Play chess online to exercise your brain
One of the most important parts in our body, which requires adequate care and attention, is the brain. The brain regulates the normal working of the body and aids in our activities.
According to scientists, the only part in the body that comes fully grown at the time of birth is the brain. The brain contains as much as 100 billion neurons or brain cells, and by the age of six, these neurons or brain cells creates as much as 1000 trillion interconnections between themselves. After the age of 15, these neurons start shedding if left unused.
You might have heard about a phrase – “if you do not use it, you lose it”. This phrase is apt for the brain. The more we put to use the brain, the more the benefits we can reap out of it.
Just as we do exercises such as walking, jogging, and running to keep our body healthy for a longer time, the brain also needs regular exercise. If we do not exercise the brain as frequently as we can, then we are bound to suffer at a later stage, when the condition of the brain starts deteriorating. The common diseases such as Alzheimer and Multiple Sclerosis affect the brain the most.
How do we exercise the mind? Psychologists have come up with various recommendations to keep the brain active at all time and engage it in some sort of activities. Some common activities recommended to exercise the mind include reading, writing, doing some number crunching or arithmetic, solving puzzles, Sudoku or crosswords. It is true that all these simple exercises do help the brain exercise but these cannot be done in a single activity. Each one is a separate activity in itself and needs to be done individually. One cannot read and write at the same time with 100% concentration or attention all the time. While these activities do exercise the brain, it is difficult to engage oneself in any of these activities for a fair amount of time, atleast in the initial stages, and might lead to boredom.
Is there any one exercise that can include all the above-mentioned activities or atleast most of them in a single action so that the brain is exercised well? Will that exercise provide excitement and fun to the person doing that? The one thing that can do all these things is the board game called Chess.
Said to have been played since the 6th Century AD, chess is the ideal solution to exercise the brain. It is this unique quality of the game and its association with the life is that makes Chess the King of Games or the Game of the Kings.
Basically, chess is a board game played between two players across a 8x8 square board having 64 squares of alternate colors. Both the players were provided with 16 pieces each and should comply with some basic rules of the game. The objective of the game is to corner the opponent's Chief piece – the King – and saying checkmate. It is the most easiest game to learn but, by far, the most challenging game to play and gain expertise. But there are immense benefits of playing and gaining expertise in this game as this game teaches invaluable lessons to the life.
Chess is a thinking game that challenges your mind the most. There is no room for chance or luck in this game and the onus lies on the player to make the correct moves at the correct time. If you make a mistake, then you are out of the game or lose control over the game. The game requires a person to think, think deeply, concentrate, analyze, visualize, plan, decide and execute a series of tactics and strategies aimed at winning the game. The interesting aspect is that all tactics and strategies will yield the desired results as the opponent also will look at the same position and will take steps to nullify the strategies. This calls for dynamic planning. All these activities – thinking, concentrating, analyzing, visualizing and dynamic planning, will provide the much-needed exercise to the mind, without your knowledge that your brain is at serious work.
Playing the game is fun and entertainment to you and at the same time a rigorous workout for the brain. What else you want to have your brain exercised without you being even aware of the same.
Now, this exercise to the brain can be done whenever you want to do. The means is playing chess online. You can use your desktop PC or laptop to simply visit the online chess site, choose a partner and start playing the game.
Then, what are you waiting for ? Go ahead and put your brain to a rigorous exercise right away.
Will playing chess help you grow the mind?
It is a universal fact that the game of Chess is a thinking game that stimulates the mind and exercises a person’s brain.
This unique characteristic or feature of the game is primarily responsible for its popularity and its acceptance all around the world, and will continue to be there as long as the humankind derives benefit from the game.
Every person is born with a brain that comes fully developed at the time of birth itself. In other words, the only part in the body that does not grow even as the child grows is the brain. According to scientists, the brain has as many as 100 billion cells or neurons in it, and by the age of six, these individual neuron cells make interconnections among themselves and as much as 1000 trillion such connections are created in the brain. How effectively you use these interconnections and apply it is what we refer to as the mind. Though often used synonymously, brain and mind are two different things and both are essential for the effective functioning.
Let us try to understand this by an example. We all know about the computer. When you say computer, you are referring to two aspects - the hardware and the software. Similarly, when you say brain – we refer to the hardware and the word “mind” is similar to the software. Without hardware, there is no work for the software, and software cannot be used without the required hardware.
Chess is a game that requires serious thinking on the part of the players. It is quite easy to learn the game of chess in a very short time. All you need to know about the game is the structure of the board, the pieces involved in the board, how to arrange the pieces, and how the pieces are moved in the board. You need to know the characteristics of the pieces and their capabilities. Then some basic rules related to castling, enpassant and such other things is all that you need to know. Any person can understand these simple things in less than a day and can start playing the game.
However, the challenge lies in playing the game and mastering the game. This is the challenge. The challenge gets more challenging when you have to decide the fate of your own game. In other words, there is no room for luck or gain. If you make a wrong move, then you have to face the consequences.
In other words, you need to think about each move before finally taking a decision to move the piece. You need to identify the strengths of your pieces and the opportunities that the board presents at any point of time, also safeguard your own pieces from threat and such related things.
All these activities of thinking, looking at the different squares, assessing the strengths, visualizing the moves and calculating the possible counter moves of the opponent – activates the connections of the neurons in the mind and put them to work. It is these connections of the neurons in the brain that make you think and act. Putting those interconnections to work every time you think results in exercising the neurons and their interconnections – is it not?
As such, when you put your interconnections in the brain to work and make them exercise, then it is obvious that these neurons or the interconnections get stronger. While the physical part of the brain does not grow any more, the mind – which refers to the interconnections between the neurons in the brain – gets exercised and strengthened. They indeed grow depending upon the amount of exercise you give to these interconnections.
A person’s mind definitely grows when put to work and exercise. Chess does that exactly and your neurons are put to work. But the interesting aspect is that in the game of chess, you do not know that you are actually exercising your mind or the brain. What you know is that you are having fun, excitement and relaxation while playing chess.
One more benefit of playing chess is that this constant and rigorous exercise to the brain and the mind makes you mentally stronger and you can totally avoid diseases such as Alzheimer or dementia.
You find sportsmen looking in great shape even after they have stopped playing their favorite game long ago. That is possible because of the strength of their physical body and the exercises they put in during their prime years. Similarly, a chess player, having put his brain and mind to rigorous exercises, can have a very strong mental capability and sharpness even in his old age.
This concludes that the game of chess definitely grows the mind, nurtures it and exercises it regularly.
Chess Links
Killer Chess Tips
- 12 chess tactics and how to use those to gain advantage – Part 10, 11 and 12
- Endgame Lessons From Game Twelve of the 2010
- 12 chess tactics and how to use those to gain advantage – Part 9
- 12 chess tactics and how to use those to gain advantage – Part 8
- 12 chess tactics and how to use those to gain advantage – Part 7