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Chess, the Brain & Well Being   by Joe Iannandrea

 

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“We face in our modern, splintered world not only a crisis in education, but more pointedly a crisis of understanding – of thought and of willingness to engage in thought.”

 

David Shenk~ The Immortal Game¹

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The brain is the seat of our being and of our sense of well being. Noted author, researcher and clinician Dr. Daniel Amen has called the brain "the hardware of the soul" ². The more we learn about brain health the stronger the connection between brain health and quality of life appears to be. As a result the concept of "brain fitness" is gaining wider recognition in popular culture. Just as keeping the body healthy involves regular physical exercise (which has benefits for brain health as well), we are gaining a greater appreciation for the benefits of mental exercise. The benefits of maintaining a well brain are difficult to overstate. Obvious benefits include improved memory, a greater ability to learn and better and faster decision making skills. A growing body of research is showing how regularly engaging in mentally challenging activities can delay the progress of Alzheimer's disease or dementia and make it less likely we will suffer them at all. And just as problems with brain health that may arise from exposure to toxins or even a minor brain injury or stroke can seriously damage our abilities to handle life's challenges, to have healthy relationships and experience a satisfying emotional life, having a healthier brain can enhance our lives in all of these areas and more. , an unhealthy brain can certainly be a barrier to achieving the happiness we seek. When you consider that everything we experience takes place in the brain, what could be more important than taking care of it?

 

Like our muscles, our brain weakens and declines if not used. Physical and mental exercise are in fact complimentary. The brain is part of the body after all so what is good for the body is good for the brain and vice-versa. Both are components of overall health. Old notions about weakling "geek's" and dumb "jocks" don't hold up to our current understanding. If you want to excel at sports it will benefit you to keep your mind sharp, and if you're looking for peak mental performance is important it pays to give attention to physical conditioning. Likening brain exercise to physical exercise is no mere analogy. A noted 1962 study compared the brains of rats who had been raised in an enriched environment that provided highly stimulating activities with those in an environment that lacked stimulating activities. Postmortem exams of the rats brains showed that, compared with the rats that were brought up in the non-enriched environment, the rats from the enriched environment had brains that showed an increased cerebral cortex volume, weighed more, had higher levels of neurotransmitters and a better blood supply.³ Like physical exercise, mental exercise actually has physiological effects.

 

With the increasing attention that brain fitness is receiving a number of products and mental fitness programs that have been developed as a way to stay mentally sharp. Research has shown how effective many of these can be. However, many of these products and programs suffer the same fate that many well intentioned exercise products and programs of the physical variety, set aside after the initial enthusiasm wears off and forgotten. As Norman Doidge points out in his best selling book The Brain That Changes Itself however "Life is for living and not only for doing exercises, so it is best that people also choose to do something they've always wanted to do, because they will be highly motivated, which is crucial." ⁴ If you are looking for an activity that is enjoyable in its own right and will remain enjoyable throughout your lifetime, that will continue to challenge you no matter how deeply you learn it, that involves many different aspects of cognitive ability including logic, memory, decision making and learning and is shown to enhance cognitive capacity with an extensive body of research, you could hardly do better than to learn an to play chess. The benefits of playing chess are so widely accepted that it is a required part of the school curriculum in over 30 counties.

 

The vast majority of the research into the connection between chess and cognitive performance has studied school age children. This is understandable for a number of reasons. One is the simple ease with which this particular relationship can be studied with young students. With the number of chess programs being introduced in schools groups for study come ready made, and since students are given academic grades there is already a system in place to measure achievement, though many studies employ other measurements as well. Further, the obvious importance of cognitive development during the formative years combined with the concern parents have with their children's development means there is will naturally be a great deal of interest in anything that promises improvements in how we accomplish this. Examples of some of the findings includes an extensive study conducted in New Brunswick, Canada between 1989 and 1992 that documented the results of the addition of chess to the math curriculum which found gains in math problem-solving and comprehension were proportionate to the amount of chess in the curriculum.⁵ A four year (1979-83) study in Pennsylvania found that the chess-playing experimental group consistently outperformed the control groups engaged in other thinking development programs.⁶ In addition to the hard evidence documented in these studies there is a great deal of anecdotal evidence, from researchers, teachers and parents suggesting that the benefits of playing chess extend well beyond the measurable effect on academic achievement. Children who are introduced to chess, either in the classroom or in after school programs, are consistently observed to make notable gains in self esteem and social development. The story of Bill Hall, who was tasked with teaching English as a second language to youth in an inner city school, is an example of one such case. Hall found his previously disinterested students naturally drawn in when he introduced them to chess, which then became the focal point of not only of their classroom learning but of achievements that extended well beyond. His story "From Street Kids to Royal Knights"⁷ appeared in Readers Digest in June of 1989. For more information on what these studies found see the links at the end of this article.

