Do brain games make you smarter? Learn what the best research says about puzzles, memory techniques, logic skills and healthy habits, and how to spot hype.
Last updated: 12 October 2026. Written by the EDUSAMBAM Editorial Team. This article is for general education and does not replace advice from a qualified professional.
Open an app store and you will find hundreds of games that promise to sharpen your memory, speed up your thinking and even raise your IQ. Newspapers add stories about puzzles that "keep the brain young". Is any of this true? The honest answer is: partly. Some activities do help, some help only with the exact thing you practise, and some claims are marketing. In this article you will learn what scientists have found in large experiments, which puzzle, memory and logic skills are worth building, how to tell science from hype, and a simple plan you can follow.
People get better at whatever they practise, and learning changes the brain. But large reviews found little evidence that commercial brain games make people smarter in general or improve everyday thinking. The best-supported ways to look after your thinking are learning hard new things, using proven study methods such as self-testing and spacing, regular exercise, enough sleep, social contact and caring for your health. Puzzles and games are fine as enjoyable hobbies, as long as you do not expect miracles.
The phrase is used in at least three different ways, and it helps to separate them.
| Meaning | Examples | Main question |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial brain games and apps | Computer exercises for memory, attention and speed, often sold by subscription | Do they improve thinking beyond the game itself? |
| Practising a skill or hobby | Puzzles, chess, learning an instrument or a language, studying a subject | Does the skill transfer to other areas, or only improve itself? |
| Healthy living for the brain | Exercise, sleep, diet, social life, managing blood pressure | Does it protect thinking as we age? |
The research shows very different answers for each of these, so keep the three groups in mind as you read.
The reason people believe in brain training is a real scientific fact: the brain is plastic, meaning that experience changes it. This is called neuroplasticity. Two famous studies show it clearly.
So the brain does adapt to what we practise. But notice what these studies show: the brain changed in the region used for the practised skill. They do not show that learning one thing makes the whole brain, or all thinking, better. That difference is the heart of the debate.
Psychologists call the spread of a practised skill to other tasks transfer of learning. There are two kinds.
Brain-training companies are usually claiming far transfer: that a few minutes of games will help you in school, work and old age. This is the claim that has been tested most carefully, and it is where the evidence is weakest.
| Study | What was done | Main finding |
|---|---|---|
| Owen and colleagues, 2010 (Nature) | 11,430 adults aged 18 to 60 trained online for at least 10 minutes, three times a week, for six weeks; a control group searched the internet to answer obscure questions | Everyone improved on the tasks they practised, but there was no evidence of transfer to untrained tasks, even closely related ones |
| Melby-Lervåg, Redick and Hulme, 2016 (Perspectives on Psychological Science) | Meta-analysis of working-memory training: 87 publications, 145 comparisons | Short-term gains on similar tasks, but no convincing evidence of improvement in intelligence, reading, arithmetic or other far-transfer skills |
| Sala and Gobet, 2016 and 2017 | Meta-analyses of music, chess and working-memory training in children | Small effects overall, and the better the study design (for example, with an active control group), the smaller the effect |
| Simons and colleagues, 2016 (Psychological Science in the Public Interest) | Review of the studies cited by brain-training companies and supporters (over 130 articles) | Extensive evidence of improvement on trained tasks, less on closely related tasks, and little evidence for distantly related tasks or everyday cognition; many studies had design weaknesses |
Notice the repeated pattern: practice makes you better at the practised task, and the gains rarely spread far. This is also what psychologists have found for over a century of research on transfer.
In January 2016 the United States Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement with the company behind the popular app Lumosity, which was required to pay $2 million (a larger judgment was suspended because of the company's finances). The regulator had objected to advertising that claimed the games could help with schoolwork, work performance and age-related decline. The case is a reminder that marketing claims are not the same as scientific evidence.
