Is Solitaire Good for Your Brain? 11 Benefits of Playing

If you want to give your mental muscle a boost, studies have shown that playing Solitaire is good for your brain. This solo card game can improve your mental health and well-being in a variety of ways, and most of these benefits enhance your brain’s executive function, the system that manages your working memory, flexible thinking, and self-control.

So if you like to play Solitaire, science has your back. Participating in this card game not only helps you relax and handle stress better but also reinforces skills that support your ability to manage everyday life.

This post details 11 ways Solitaire is good for your brain, so take advantage of these benefits now by playing online for free at Solitaire Bliss.

1. Protects Against Cognitive Decline

According to this study, playing card games like Solitaire may not only improve cognitive function but also maintain it, and another study found that participating in leisure activities, including playing cards, was associated with a lower risk of dementia.

A game of Solitaire requires you to cooperatively use several mental skills to win. From paying attention to how the tableau changes and keeping track of cards hidden in the stockpile to making observations and planning strategies, these tasks have to be coordinated to get a win. And when you make a habit of gameplay, you give your brain a workout it can really benefit from.

2. Aids in Stress Management

Not only do you gain cognitive benefits when you play a game of Solitaire, but you can also learn to better manage your emotions, including stress. With Solitaire, you must plan and strategize, which means you must be methodical with your moves, engaged in the game, and patient for a win. Doing so can put you “in the zone,” almost like a meditative state, that allows you to be absorbed in this activity regardless of what else is going on.

Playing Solitaire allows you to develop this patience and self-discipline in a low-stakes environment, which not only offers a break from daily chaos but allows you to practice these stress management techniques so they can become effective habits. You can practice anywhere since you can easily play Solitaire online for free while in line at the store, sitting in the waiting room, and more.

3. Enhances Focus and Concentration

If you ever feel like your attention span needs some work, exercise those cognitive skills with a game of Solitaire. Playing Solitaire—and winning―requires you to focus on the ever-changing tableau and how those changes can help or hurt your chances of winning. You not only have to focus on the face-up cards you can see, but you also must concentrate on what face-down cards might be hiding what you need. Executive function includes focus and concentration, and playing Solitaire makes a habit of using these cognitive skills.

The sorting and sequencing of cards in Klondike Solitaire helps reinforce your focus and concentration, but versions other than classic Solitaire can still test your sequencing skills in different ways. You can also try single-player games like Golf Solitaire where you sequence cards back and forth numerically for a different mental challenge.

4. Boosts Memory

Recall, recognition, and short-term memory all get a boost from playing Solitaire, and memory is another facet of your executive function. Regardless of what version you play, your memory gets a great workout when you repeatedly play Solitaire.

For example, if you’re playing a game of Pyramid Solitaire, you need to remember if you’ve run through all the nines when you have a four of hearts that needs to be paired.

Remembering what has been played, what is hidden, and what cards you need all coordinate for a win in Solitaire, and working your memory can offer some real brain training that pays off.

5. Improves Problem-Solving Skills

Solitaire offers an endless supply of versions that exercise your critical thinking skills, skills that lay the foundation for efficient problem-solving. You not only must sequence, sort, organize cards, but you must also plan, strategize, and test out new techniques to win. These skills play a part in your executive function, which impacts your everyday life.

Whether you use math to pair cards or sequence cards in different ways, every game offers a new problem to solve, and every time the tableau changes, your problem changes, too. Problem-solving in this way requires cognitive flexibility, the ability to change and adjust your plans based on the changing circumstances, another role of executive function. To further test your problem-solving skills, learn not only how to play Solitaire but learn different variations that offer different challenges.

6. Stimulates Dopamine Production

Making good moves, having a strategy pay off, and ultimately winning feels great, right? Well, there’s science behind that feeling. These positive plays can stimulate what is often called the “feel-good chemical” in your brain, dopamine. The way dopamine works is that when good things happen, like trying out a winning strategy, dopamine sends out signals to your brain that this action or outcome is a good one. So you not only feel good but also associate the game of Solitaire with something positive and beneficial.

7. Develops Decision-Making Skills

Different from problem-solving, your decision-making skills can use sharpening regardless of your age or season of life. Solitaire games offer a safe environment in which you can hone your decision-making skills, another aspect of your executive function. You can weigh outcomes and practice strategies that make you a more decisive and confident decision maker.

Take FreeCell for example. While some view this as an easier version of the classic game, you can use FreeCell Solitaire as a way to practice strategies. As you note moves that pay off, you can scaffold these ideas into other versions of the game. This practice helps to build your decision-making habits and skills and not only makes you a better player but also makes you more confident in the role of making decisions.

8. Encourages Patience

You can’t win ‘em all, and that’s true of every Solitaire game, especially if you’re playing more difficult versions like Spider Solitaire. Solitaire is, after all, a patience game, and patience does pay off. With Solitaire at any difficulty level, you definitely have to be patient and methodical to win. So trying out strategies, taking risks, and constantly starting a new game to try again will eventually pay off in a win, and when that happens, you’ll reinforce the positive result of exercising your patience.

9. Strengthens Inhibition Control

Part of your executive function is inhibition control, an element of self-control that helps you manage everyday tasks, an element that can decline with age. Playing Solitaire can help sharpen your self-control through delayed gratification. That same process that exercises your patience also has you practicing self-control.

Sure, you may want to give up, yell at the screen, throw your phone, or simply quit the game, but impulse control is important. You can’t give in to every impulse, and practicing this control over your emotions, waiting out for that delayed gratification, can help strengthen the inhibition control you require in everyday life.

10. Gives You Some Alone Time

Sometimes you need a break, not just from stress or chaos, but from real life. Although some associate solitude with sadness, everyone needs time to recharge, and you can relax and practice mindfulness with an intentional game of Solitaire. Just like you can reset the game with a fresh deal, you can give yourself a reset by retreating into an enjoyable, relaxing game of Solitaire.

11. Boosts Your Mood

Not only can a game of Solitaire boost your brain power, but it can certainly ignite your mood! Solitaire is a game—a fun one at that—and you can enjoy challenging yourself with different versions or varying difficulty levels and waiting for that big win. When you put your strategic thinking to use against the cards, you can’t help but feel happy when you win!

Play Solitaire Online For Free

Regardless of your age, you can stay sharp no matter whether you play a game of Solitaire Turn 1 or pump up the challenge with Spider Solitaire. Improving your brain health is just a deck of cards away, or you can simply play online for free with Solitaire Bliss and reap the brain-boosting benefits of this classic card game.