Top Health Benefits of Playing Chess


Chess is a two-player strategy board game played on a checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an 8×8 grid. The game is played by millions of people worldwide. Chess is believed to be derived from the Indian game chaturanga sometime before the 7th century. Chaturanga is also the likely ancestor of the Eastern strategy games xiangqi (Chinese chess), janggi (Korean chess), and shogi (Japanese chess). Chess reached Europe by the 9th century, due to the Umayyad conquest of Hispania. The pieces assumed their current powers in Spain in the late 15th century; the modern rules were standardized in the 19th century.

Top Health Benefits of Playing Chess – 10 Surprising Benefits

Often known as a game for the intellectually gifted, chess is one of the best sports to exercise the brain. While Chess Grandmaster Bobby Fischer made it popular in the 1950s and 1960s, the game is still widely played around the world today among participants of all ages, from the young to the elderly. The game of chess might not help you build your biceps or tone your abs, but your lifelong mental health can certainly benefit from it. Here are the Top 10 from Health Fitness Revolution and author of the book ReSYNC Your Life Samir Becic:

Promotes brain growth

Games like chess that challenge the brain actually stimulate the growth of dendrites, the bodies that send out signals from the brain’s neuron cells. With more dendrites, neural communication within the brain improves and becomes faster. Think of your brain like a computer processor. The tree-like branches of dendrites fire signals that communicate to other neurons, which makes that computer processor operate at a fast, optimal state. Interaction with people in challenging activities also fuels dendrite growth, and chess is a perfect example.

It exercises both sides of the brain

A German study indicated that when chess players were asked to identify chess positions and geometric shapes, both the left and right hemispheres of the brain became highly active. Their reaction times to the simple shapes were the same, but the experts were using both sides of their brains to more quickly respond to the chess position questions.

Raises your IQ

Do smart people play chess, or does chess make people smart? At least one scientific study has shown that playing the game can actually raise a person’s IQ. A study of 4,000 Venezuelan students produced significant rises in the IQ scores of both boys and girls after four months of chess instruction. So grab a chess board and improve your IQ!

Helps prevent Alzheimer’s

As we age, it becomes increasingly important to give the brain a workout, just as you would every other major muscle group, in order to keep it healthy and fit. A recent study featured in The New England Journal of Medicine found that people over 75 who engage in brain-games like chess are less likely to develop dementia than their non-board-game-playing peers. The saying “use it or lose it” certainly applies here, as a sedentary brain can decrease brain power. All the more reason to play chess before you turn 75.

Sparks your creativity

Playing chess helps unleash your originality, since it activates the right side of the brain, the side responsible for creativity. One four-year study had students from grades 7 to 9 play chess, use computers, or do other activities once a week for 32 weeks to see which activity fostered the most growth in creative thinking. The chess group scored higher in all measures of creativity, with originality being their biggest area of gain.

Increases problem-solving skills

A chess match requires fast thinking and problem-solving on the fly because your opponent is constantly changing the parameters. A 1992 study conducted on 450 fifth-grade students in New Brunswick indicated that those who learned to play chess scored significantly higher on standardized tests compared to those who did not play chess.

Teaches planning and foresight

One of the last parts of the brain to develop during adolescence is the prefrontal cortex, the area responsible for judgment, planning and self-control. Because playing chess requires strategic and critical thinking, it helps promote prefrontal cortex development and helps teenagers make better decisions in all areas of life, perhaps keeping them from making an irresponsible, risky choice.

Improves reading skills

In an oft-cited 1991 study, Dr. Stuart Margulies studied the reading performance of 53 elementary school students who participated in a chess program and evaluated them compared to non-chess-playing students in the district and around the country. He found definitive results that playing chess caused increased performance in reading. In a district where the average students tested below the national average, kids from the district who played the game tested above it.

Optimizes memory improvement

Chess players know that playing chess improves your memory, mainly because of the complex rules you have to remember, as well as the memory recall needed when trying to avoid previous mistakes or remembering a certain opponent’s playing style. Good chess players have exceptional memory performance and recall. A study of Pennsylvania sixth-graders found that students who had never before played chess improved their memories and verbal skills after playing.

Improves recovery from stroke or disability

Chess develops fine motor skills in individuals who have disability or have suffered a stroke or other physically debilitating accident. This form of rehabilitation requires the motion of chess pieces in different directions (forward, backward, diagonally forward motion, diagonally backward motion), which can help develop and fine tune a patient’s motor skills, while the mental effort required to play the game can improve cognitive and communication skills. Playing can also stimulate deep concentration and calm, helping to center and relax patients who are experiencing different degrees of anxiety.

10 benefits of teaching kids to play chess

Perhaps the famous names for chess world, Tigran Petrosyan and Levon Aronian have more in common than only chess, they both are Armenians, a country where all six-years-old children learn chess in schools thus becoming the first country to do so.

As a parent, many of you think about your child’s future, how you can help him/her to go in a right way. The most important thing in your parental mission is to try to find out what will be the best for your kids.