Not all the evidence is negative. The biggest and longest randomised trial of cognitive training in older adults is called ACTIVE (Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly). It enrolled 2,832 healthy adults, average age about 74, and assigned them to ten sessions of memory training, reasoning training or speed-of-processing training, or to a no-contact control group. Some groups also received booster sessions.
| Follow-up | What was found |
|---|---|
| After 5 years | Each type of training still improved the ability it targeted |
| After 10 years (Rebok and colleagues, 2014) | Reasoning and speed training still showed benefits on the trained abilities; the memory-training benefit had faded. About 60% of trained participants versus about 50% of controls were at or above their starting level of independence in daily activities |
| After 20 years (reported in Alzheimer's & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions) | Adults who had speed training with boosters were diagnosed with dementia less often: 40% (105 of 264) compared with 49% (239 of 491) in the control group, about a 25% lower incidence. Memory and reasoning training did not produce a significant difference |
These are important and interesting results, but they should be read carefully:
If so many studies disagree, how can we trust any of them? Several well-known problems explain the arguments.
| Problem | What goes wrong |
|---|---|
| No active control group | If the comparison group does nothing, any difference could come from expecting to improve, from attention or from simple practice. A fair test gives the control group something equally interesting to do |
| Expectation effects | People who believe a programme works may try harder on the final test |
| Teaching to the test | If the outcome test is almost the same as the training task, improvement is only near transfer |
| Small studies | With few participants, chance results are common |
| Publication bias | Studies with positive results are more likely to be published than those with no effect |
| Different definitions of "success" | Improving a game score is not the same as improving real-life tasks |
In 2014 two groups of scientists even published opposing open letters on the question, one warning against exaggerated commercial claims and one defending the potential of cognitive training. The most reasonable summary today is that some forms of training may help specific abilities in specific groups, but broad claims for commercial products are not supported.
Yes, but for the right reasons. Puzzles such as sudoku and crosswords, and games such as chess, are enjoyable, they train patience and strategy, and they can be social. They are good for the skill itself: crossword solvers learn vocabulary, and chess players learn patterns of play.
What is not clear is whether they make you better at unrelated things or protect against decline. Studies that find that puzzle-lovers have better memory or lower dementia risk are usually observational, which means that people simply report their habits and are compared. They cannot show cause and effect, because of reverse causation: people with sharper thinking may choose to do more puzzles, not the other way round. Healthy, educated and active people also tend to do many beneficial things at once.
Video games are also debated. Some analyses report modest benefits of fast-paced action games for visual attention, while a large 2018 review (Sala, Tatlidil and Gobet) concluded that video-game training does not reliably improve broader cognitive ability. So, as a rule: enjoy games for fun, do not rely on them for brain health, and do not give up exercise and sleep to play them.
Memory has three basic stages: encoding (taking information in), storage (keeping it) and retrieval (getting it back). Most "forgetting" is a failure of encoding, because we did not pay attention or think about the meaning, or a failure of retrieval, because we did not practise recalling. The good news is that learning methods have far stronger evidence than brain games.
A major review of learning techniques (Dunlosky and colleagues, 2013) rated practice testing (self-quizzing) and distributed practice (spacing) as the techniques with the highest usefulness, while rereading and highlighting were rated low. In a classic experiment (Roediger and Karpicke, 2006), students who practised recalling a passage remembered more a week later than students who spent the same time rereading it, even though rereading felt easier.
| Technique | How to do it | Evidence and notes |
|---|---|---|
| Retrieval practice | Close the book, write or say everything you remember, then check | Strong; makes memories last longer than rereading |
| Spaced practice | Review on different days, with gaps that grow (for example, 1 day, 3 days, 1 week) | Strong; better than cramming for long-term memory |
| Interleaving | Mix different kinds of problems or topics in one session | Helps you learn to choose the right method |
| Elaboration | Ask "why" and explain in your own words | Builds meaning, which helps encoding |
| Chunking | Group items, such as writing a phone number in groups of 3 or 4 digits | Reduces the load on short-term memory |
| Mnemonics | Acronyms, rhymes, and the "method of loci" (placing items along a familiar route) | Work well for lists and facts; they help with the material you use them on, not memory in general |
| Sleep after learning | Get a full night's sleep, especially after a study session | Sleep supports consolidation of new memories |
To remember the shopping list milk, eggs, rice, soap, apples, picture a walk through your home. At the front door, imagine a giant milk carton blocking the way. In the hallway, eggs are cracking on the floor. In the kitchen, rice is pouring from the table. In the bathroom, a slippery bar of soap sits in the sink. In the bedroom, apples cover the bed. To recall the list, walk through the house in your mind and "see" each item. The more vivid and strange the images, the better this works.
