With ongoing studies evaluating the benefits of games for cognitive health, it’s no wonder that players are increasingly learning about Mahjong as a tool to sharpen mental skills. This article evaluates whether playing Mahjong is beneficial for the brain while investigating skills like memory, concentration, and general brain health.

The Basics Behind Playing Mahjong

In a typical game of Mahjong, players play around with 144 tiles making combinations that are called pungs, kongs, and chows. Each game requires all players to focus on the tiles being discarded by their opponents while creating a winning hand by using strategy to use the tiles they have in front of them. For instance, beginners soon find out that the tiles contain pictures of dots, bamboo, characters, winds, dragons, etc., requiring memory for each type of tile. In addition, there is a feeling of energetic immediacy in the game’s structure because you take turns alternating with your opponent in a fast-moving atmosphere.

This milieu not only appeals but helps build the necessary cognitive faculties from the outset. Going from set-up to gameplay each player has to maintain several variables at the same time. As such, even in a casual game a mental exercise is created that does mimic common problems humans engage in daily.

Exercise the Memory with the Use of Tiles

The short-term and working memory faculties of the brain are constantly exercised in Mahjong for one thing through memory of tiles cast away. One is constantly “remembering” which suits or honors have been played in an attempt to extract tiles from the wall which have not been engaged. For instance, if one spots a certain bamboo tile being played constantly in the game, he will make strategic adjustments in play as it goes on. Part of the capacity for remembering is exercised so strongly that it functions like brain-training apps while at the same time being a more immersed brain experience.

Further benefits come from long-term memory exercises in trying to find some common winning play amongst the patterns of tiles of tile occasions. Tests show that patterns of long-term activities like those associate themselves with increased activity in the hippocampus of the brain associated with memory formation. As a result, avid Mahjong players often report improved memory for day-to-day activities, such as remembering appointments. Thus, the game serves as a practical method for memory retention.

Increasing Strategic Thinking and Problem Solving

The strategic depth of Mahjong requires one to anticipate what the opponents’ hands are while hiding one’s intentions. One must evaluate possible risks, such as declaring a pong which might give away one’s strategy, then adjust accordingly. Words of qualification, such as “if” and “then,” serve to support the mental simulations which players use during the game, thus furthering logical thinking. As a result, one lends practice to executive functions such as planning and decision-making in situations of stress.

In addition, the variable nature of the game itself, in terms of the random drawing of tiles, serves to teach one adaptability, one of the important instruments of problem solving. Research done on the part of cognitive psychologists seems to indicate that games of this nature tend to excite the functioning of the prefrontal lobes of the brain, thus improving impulse control and foresight. For example, good players frequently surprise novices by doing calculations as to probability in the heat of the game. This transference of skill can extend to functions in daily life, such as evaluating real problems encountered in the workplace.

Further, the layers of social strategy in multiplayer games, which allow for bluffing and reading the cues of opponents, add an important dimension of interpersonal problem solving. The individuation necessary to get up in points is offset against the group flow, which serves to further such features as flexibility of thinking. As games go on, these aspects stack, and a discernible improvement in mental agility results. In fact, Mahjong makes the leap from abstract strategy to brain benefits directly.

Increasing Concentration and Attention

Long attention spans are required in the playing of successful Mahjong, because anything outside the game will result in missed opportunities or mistakes. You are forced to keep attention for 30-60 minute rounds while you are searching the table and the wall, the eye not turning. For example, forgoing a tempting and overhead discard only to wait for a more fortuitous tile leads to attentional control. A smooth transition is made from minding to activity, which avoids mental fatigue.

The same effect arises from the rhythmical pace of the game, the stating of tiles and the ready answer to questioning. This develops the selective attention factor, the removal of excess materials and facts. Studies of neuro-imaging show that such tasks, requiring concentration over a period, are successful in the increase of grey matter in areas of the brain associated with attention. For this reason, those who play often get over effects, like greater concentration when reading or driving.

This means that everybody can operate Mahjong to gain the focus they require.

In the crowded surroundings of life and the outside world, external noises drive further efforts at concentration, but this game demands absorption in it nevertheless. Quite a number of devices are developed, like taking deep breaths to achieve centre in matters, and at the same time re-enforcement is given to reach mindfulness. If periods become protracted, the weakness of burn-out may appear, and so moderation is the cause of the most successful gains.

Social Enjoyment and Emotional Intelligence

Mahjong is much improved in its social conditions, where group play follows and removes the danger of psychological introversion and gives out the value of emotional intelligence. It is thus aptly called “the game of a lifetime.” There is general and easy patronage, with differences in strategy games combined with housing concentration. Light-hearted jest ensues in conversational manner and means interchange of strategy for preparation, consumption, cashing in etc., which strengthens partnerships, when they occur, where there is success with its promotion.

Thus the applause of a friend’s Mahjong helps in reinforcement and decreases stress hormones etc. In addition, the variety of those who play opens you up to different ways of thinking and expands empathy and social skills. The interaction that takes place during play is very similar to that which occurs in navigating our everyday relationships with people. All of which will allow for more adaptability across the spectrum in our social lives.

The lack of warmth in the digital versions will not permit the benefits of those gathered at a table, but the face to face game will always be superior.

Scientific Evidence on Brain Health

There are studies that back up the idea that playing Mahjong is beneficial to preserving mental health and cognitive functioning, especially in the elderly. A 2019 study published in the Journal of Aging Research concluded that people who play regularly have a slower decline in their memories than those who do not. This phenomenon was attributed to the full mental use required by the game in attention and memory. For example, a longitudinal study carried out in Taiwan reveals that those who played Mahjong regularly had a lower incidence of dementia.

Neuroimaging studies show greater blood flow is observed in the frontal lobe and temporal lobes during the playing of tiles. The former is responsible for all of the executive functioning of the brain and the latter for the processing of language, both are essential for our normal day to day functioning.

Moving on to the more preventive side of such secret establishments, scientific sources recommend Mahjong, as one part of an aspect of life which is to be thought of as promoting brain health, which includes exercise and food intake. With the growing amount of evidence showing the benefits, it is becoming the advice of the health care profession to have frequent forays on the tiles as a means of promoting mental exercise.

Moreover, a study performed in Hong Kong has produced evidence to support the notion that playing Mahjong results in better visual spatial perceptions that allow greater efficacy when planning trips or travelling. Nevertheless, it is clear that the amount of benefit derived from playing the game is in a sense directly related to the periodicity of the sessions.

For greater benefit than the occasional session, it should be seen that it is most productive in more frequent sessions that will produce greater benefits. It is one more of those situations that exist in life in today’s world that the relationship of A to B will be shown not to be a causal relationship, with full agreement in the scientific community to affirm that the evidence is mostly in favour of greater and greater benefits.

Basically, it seems that science has, and is actively promoting the understanding that the game of Mahjong is a great enjoyment, an exceedingly good method of producing health in the mind.

Bottom Line

Mahjong is most efficacious for you mentally, providing in a great deal of research proven proof for the benefit of memory improvement, improvement in strategic thinking span of attention and social well being, together with benefits in no small way in terms of increased energies. The playing of the game is a wonderful combination of enjoyment and mental exercise, making it the ideal hobby for the avoidance of any reduction in the productivity of the brain throughout the vicissitudes of life playing hard.

Is Mahjong Good for Your Brain? Exploring Cognitive Benefits and Mental Sharpness