strategic thinking, planning, and memory |
| Board Games | Intelligent games | “Settlers of Catan,” “Carcassonne,” “Pandemic” — these games need you to plan and use strategic thinking |
| Lumosity | Brain training app | It has many small games that want to improve memory, attention, speed of thinking, and brain flexibility |
| Mensa-club | High IQ tasks | Solving tasks that need you to think in a new way |
| Rocket Order | Speed comparison game | You must compare equations and put them from the biggest result to the smallest result |
| Space Order | Sorting game | You have to put the answers in a decreasing order and remember that these can be whole numbers, percentages, or object numbers |
| Crystal Bonds | Matching game | You must match equations with their right answers to make shiny chains |
In the end, math games are not only a way to prevent illnesses and be healthy, but also a great way to spend time well.
You should not let old ideas stop you from finding this fun world.