What’s a fun way to increase creativity, reaction time, improve multitasking and make your mind more flexible?

Play video games.

1) Games might increase creativity:

A study of nearly 500 12-year-olds found that the more kids played video games, the more creative they were in tasks such as drawing pictures and writing stories. In contrast, use of cell phones, the Internet and computers (other than for video games) was unrelated to creativity, the study found… regardless of gender, race or type of game played, greater video game playing was the only technology to be associated with greater creativity.

2) They can increase your reaction time:

Here we review evidence that the very act of playing action video games significantly reduces reaction times without sacrificing accuracy. Critically, this increase in speed is observed across various tasks beyond game situations. Video gaming may therefore provide an efficient training regimen to induce a general speeding of perceptual reaction times without decreases in accuracy of performance.

3) They make you a better multitasker:

…we obtained performance advantages for experienced video gamers compared to non-gamers in situations in which two different tasks were processed simultaneously or sequentially.

4) Games increase cognitive flexibility:

Our findings support the idea that playing FPS games promotes cognitive flexibility.

5) They reduce nightmares:

Individuals with a history of game play experienced fewer threat severity variables in their dreams.

6) Video games can even be an effective treatment for PTSD:

We predicted that playing “Tetris” half an hour after viewing trauma would reduce flashback frequency over 1-week.

Join 25K+ readers. Get a free weekly update via email here.

Related posts:

10 ways to turn yourself into a productivity dynamo

What lessons can we learn from the most creative people?

What 10 things should you do every day to improve your life?