Reasoning is not a single muscle, but there are particular skills that can be learned and practised, and they transfer best when you learn them with examples from different areas and get feedback. Courses in critical thinking tend to show small-to-moderate gains in critical-thinking skills, especially when students discuss problems and receive feedback (Abrami and colleagues, 2015).
| Error | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Confirmation bias | Looking only for evidence that supports what you already believe | Reading only articles that agree with you |
| Correlation as causation | Assuming that because two things go together, one causes the other | "People who do puzzles have better memory, so puzzles cause good memory" |
| Appeal to authority | Accepting a claim just because a famous person says it | "A celebrity says this app works" |
| False dilemma | Pretending there are only two options | "Either you are a genius or you are hopeless" |
| Anecdotal evidence | Using a personal story as proof for everyone | "My uncle did sudoku and stayed sharp" |
| Base-rate neglect | Ignoring how common something is | Overestimating a rare event because a story is vivid |
A helpful habit is to ask four questions about any claim: What is the evidence? Who tested it, and how? Could there be another explanation? What would change my mind?
Try each puzzle before reading the answer. Remember that these are for fun and practice, not a test of your intelligence.
| Puzzle | Answer and explanation |
|---|---|
| 1. Number pattern. What comes next: 2, 6, 12, 20, 30, ? | 42. The differences are 4, 6, 8, 10, so the next difference is 12 (30 + 12 = 42). Each term is n × (n + 1): 1×2, 2×3, 3×4, 4×5, 5×6, 6×7. |
| 2. Syllogism. All teachers read books. Sara is a teacher. What follows? | Sara reads books. This is a valid deduction: if both statements are true, the conclusion must be true. |
| 3. Spot the flaw. All roses are flowers. Some flowers fade quickly. So, some roses fade quickly. Is this valid? | No. The "some flowers" that fade quickly might not be roses at all. A conclusion must follow necessarily, not just seem likely. |
| 4. The bat and the ball. A bat and a ball cost $1.10 together. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much is the ball? | 5 cents. If the ball is 5 cents, the bat is $1.05, and the total is $1.10. The tempting answer of 10 cents is wrong, because then the bat would cost $1.10 and the total would be $1.20. This problem comes from the Cognitive Reflection Test (Frederick, 2005), which checks whether people stop and check a quick first answer. |
| 5. Mislabelled boxes. Three boxes are labelled "Apples", "Oranges" and "Mixed". Every label is wrong. You may take one fruit from one box. Which box do you choose to work out all three? | The box labelled "Mixed". Since the label is wrong, it holds only one kind of fruit. If you pull out an apple, that box is "Apples". The box labelled "Oranges" cannot be oranges, and it is not apples (taken), so it must be "Mixed". The box labelled "Apples" must then be "Oranges". |
What did these puzzles train? Mostly the habits of slowing down, checking assumptions and testing each step. Those habits are worth building, and they are most valuable when you apply them to real questions in school, work and daily life.
The strongest evidence for protecting thinking does not come from games at all. It comes from looking after the body that carries the brain.
| Habit | What research suggests |
|---|---|
| Regular aerobic exercise | In a one-year randomised trial of 120 sedentary adults aged 55 to 80 (Erickson and colleagues, 2011), walking about 40 minutes, three days a week, increased the size of the hippocampus by about 2% and improved spatial memory, while a stretching comparison group saw a decline of about 1.4% |
| Multidomain lifestyle programme | The FINGER trial (Ngandu and colleagues, 2015) followed 1,260 at-risk adults aged 60 to 77 for two years. Those given a combined programme of diet advice, exercise, cognitive training and vascular risk monitoring did better on a cognitive test battery than those given general health advice. The trial could not show which part mattered most |
| Managing health and risk factors | The 2024 Lancet Commission identified 14 modifiable risk factors for dementia, including less education, hearing loss, high blood pressure, high LDL cholesterol, diabetes, obesity, physical inactivity, smoking, depression, social isolation, air pollution and untreated vision loss. It estimated that around 45% of dementia cases might be prevented or delayed if all were addressed, though this is a modelled estimate that assumes the factors are causal |
| Sleep | Needed for memory consolidation and attention; chronic short sleep makes thinking worse on almost every task |
| Social contact | Social isolation is one of the listed risk factors; talking and working with others is also mentally demanding |
Importantly, these are not tricks that raise IQ. They help keep a brain healthy and working near its best. And they have wide benefits for the heart, mood and general health too.
