7 Big Chess Benefits
There are some profound benefits to playing Chess regularly, much like a UFC fighter standing across the octagon from their adversary you have a problem presented in front of you and you must utilize your energy and resources to cripple your opponent in the most efficient way possible.
Hell, sports exist that combine physical battle (boxing) with mental boxing in the form of chess, that sport is called chess-boxing and involves a round of boxing which is immediately followed up by a round of chess.
You might be able to touch your opponent up with a flurry of jabs and crosses in the ring but you must also learn how to use your mind to strategise and defeat them on the board too.
Now, I'm not telling you to lace up your gloves and start chess-boxing, just check out the 7 big chess benefits below and begin to incorporate chess regularly into your daily routine - don't have an opponent to playi n person? Here's the free site I use to play online - slowly increasing the difficulty of the opponent as my tactics evolve.
1 - Uses Both Sides Of Your Brain
While working your way up the ranks of chess difficulty you must begin to utilize the left hemisphere of your brain - the left side is responsible for dealing with object recognition while the right side takes care of pattern recognition... if you intend on winning on coming away from your chess board victorious both sides must begin to develop - you will not find a high level chess player that isn't efficiently utilizing both sides of their brain.
2 - Teaches You To Be Ice Cold Under Pressure
In the final few moves of a chess game when everything is on the line you have to keep your cool, if you're unable to do so you will without a doubt make critical errors that will most likely cost you the game.
Over time you'll develop your ability to remain ice cold under pressure - you'll discover that you must remain as calm as possible to maintain your focus to extend the game or to claim your victory.
This is an important skill that can bleed over into other facets of your life, be it in a physical altercation, in a stressful situation in the office etc.
3 - You'll Learn To Hone Your Focus
It's impossible to play a proper game of chess while just going through the motions as there's such more going on - you must remember how and where each piece moves, you must pay immense attention to the strategy your opponent is employing against you.
This requires 100% focus, at that moment you must forget about all trivial matters and hone your focus onto the task at hand.
This honed focus in future can help you build businesses, transform your physique... it can essentially assist with any other high level task that requires immense focus.
4 - You'll Boost Your Creative Thinking
There's no single path to victory in chess, there are a ton of different moves, tactics and techniques you can employ to get your opponent into a state of checkmate.
You can read up on strategy on the internet, you can study books but at the end of the day you're not going to be able to follow a plan you've read from start to finish as your opponent is going to be unpredicable... this is where your creativity must come into play.
You must think of, try and test different creative methods on your path to victory.
This form of creative expression can lead to powerful ideas in other facets of your life too.
5 - You'll Learn To Lose
This benefit may sound negative but I can assure you it is not - constantly winning can actually be a negative as you never end up pondering. You think what you've done to win will always work and you begin to enter each game assuming you're going to win as all previous reference points indicate this.
It's not until you lose that you truly take stock and begin to investigate how and why you came up short and what you can do to ensure it never happens again.
I constantly remind myself of a quote from the great Tony Robbins regarding this...
"When you succeed, you party. When you fail, you ponder"
6 - You'll Burn Calories
I personally thought this benefit was utter BS upon reading it many moons ago, but tracking devices have been used to confirm that high level chess players burn an absurd number of calories while playing, almost on par with that of an elite athlete while training their discipline.
In 2004 Rustam Kasimdzhanov played in a 6 game world championship tournament and left the tournament 7kg lighter.
In 2018 Mikhail Antipov (Grandmaster) burned 560 calories in 2 hours, to put that in perspective a relatively intensive workout in the gym would have you burning around the same number of calories for an hour of intense work.
Research via ESPN also indicates that professional chess players burn up to 6000 calories per day.
7 - You'll Increase Your Mental Toughness
Through a combination of all of the other benefits listed above you'll learn to increase your mental toughness - burning an immense number of calories while honing your focus on a single task, learning to accept and deconstruct your defeat... literally all of these aspects contribute to an increase in mental toughness.
Place a regular person and a regular chess player in a mentally stressful situation that involves keeping your cool while looking at something objectively to solve problems and the chess player without a doubt has a huge advantage. They're mentally sharp and tough. They're disciplined and thoughtful in their actions.
I cannot think of a situation or scenario where the bleeding over of these skills would not be immensely helpful.
PS: Here's The Chess Set I Use & Recommend
Portable, pleasing to the eye and inexpensive.
Pick up one of these chess sets here and begin building upon these 7 big benefits we've discussed above.
