Why are Rubik's cubes a mental challenge?
Answers
Mental Benefits of solving a Rubik’s cube
A Rubik’s cube is a blessing for your brain as well, keeping aside the physical advantages of solving a cube. Let’s go further to learn the effects of cubing on your brain.
1. Increase in Focus and Attention
Solving a cube helps you to develop a phenomenal focus on things. You require more and more focus to solve a cube and as much as you indulge with the cube. As you may already know, cubing activates brain cells which help you build a strong focus on things.
2.Improved Memory Retention
While you are solving the cube, you are practicing and dealing with algorithms. This will help you a lot to improve and make your memory, specifically muscle memory strong. Muscle memory is that part of the brain which involves activities like typing, riding a bike, and even playing a piano.
3. Higher Patience Levels
Solving a Rubik’s cube, even with the easiest algorithms, is definitely not an easy task for beginners. So as you move ahead while being patient and perseverant, you will eventually solve the cube. This not only will give you a sense of joy and satisfaction but make your level of patience rise. Once you get over with easy algorithms, you will require more complex algorithms to solve the cube further. This will require more amount of patience, and with practice, you will experience a much-risen patience level in you.
4. Improving problem-solving skills
Life is about problems and to solve them you need to be skillful in problem-solving. Once you are stuck on a move on the cube, you try to find various possible moves to apply to solve the cube. This is how cubing improves your problem-solving skills and helps you to handle your problems in a much more efficient way.
5. Sharp and Active Mind
This is one of the biggest advantages of cubing, that it keeps your mind active and increases your attentiveness. Solving a cube maintains the shape of the cognitive (intellectual) functions of your brain, i.e making your brain sharper.
6. Improvement in Brain’s Cognitive Skills
Solving the cube on a regular basis specifically improves the brain’s cognitive mapping skills as the brain cells are kept activated. Rubik’s Cube is considered to be a configuration problem so when you use the cube on a regular basis, your mapping and configuration skills get advanced.
7. Faster Thinking and Processing speed
When you solve a Rubik’s cube regularly, the processing speed of your brain gets boosted up. When you are trying to speed-cube, you are trying your best to solve it as fast as you can, and with this approach on a regular basis, gradually your brain’s processing speed will get improved.
8. The tendency of breaking Multiple tasks into easy steps
No one wants their work to be complex but in a systematic, organized, and easy way. If you have a habit of cubing on a regular basis, you are more likely to have the tendency to break your various tasks into simplified and easy steps.
9. Stress Buster and Relaxed Mind
Rubik’s cube is also used as a stress buster. Various studies have found that solving a Rubik’s cube when you are stressed, cools your brain down and makes you feel better