If games do not travel far, what does build real ability? The answer is learning real skills and knowledge in the right way. Research on expert performance by Anders Ericsson and colleagues (1993) described deliberate practice: practice that is focused, aims at a specific weakness, is just beyond your current level, and comes with quick feedback.
| Feature | What it looks like |
|---|---|
| Clear goal | "Solve 10 algebra problems on factorising", not "do some maths" |
| Stretch | Work that is challenging but possible; too easy teaches little, too hard discourages |
| Feedback | Check answers, ask a teacher or use a marking guide, then fix mistakes |
| Repetition with reflection | Repeat the weak parts, and ask "What did I get wrong and why?" |
| Rest | Short, focused sessions with breaks, and good sleep |
Learning a language, a musical instrument, programming, drawing or a new subject all fit this pattern. They build real knowledge and skill that you can use, and they are enjoyable and socially rewarding. Whether they also protect the ageing brain is still being studied, but they are far more likely to help than a game that only trains itself.
| Red flag | Why to be careful |
|---|---|
| "Boost your IQ by 10 points in two weeks" | No programme has shown reliable, large IQ gains like this |
| "Clinically proven" with no details | Ask: proven by whom, in what size of study, compared with what? |
| Only tested on the game's own tasks | That shows practice effects, not far transfer |
| No active control group | Improvement may be due to expectation or simple practice |
| Testimonials and before-and-after stories | Anecdotes cannot show that the product caused the change |
| "Use 100% of your brain" or "only 10% used" | The 10% idea is a myth; scans show activity across the whole brain |
| Targeting fear of memory loss or dementia | Fear is a powerful selling tool; check the evidence instead |
| Expensive subscriptions with big promises | Free, proven habits (exercise, sleep, learning) beat costly products |
If you do enjoy an app, that is fine. Just treat it as entertainment, keep an eye on the cost, and do not let it replace better habits.
| Who | What to focus on |
|---|---|
| Children | Play, reading aloud, conversation, outdoor activity, enough sleep, games and puzzles for fun, music or chess for their own enjoyment. Limit screen time that replaces sleep, play and reading |
| Teenagers and students | Self-testing, spaced study, solving varied problems, protecting sleep, regular exercise, learning to question claims |
| Adults | Keep learning new skills, exercise most days, manage stress, keep up friendships, look after blood pressure, hearing and eyesight |
| Older adults | Regular walking or other aerobic exercise, learning something new and challenging, social activity, hearing and vision checks, and medical check-ups. Speak with a doctor if you have worries about memory |
You do not need an app. This plan uses only free, evidence-based habits. Adjust it to your age and health, and check with a doctor before starting new exercise if you have a health condition.
| Week | Focus | Daily or weekly actions |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Foundations | Fix a regular sleep and wake time; walk briskly for 20 to 30 minutes on most days; drink water; choose one new skill to learn |
| Week 2 | Learning methods | Study with closed-book recall for 15 minutes a day; review last week's notes; do one logic puzzle a day and explain your reasoning |
| Week 3 | Challenge and connection | Practise your new skill in short focused sessions with feedback; teach someone what you learned; spend time with friends or family |
| Week 4 | Review and habits | Test yourself on all four weeks without notes; note what helped; keep the best three habits going; book any health checks you have postponed |
The main claims in this article come from the following published studies and reviews, which you can find by searching the authors, year and title.
