Ace up Your Sleeve

While a seemingly simple activity, playing card games offers a host of benefits.

• Boosted mood. The comforting familiarity of playing your favorites can help reduce stress and depression.
• Enhanced memory. Many games require you to remember key information as you play.
• Improved concentration. Following the game's rules and flow requires focus to know when to act and what move to make.
• Mental reflexes. You often have to form impromptu strategies and choose moves under time limits.
• Social opportunities. Playing cards provides a fun way to gather with other members of your assisted living community.

Mixing up what you play is a good way to enjoy a wide range of benefits. Old favorites can help boost your health by relaxing you, while trying new games encourages you to push your boundaries and learn.

Playing Your Cards Right

Your brain is made of living tissue. As with any living thing, it can grow and strengthen with the right environment. To promote this growth, you need to live a healthy lifestyle and expose your brain to a steady stream of fresh mental challenges.

In the same fashion as a physical workout, brain exercises often feel hard the first time you try them. Over time, you get used to them, and they get easier. Adding new and harder cognitive challenges to your routine is like using a heavier weight to push yourself when working out in the gym.

The Jack of All Trades

You can play dozens of individual and group-based games with a standard deck of playing cards. The variety ensures you can challenge yourself regularly to learn new things. You can look in The Library here in Springfield, MO, for books that teach how to play new games. You'll also likely find variations of old favorites for you to hone your abilities on, such as these Solitaire examples.

Clock

This Solitaire switch-up has you arranging cards in the shape of a clock. You can add to the challenge by alternating red and black cards in the stacks.

Canfield

Often called Klondike, Canfield is ideal for seniors who thrive on formidable challenges. Intentionally designed to prevent winning, this difficult game stumps players 97% of the time.

Little Spider

You practice your decision-making skills while playing Little Spider. The game requires you to move and organize stacks of random cards, so you need to be aware of immediate and future moves in order to win.

Forty Thieves

This little gem is sometimes called Big Forty, Le Cadran, Napoleon at St. Helena or Roosevelt at San Juan. It requires strategy over luck and has multiple rule variations, including Rank and File, Streets and Number Ten, to keep you on your toes.

Putting All Your Cards on the Table

Social card games don't need a rule change to keep you guessing. Instead, the other players at your table add a constant layer of challenge that makes each one different.

Besides exercising your memory, focus and decision-making skills, group-based games see you communicating with your fellow players. As you mentally engage and laugh and talk with others, it can help reduce feelings of stress and depression that adversely affect your mental health and overall cognitive function.

If you want to enjoy swapping cards and conversation more often, consider joining or creating a card club. You'll likely find many eager players among your neighbors here in The Gardens at Springfield and local senior centers.

You may also wish to invite your friends and loved ones to join you for a regularly scheduled game night. If distance makes it difficult for them to travel to your assisted living apartment, you could use video chat and an online game player to hang out together.

Go Fishing

There are numerous card games to explore beyond those that use the standard playing deck. These let you experience a different version of the classic gameplay styles you love so you can keep changing up your gaming hours.

Cat in the Box

This clever trick-taking game features cute cards and brightly colored tokens. The rules are fairly easy to learn, which makes it a good selection when entertaining visitors. To win, you'll need to be good at making predictions; however, you can also earn points through carefully arranging groups of your played tokens.

Bohnanza

You plant and grow beans on your quest to become the top farmer in this multiplayer challenge. While harvesting beans earns points, the game's true heart lies in trading crops with other players. Ideal for social butterflies, it even has a variation about being a flower farmer called Dahlia.

7 Wonders

Two to seven players guide the development of historical empires in this game. Players pass cards around the group over a set number of turns in order to collect resources and build their ancient city. The in-depth system has won multiple international awards since its debut in 2010.