 

The efforts to research and promote the benefits of chess to young students have lead to an expansion in school chess programs resulting in greater academic achievement, better school attendance, more effective problem solving and conflict resolution skills, increased self esteem as well as social benefits. I can do nothing but applaud those who have taken on the job of researching and promoting these benefits. If there is one unfortunate aspect to the phenomenon however, it is the comparative silence surrounding the benefits of playing chess for anyone beyond their teen years. It may be easy to get the impression the benefits of playing chess are not really significant for individuals once they have left school. In a very important sense however, the known benefits of regularly playing chess are even more critically needed for the average adult. Unlike students who, even in the absence of chess, are essentially career learners, few adults are regularly confronted with new learning challenges in their own career. Even those in careers typically viewed as intellectually demanding are often just skills that, though they took no small amount of cognitive effort to acquire, present little challenge to repeat day to day once mastered. And though there are many good reasons for maintaining our cognitive capacities, unlike students for whom intellectual achievements are the measure of success, adults typically define success in other terms. As a result not only are they more likely to neglect brain health, they have no real indicators of when there might be a problem.

 

Outside of work the cultural mainstream seems to be drawing ever further away from anything that might offer the adult mind an intellectual challenge. The most popular shows on television are often voyeuristic "guilty pleasures", celebrity gossip trumps world events in the news and what often passes as a nature documentary is more an attempt to impress with a list of the weirdest or most deadly creatures than to inform. Text messages are increasingly replacing stimulating social contact and the habit of skimming for tidbits of information on the computer are making it harder much of the population to get a deeper understanding of things by engaging with an informative book. Today's increasingly sedentary lifestyles (and resultant epidemic obesity rates worldwide⁸) may have its parallels inside our own brains. For many the modern mantra has become "don't make me think." We are becoming a culture of mental couch potatoes. It would seem cognitively rich activities are losing their ability to engage us.

 

And then there is chess. Chess has a compelling, though difficult to define quality that allows it to compete with all the mindless distractions grappling for our attention. It is for the mind what workout//video games attempt to be for the body, a healthy activity we would want to do even if it weren't healthy. When introduced in school programs to low attention span youngsters reared on video games and action cartoons, educators are often less challenged building student interest than getting them to pack up when it's time to go. Even to the complete newcomer chess has a fascinating quality that initially attracts them to the game can draw them in unawares with a richness that a lifetime isn't enough to fully explore. It is, in a sense, like a deeply engaging book that never ends. In his book The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance, Josh Waitzkin describes his own initial attraction to the game at the age of 6. "I looked over my shoulder, and was transfixed by mysterious figurines set up on a marble chessboard. I remember feeling like I was looking into a forest. The pieces were animals, filled with strange potential, as if something dangerous and magical were about to leap from the board."⁹ Waitzkin became an International Master at the age of 16. His childhood journey with chess became the subject of the 1993 film "Searching for Bobby Fischer".

 

One of the things that makes chess particularly effective as a way to to keep our brains in shape is that the game has a built in system or reward and punishment. Attention is a critical component of learning, especially if we want that learning to endure over the long term. Chess gives you an instant feedback mechanism that can quickly punish any lack of attention. Let your mind wander for even one move and you may lose an important piece or find yourself summarily checkmated. Of course there are many other aspects of chess that offer us rewards. The most obvious is simply that chess is enjoyable to play as evidenced by the fact that it is played by millions of people world wide at every age and at every level. What is more, each game may convey rewards of it's own, not just the thrill of victory, but smaller rewards that can occur throughout the game. This may include successfully playing a complex combination that leaves you with an advantage, spotting a way of trapping one of your opponents important pieces or escaping a dangerous looking attack unscathed. Even losing a well fought game against a stronger opponent can be a satisfying experience. Not only do the pleasurable aspects of chess provide positive feedback and motivate us to continue developing, there is an important connection between pleasure and our ability to learn. Many of the important neurotransmitters associated with pleasurable experiences such as dopamine also serve to solidify what we have learned into long term memories.

 

Many adults underestimate the benefits of maintaining a healthy brain, or even or even the need to be concerned with it, believing cognitive decline isn't something they'll need to worry about until they're much older. A recent survey found that longitudinal studies into age related cognitive decline "converge on a conclusion that some aspects of age-related cognitive decline begin in healthy educated adults when they are in their 20s and 30s." ¹⁰ These declines may seem relatively minor compared problems that may appear later in life such as Alzheimer's disease and dementia, but just as it's never too early to adopt a healthy lifestyle in order to live a longer life, it makes sense to take care of our brains now rather than waiting until there has been a serious decline. Maintaining a fit brain throughout adulthood is about more than just being able to remember where you left your keys. It is difficult to overstate how deeply the quality of our lives is related to the quality of our minds. Studies have shown excessive time spent on activities that do not challenge the brain, particularly tv watching, has been linked to an increased incidence of depression.

