Board games are the best way to add that extra thing needed when you gather with your friends and family.
It is nice to have friends visit you at home, or you visit them, but it can get a bit boring sometimes, and staying more than a couple hours might be challenging when you add board games to a gathering, time just flies away.
Board games are not only for kids, in fact, some of them are very complex and hard to play as a kid, so it’s obvious that they are meant to be played by adults.
I actually play more board games now in my early 30s than when I was a kid, and I understand those games much better. They are not just a way to waste time when you don’t have something else to do, they actually have great benefits in our life.
8 Benefits of playing board games
Here is a list of all the benefits of playing board games that comes to my mind, there might be more of them.
1. Fun time with family and friends
Board games have the power to turn the most boring gathering into an excellent time together with friends and family.
There are moments when we hang out with our friends and nothing is happening, we just have small talks, which can be quite annoying since you feel like you lose your time, but you can’t say this. I noticed that playing board games is always a low-hanging fruit to improve the quality of time spent with friends and family.
That doesn’t mean that we always play board games since there are moments when the interesting discussion won’t stop, but we have to be realistic and understand that it doesn’t happen all the time.
So, playing board games is a fun and smart way to spend time with family and friends.
Read Also: Should You Spend Christmas With Family Or Friends?
2. Increase intelligence
Many board games require creativity and critical thinking, which increase intelligence over time.
There are board games from very simple to very complex, but all of them put you in a bit of difficulty, and you have to come up with creative solutions.
In life, most of the time, we know what to do and what to expect, and there are not many surprises that put our brains to work especially compared to playing some board games that make your brain work continuously during the game.
3. Improve communication
There are quite a few games that require communication with teammates, enemies, and so on, which improves your communication skills.
There are moments when you have to be able to lie, deceive, be persuasive or be coherent and prove your point. I’m not saying that lying or deceiving someone is a good thing but being able to do it shows that you have some good communication skills.
4. You learn how to lose
We all know those people that have a hard time accepting that they lost(that’s me). But to be honest, playing board games made me accept losing way better than before, knowing to lose is a skill, and you have to train it like any other skill.
What better way to train this skill if not playing board games? Where everything is fun, and you don’t actually lose anything valuable.
5. Teaches you the importance of teamwork
Many board games are played in teams and require you to be a good team player. It’s easy to become good at a game and win, it’s more difficult to be a good team player and learn how to cooperate with others or when to stay back and let them take the lead.
6. Make you more competitive
I certainly don’t need to be more competitive since I’m competitive enough, I rather have to learn to be less competitive, but many people need to be a bit more competitive, and board games are a good way to work on that.
Also, the fact that board games are competitive makes them more interesting and fun to play. Yes, we don’t have to hurt each other for a game, but the competitive part makes them more serious than it would otherwise be.
5. Setting goals
There are board games like Catan, Monopoly, and many others that are not as well known that teach you how to set goals and be patient and wait for those to happen.
At the same time, there is another lesson to be learned which is that setting goals are not enough, you might need to be a bit lucky for those to happen. Luck is a part most people don’t attribute to success in life since we like to think that we can control everything. However, luck is pretty important when it comes to reaching our goals, it is not the most important, but it has its part.
6. Patience
As I said, most board games teach you patience, either by waiting your turn to do an action or by waiting until you get lucky and get the resources you need.
Also, some people might need more time to make their move than you, and you have to be patient and wait for them, which is frustrating sometimes for the more competitive people, but at the same time, it forces them to have patience.
7. Managing resources and negotiations
Monopoly is the best example here, it teaches you how to manage the resources you have and also how to negotiate, which are great qualities in life.
Many people don’t know how to manage their money or other resources like time and energy in life because they are not open to talking about those. But while playing board games, you don’t have those barriers since it is just a game, but the lessons learned can be as valuable as the real-life ones.
I have two articles on talking about money with friends and parents that I would encourage you to read if it’s something relevant for you.
8. Happiness
Board games improve our happiness overall, I’ve never seen someone being sad or angry while playing board games, maybe a bit frustrated because they are not winning and they are competitive but that is also a lesson.
Playing board games is fun and makes you happy, which is a great thing. In my opinion, not many activities bring us as much happiness with as little commitment as board games.
Read Also: Is Watching Movies A Hobby?
Conclusion
I hope you will treat board games differently after this article, and you will know why they are such a great thing to do with friends and family.
Playing board games can be a great hobby since it has a lot of benefits and it’s accessible to almost anyone, the same can be true for video games if you are careful not to spend too much time with them.
