8 Ways Racing Games Give You A Powerful Brain Boost

Forget about trying all the trivia and memory apps to make you feel smarter. Get your hands on the wheel and increase your brain power by playing your favourite racing game now!
8 Ways Racing Games Give You A Powerful Brain Boost

1. Stress reduction

8 Ways Racing Games Give You A Powerful Brain Boost

Racing games are typically non-violent, and they can calm stress in a few different ways. Choosing easy courses that you’ve raced before or solo test laps without the pressure of competition brings low stress, and a good performance is always rewarding. Taking a beautiful car you can’t afford for a scenic ride somewhere you’ve never been can melt away any petrolhead’s worries after a long day.

Surprisingly, intense racing can also reduce stress (in the long run). High-speed racing with close competition a few times each week can train your brain to decrease signalling that causes increases in adrenaline, sweat and heart rate. In turn, you will be better able to control yourself in other real world stressful situations.

2. Information gathering

8 Ways Racing Games Give You A Powerful Brain Boost

Whether a crew chief is firing away over the radio or a co-driver is navigating the course ahead, a driver must process several layers of information while keeping their attention on driving in the moment. At any time in a racing game, the driver could be assessing damage and wear on the vehicle, looking through an upcoming turn or determining how to overtake a competitor. We no longer practice using only visual information, but also using wheel feedback and audio tips.

3. Concentration and focus

8 Ways Racing Games Give You A Powerful Brain Boost

Taking in all the information from multiple sources and processing it to form mid-race strategies requires the ability to multitask. With so many inputs hitting you simultaneously, every race demands complete focus to make it to the finish line. Maintaining focus throughout a long race, or series of races, may help your concentration in work or school related tasks.

4. Memory

8 Ways Racing Games Give You A Powerful Brain Boost

The mesh of a 3D world and force feedback allows us to more easily store memories by bringing reality and fiction closer together. If we can trick ourselves into halfway believing we are really driving, we can later access the memories made in the race more easily as near facts. This doesn’t work the same for monotonous mobile games.

Last year, research from the University of California at Irvine showed a clear difference in memory improvement between gamers playing 3D interactive games versus 2D repetitive games. Gamers who played a 3D interactive game 30 minutes a day for two weeks saw an immediate 12 per cent increase in memory scores.

5. Decision making

8 Ways Racing Games Give You A Powerful Brain Boost

If you want to exercise your brain’s decision-making abilities, fire up a multiplayer session. Forcing yourself to make quick calls under tight racing, time and space constraints will help you make faster on-the-spot decisions. High-speed multiplayer games beg from the driver thousands of decisions per race, making mental speed a hot commodity.

6. Strategy and problem solving

8 Ways Racing Games Give You A Powerful Brain Boost

For you dedicated drivers who practice driving lines and aggressive tactics before facing your competition, mapping out a plan is essential before a race. If you can visualise your race before it begins and use your mistakes to plan for the next event, you’re bound to increase your strategic and problem solving capacity.

7. Coordination

8 Ways Racing Games Give You A Powerful Brain Boost

The link between improved eye-hand coordination and video games has long been confirmed. Racing games provide unique training exercises for coordination when paired with a force feedback wheel and pedals. Regular racing can help you react faster and more accurately to visual and physical interactions in real life.

8. Long-term wellbeing

8 Ways Racing Games Give You A Powerful Brain Boost

In a study conducted by the Department of Psychology at NC State University, researchers found that older adults who were regular gamers scored consistently higher than non-gamers in a variety of mental ageing measures. The regular gamers had a higher sense of well-being and health than their counterparts. They also showed higher social function and were less likely to show signs of depression. It’s a good thing we have a long-term love affair with racing games.

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Comments

Anonymous

Everybody needs a turbo prius to lighten themselves up a bit.

05/23/2016 - 15:22 |
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Anonymous

When I’m in a close race with some one in Forza Motorsport 6, I would follow then close behind but give then room and brake a bit before they do, read there driving style, plan how i’m going to overtake, think about how it could go wrong, reading the corners and where I should pass, then as we go down the track make a simulation of how overtaking then would go, then went the time is right, attack.

05/25/2016 - 14:17 |
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Anonymous

And if I’m in front, I would come up to a corner with them behind be and before the part where I need to brake, I would flash my brake lights to give a warning that I’m about to stop, especially if they are right behind me.

05/25/2016 - 14:19 |
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8 Ways Racing Games Give You A Powerful Brain Boost
clayton8or

The weird thing is, coming from basically teaching myself to drive via a g27 and assetto corsa / dirt rally (beamng before that was out) coming to driving real cars, i feel very little difference, except fro the fact everything feels faster irl and you get g-forces that tell you way more, starting from a game i learned where most cars limits were, based on speed and gear, not g forces or feeling through anything but the wheel, when i started off i had alot of trouble when i started using clutch and stick instead of the paddles, i could do one or the other, shift OK and drive like crap, or drive OK and shift like crap. All it took was practice, and 2 years later its 100% natural to reach to the right when i get to 300 rpm off redline, once i had my ground with not going too fast and outbraking myself into turns, i could focus on oversteer. at first it was very sloppy and i only could do a clean correction maybe 10% of the time, but again after many hours of disappointment and 3 really unreliable wheels, taking right 3 corner, back end slides out, wait for proper slip angle, flick wheel out to the left for a certain amount of time, fight with it to maintain traction without snapping back to the other side, reach end of corner, and straighten it all out. Never even flinch.

11/07/2016 - 16:08 |
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Anonymous

freeroaming will relaxing

01/02/2017 - 14:08 |
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Anonymous

Stress reduction. Lol, youvw never seen the start of an online race

01/19/2017 - 19:10 |
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Anonymous

stress reduction? have you ever tried to warm up your tires in project cars 2, they never warm up!

12/27/2018 - 19:50 |
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