 

Hopefully by now you have begun to appreciate the parallels between physical exercise and mental exercise. We should expect that, just as physical exercise is an important component of physical health, chess and other forms of mental exercise are an important component of mental health. One striking example of how chess can help maintain one's mental faculties even under extreme conditions is the case of Natan Sharansky. Sharansky was born in the Soviet Union in 1948 and was considered a child chess prodigy. He was able to play blindfolded chess, meaning he could play entire games in his head without looking at the board, and at a young age would play blindfold exhibition games, defeating many adults. In his 20's he became involved in the human rights movement and was eventually convicted by the Soviet government of spying and treason and sentence to 13 years in prison. Notoriously strong willed and defiant of his captors, Sharansky wound up spending much of that time in solitary confinement. In order to break his capacity to resist he would be placed in a cold dark isolated cell, sometimes for weeks on end. Sharansky played chess. He played chess in his mind as he did in blindfold exhibitions only against himself, playing first from the black position and then from the white. Though all told he spent over a year in solitary confinement like this, his mental faculties and his defiance remained intact. When finally released he was taken to the Glienicke Bridge in East Germany that lead across to West Berlin and told to walk straight across. Sharansky crossed walking a zigzag. "What chess did" he would later write "was help preserve my sanity"¹¹

 

Of course few of us (let us hope) will ever be subjected to the same stresses Sharansky had to endure, but periods of isolation, emotional distress and prolonged boredom can take their toll on our cognitive abilities and mental health unless we have some means of countering it. Further, taking steps to enhance our strength of mind can also enhance our lives in many ways even though we may never be subjected to these stresses. The catch phrase "use it or lose it" refers to a timeless principle that those faculties, physical or mental, that we do not exercise on a regular basis tend to wither away. In an increasingly automated and idiot proofed world where video games and other popular forms of entertainment seem ever more mindless, the "use it or lose it" principle underscores the need to ask what the cost is, and what we can do about it. For although the need for thought may be minimized so far as dealing with the demands of our day to day lives, this is not to say the quality of our lives is any less dependent on our capacity for thought. The mind is where the will resides. When it is healthy we are better able to make needed changes in our lives such as overcoming bad habits or even addictions. With a healthy, more active brain we are able to make better decisions, build stronger and more meaningful relationships and solve problems more creatively. The ways in which the strengths gained through chess can benefit our lives in all of these areas was recognized over 230 years ago by no less than Benjamin Franklin who wrote:

"The game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement. Several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired or strengthened by it, so as to become habits, ready on all occasions."¹²

More than any other part of our body, our brains make up who we are. Is it surprising then that that it's health is closely tied to our well being?

 

 

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Links to Other Articles:

 

The Case for Chess as a Tool to Develop Our Children's Minds

 

Chess in Education Research Summary

 

The Benefits of Chess in Education

 

From Street Kids to Royal Knights

 

ABC News interview with author David Shenk

 

 

Organizations Promoting Chess:

 

America's Foundation for Chess

 

Chess-In-The-Schools

 

Chess'N Math Association

 

Chess for Schools (project of the ECF)

 

 

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References

 

1. Shenk, David (2006) The Immortal Game: A History of Chess. New York: Doubleday.

 

2. Amen, Dr. Daniel G. (2002) . New York: The Free Press, p.11

 

3. Rosenzweig, M. R., Krech, D., Bennett, E. L. Diamond, M. C. (1962) "Effects of environmental complexity and training on brain chemistry and anatomy: a replication and extension". J Comp Physiol Psychol. 55: 429-437.

 

4. Doidge, Norman, M.D. (2007) New York: Viking Penguin, p. 256

 

5. Louise Gaudreau, "Etude Comparative sur les Apprentissages en Mathématiques 5e Année," a study comparing the Challenging Mathematics curriculum to traditional math, 1992.

 

6. Kathleen Vail, ``Check This, Mate: Chess Moves Kids," The American School Board Journal, September 1995, p. 38-40

 

7. Coudert, Jo, "From Street Kids to Royal Knights" , Readers Digest, June 1989, p.141-146.

 

8. "Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health" [online] World Health Organization. Available: http://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/publications/facts/obesity/en/ [2010, March 11]

 

9. Waitzkin, Josh (2007) The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance. New York: Free Press, p.3-4

 

10. Salthouse, Timothy A. (2009). "When does age-related cognitive decline begin?". Neurobiology of Aging. v.30 i.4, p. 507-514. Available: http://www.neurobiologyofaging.org/article/S0197-4580%2809%2900021-9 [2010, March 11]

 

11. Sharansky, Natan (1998) . New York: Public Affairs. p.309

 

12. Franklin, Benjamin (1779) "The Morals of Chess" [online] Historical Chess. Available: http://www.goddesschess.com/chesstories/franklin.html [2010, March 14]

(The title image makes use of the Hubble Space Telescope image of open cluster NGC 3603, Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration)

 

 

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