Exercising your mind is as important as exercising your muscles. So, why not download one or all of these brain fitness apps to your device and add brain games to your daily health routine?
7 Little Words
7 Little Words is a fun and challenging word game designed to test your vocabulary and general knowledge about famous people, places, history and popular culture. There’s no time limit or competitiveness, and all you have to do is unscramble the tiles to solve the word.
Why it’s great
Similar to Scrabble, 7 Little Words helps to increase visual word-recognition abilities, work through variable situations and improve word recognition in the adult mind.
Available as a free download on iPhone and Android.
Lumosity
Used by over 60 million people worldwide, Lumosity is a workout for your brain. It gives you a daily training program of different brain games to challenge your memory, attention, problem solving, processing speed or flexibility of thinking. The mini games are fun, making it a workout that you’ll look forward to doing every day.
Why it’s great
All over the world, scientists have used Lumosity games when studying neuroplasticity. The app can help you to keep information in your head, recall sequences of objects and movements, associate names with faces, and remember patterns and locations.
Available as a free download on iPhone and Android.
2048
2048 is a fun and addictive puzzle game that works when you swipe to move the tiles across, up and down the board. Each time you swipe, a new tile is added to the board. When two tiles with the same number touch, they merge into one and the number doubles. The aim is to reach the 2048 tile without the board filling up with tiles.
Why it’s great
Since the app relies on strategy, it aids your brain by helping it to recognise patterns, get used to thinking ahead and exercise logic for problem solving.
Available as a free download on iPhone and Android.
Don’t Tap the White Tile
From the same creators of 2048, White Tile is another enjoyable and highly addictive game that will test how your reflexes and your brain work together. You are presented with a scrolling white grid and a series of black squares. The object of the game is to tap the black squares without hitting the white ones.
Why it’s great
There are no special skills needed to play this game, but it will certainly put your brain’s reflex ability to the test. Our capacity to think and act quickly always needs fine-tuning, and this app is perfect for dusting off the cobwebs upstairs.
Available as a free download on iPhone.
A Year of Riddles
A Year of Riddles gives you a new riddle to solve every day. The riddles are a mix of difficulty, from middle to hard. You are given points for each riddle you solve, and these can be used to ‘pay’ for hints if you need help in solving the next riddle.
Why it’s great
Riddles work the brain by forcing you to concentrate on small details and exercise your problem-solving abilities. Since riddles use abstract analogies, they also exercise your imagination and help you to think laterally instead of literally.