| Topic | Source |
|---|---|
| Large online brain-training trial | Owen, A. M., and colleagues (2010). Putting brain training to the test. Nature, 465, 775-778. |
| Review of brain-training evidence | Simons, D. J., and colleagues (2016). Do "brain-training" programs work? Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 17, 103-186. |
| Working-memory training | Melby-Lervåg, M., Redick, T. S., and Hulme, C. (2016). Working memory training does not improve performance on measures of intelligence or other measures of "far transfer." Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11, 512-534. |
| Chess, music and far transfer | Sala, G., and Gobet, F. (2017). Does far transfer exist? Negative evidence from chess, music, and working memory training. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26, 515-520. Sala, G., and Gobet, F. (2017). When the music's over: does music skill transfer to children's and young adolescents' cognitive and academic skills? A meta-analysis. Educational Research Review, 20, 55-67. |
| Video-game training | Sala, G., Tatlidil, K. S., and Gobet, F. (2018). Video game training does not enhance cognitive ability: A comprehensive meta-analytic investigation. Psychological Bulletin, 144, 111-139. |
| ACTIVE trial, 10 years | Rebok, G. W., and colleagues (2014). Ten-year effects of the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly cognitive training trial on cognition and everyday functioning in older adults. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 62, 16-24. |
| ACTIVE trial, 20 years | Follow-up study of dementia diagnoses among ACTIVE participants, reported in Alzheimer's & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions. |
| Taxi drivers and the brain | Woollett, K., and Maguire, E. A. (2011). Acquiring "the Knowledge" of London's layout drives structural brain changes. Current Biology, 21, 2109-2114. |
| Juggling and the brain | Draganski, B., and colleagues (2004). Neuroplasticity: changes in grey matter induced by training. Nature, 427, 311-312. |
| Exercise and the hippocampus | Erickson, K. I., and colleagues (2011). Exercise training increases size of hippocampus and improves memory. PNAS, 108, 3017-3022. |
| Multidomain lifestyle trial | Ngandu, T., and colleagues (2015). A 2 year multidomain intervention of diet, exercise, cognitive training, and vascular risk monitoring versus control to prevent cognitive decline in at-risk elderly people (FINGER). The Lancet, 385, 2255-2263. |
| Dementia risk factors | Livingston, G., and colleagues (2024). Dementia prevention, intervention, and care: 2024 report of the Lancet standing Commission. The Lancet, 404, 572-628. |
| Learning techniques | Dunlosky, J., and colleagues (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14, 4-58. Roediger, H. L., and Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning. Psychological Science, 17, 249-255. |
| Deliberate practice | Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., and Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100, 363-406. |
| Critical thinking instruction | Abrami, P. C., and colleagues (2015). Strategies for teaching students to think critically: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 85, 275-314. |
| Cognitive Reflection Test | Frederick, S. (2005). Cognitive reflection and decision making. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19, 25-42. |
| Advertising claims | United States Federal Trade Commission, January 2016, settlement with Lumos Labs over advertising claims for the Lumosity programme. |
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Active control group | A comparison group that does a different but equally engaging activity, used for fair testing |
| Deliberate practice | Focused practice aimed at weaknesses, with feedback and the right level of difficulty |
| Far transfer | Improvement on tasks that are quite different from the practised one |
| Hippocampus | A brain region important for forming new memories and for navigation |
| Near transfer | Improvement on tasks very similar to the practised one |
| Neuroplasticity | The brain's ability to change its structure and connections with experience |
| Observational study | A study that records what people already do, without assigning them to groups |
| Randomised controlled trial | A study in which people are assigned to groups by chance and compared fairly |
| Retrieval practice | Strengthening memory by trying to recall information without looking |
| Reverse causation | When the supposed effect is actually the cause, as when sharper thinkers choose more puzzles |
| Spaced practice | Spreading study over several sessions with gaps between them |
Your brain is not a muscle that grows stronger in every direction when you exercise one corner of it. It is better described as a system that gets very good at whatever you ask it to do, again and again, with feedback and rest. So choose activities you enjoy, learn things that are worth knowing, use proven study methods, move your body, protect your sleep and keep good company. These steps are simple and free, and they are the most reliable training your brain can have.
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