Dear Mom/Dad if you don’t know what to choose for your child, read a usefulness of chess for kids, and who knows, maybe it will have one more student today.

Chess is a fair game, it’s your kid, the board, and the other kid, no physical contact, only the battle of minds. The King of Board Games has much more to surprise us than we ever thought.

Still, think chess for kids is too hard? Check out these surprising facts and benefits of playing chess and then consider your next move.

1. Chess helps prevent Alzheimer’s

While playing chess, the most active part of our body is the brain. As the brain works like a muscle, it needs regular exercises for being healthy and avoid injuries. In fact, a medical study showed that playing chess decreases the risk of dementia, as well as prevents its symptoms because playing chess develops brain functioning.

Which, in its turn, also reduces the risk of having Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, and depression.  A recent study of The New England Journal of Medicine showed that people over 75 who are involved in mind exercising activities like chess are less likely to develop dementia than their non-board-game-playing peers.

2. It grows dendrites

Imagine antenna that picks up signals from other places, the more antennas you have the more signals you will pick, the bigger you will become.

Actually, it was about the dendrites of the brain that are tree-like branches that conducts signals from other neural cells into the neurons they are attached to. So learning chess, at a young age, causes those dendrites to grow, without stopping. As the learning chess is continuous activity causing the growth of many dendrites.

3. Chess raises your kids IQ

Smart people play chess.

Chess is, definitely, the game which will raise your kid’s IQ and it’s not a surprise. A study showed that 4000 Venezuelan students both boys and girls showed IQ scores after 4 months of chess instruction.

So moving the pieces, is not an ordinary activity, it is the result of raising intelligence. And if you want your kid to shine with their high IQ score, the chess world waits for your child.

4. It increases kid’s problem-solving skills

In our quick developing world, every day we face numerous problems and obstacles in every step of our life. Some of the problems are being solved some of them not because of the lack of problem-solving skills.

As a parent one necessary thing that you must do is prepare your kid for those problems, teach them how to solve them and move forward. And, earlier you start, earlier you will have independent, self-confident child. Chess is the brilliant example of developing those skills. Let your child be confident, problem-solver through playing chess.

5. Chess improves spatial skills

This ability is important in chess calculation due to which players calculate variations 10 moves deep, visualizing the changes, picturing a position some moves down the line, analyzing it extensively.

Recent research about “predominance of men in chess” showed that man’s spatial abilities are more developed than those in woman’s, that is men are good at visualizing objects in space, picturing a position, and to mentally manipulate the images. Which is the important ability in chess calculation and thinking because playing chess requires to solve complex problems with their sub-problems, so this all is possible only when the kid has high IQ.

6. It improves the memory of your child

It is common fact that playing chess improves the memory and it’s definitely, true.

Because while playing chess you should remember your opponents move, remember which positions can help him/her in that situation.  Just remembering, most of the openings, and all that the tips and tricks are enough to improve your kid’s memory.

7. It exercises both sides of the brain

A German study showed that when chess experts were given chess position and geometric shapes to identify, researchers expected to find the players’ left brain being more active, but the surprising thing happened when they saw that the right hemisphere of the brain was equally active as the left one.

 Consequently, when experts play chess they use their both sides of the brain. So, dear parent, when your kid learns the rules and technique also during playing chess, exercises and develops both sides of the brain.

8. It increases the creativity of your kid

Probably, one of the most important organs in our body is the brain. Approximately 3 pounds with 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion connections, is the manager of our body. As you know, both hemispheres of our brain are much alike but there is a big difference in how they work and process information. Our left-side is responsible for analytical and methodical thinking, while right-side is responsible for creative or artistic thinking.

A study passed another research among students from grades 7 to 9 doing other activities, play chess, use computers once a week for 32 weeks to measure the most growth in creative thinking. The students were divided into two groups, but the chess group after 32 weeks scored higher in creativity activities with originality being their biggest area of gain.

9. It improves the concentration your child.

While playing chess, concentration is one of the most requirement of the game. It is impossible to play chess and think about something different.

During the game, the opponent won’t tell your kid which piece he moved, so your child should be focused on the game, paying attention to every single detail and piece. In the result, playing chess will help you to develop your kid’s concentration, not only in chess but also in different life situation.

10. Chess teaches planning and foresight

If you remember yourself when you were a teenager, maybe you will regret some things that you have done without thinking about the consequences. You know what is the characteristic feature of all chess players, they plan and predict all the time, no matter where they are.

While playing chess, planning is also important, which becomes the part of the personality and makes the person always follow those rules. So if you want to have a teenager with planning skills, act now.

The most important thing is the skills that are being taught through this game go far from the board, and prepare the person for life difficulties, and problems, teach them how to solve those obstacles in a creative way. In the result teaching your children how to play chess, can be one of the greatest things that you will do for them.

Let’s chess together, maybe your kid will conquer the chess world and will become the next Fischer, you never know till you try.

Sources: Wikipedia , Healthfitnessrevolution , Woochess