Poker, and other casino games, have a long history of being fun and exciting – but they can be more than just a fantastic way to spend some time and even win some cash.

When you are looking for the best casino sites to play poker, you might want to compare sites on  BonusFinder New Zealand – and when you have your favorite all loaded up, you’ll be able to get playing and start sharpening your mind, too.

Playing poker and becoming skilled needs you to use strategic thinking, coupling it with skill and practice to become a winner (more regularly). There are different ways that playing poker can improve your mental skills, and even things like dexterity – if you can flip your chips over your knuckles or shuffle the cards professionally, you’ll b working on your hand eye coordination too.

When it comes to improving your performance at work or in other areas of your life, the brain training you get from playing poker can be surprising.

Focus

When you are playing poker, you need to be paying constant attention, and you need to concentrate. This prolonged focus is something that you need to work on and practice to get right, but when you have been playing for a while, it will become second nature to keep that focus for extended periods of time.

Social

Social intelligence is something that you will need to function effectively in society, and especially in the workplace.

Whether you are playing poker online or in a brick-and-mortar casino, communication and chatting (and even bantering) with your opponents is a big part of the game. Developing relationships with others is all down to communication and people skills.

The other part of communication is non-verbal – and you’ll become an expert at reading body language when you are looking for tells in the physical poker room.

Working Memory

Part of the focus and concentration you will need to use is memory. Not only will you need to recall things like the rules of the game you are playing and the order of the winning hands, but you will also need to be able to recall what cards were played when, and what your opponents have done before.

This memory practice and recall will help with your focus too, which is obviously going to make a difference at work.

Emotional Control

You cannot play poker with your emotions, and getting carried away with the way you are feeling will only lead to losses. The best poker players know that playing games will elicit all different kinds of emotions, from excitement and elation to anger and anxiety.

Remaining cool, calm, and collected throughout the game, no matter what happens in each hand, will help you stay objective and play from strategy – and this is something that you can add to your arsenal at work, especially when you need to stay focused to solve a tough problem.

Better Sleep

Using your brain is like using a muscle – when you work out with it, you’ll get more tired – and this can lead to better sleep. Getting good amounts of rest is essential for cognitive function; studies have shown that unless you get 6-8 hours of good sleep a night, your thought processes will suffer – and this includes your focus and concentration.

A good few hands of poker in the evening, along with the adrenaline and excitement as well as the working of that brain ‘muscle’ will help to tire you out so you can sleep better.

Neurological Damage

As we age, our mental abilities decline – this is a normal part of the aging process. However, neurological degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia can be prevented in some cases by using our brains in different ways.

Playing games like poker helps to create new neural pathways in the brain, creating connections that can reduce the risk of neurodegenerative diseases by up to 50%.

Using your brain by playing poker can have many different benefits.

Brain Training Can Be Fun

You know that for your body to remain healthy, you need to exercise regularly. Physical exercise is something that we do because we know it works, and we choose the activities that appeal to us – whether that is taking a spin class, a dance lesson, or even just walking the dog.

The same can be true when we are working on training our brains  – evidence suggests that we need to keep flexing our mental muscles to remain mentally fit, and choosing a fun way to do that is always going to be more effective.

Poker can be the answer to that – it is fun and exciting, needs you to use several different mental functions to be successful, and you might even win some money when you are playing, too!