How Escape Room Riddles Can Boost Brain Power

We love escape rooms. (If you're new to the escape room bandwagon, here's a little escape room 101 for you). There's no better way to spend time with friends and family than frantically searching all over the room for valuable hidden objects. While this may remind you of how your mother tricked you into cleaning your room, this version benefits your health! Escape room riddles take your brain from a scrawny 96-pound weakling to a bodybuilder in no time flat! (From the lawyers: past performance is no guarantee of future results. Escape room riddles cannot improve upon legal disclaimers, so enough of that).

Because you were having fun and desperately working to escape the zombies trying to eat your brain, you didn't notice how solving escape room riddles helped your brain! We'll show you 9 ways escape room riddles boost the ole brain box. With the heart-pounding fun and mental improvements, your doctor may prescribe escape rooms!

You've probably heard this from teachers, managers, and self-help gurus since you were knee-high to a grasshopper — you've got to think outside the box! Unfortunately, that command is like many Christmas toys — no instructions included. Just be creative. Answers will flow.

Escape room riddles allow you to enhance your creativity in a fun, stress-free environment (Here's how to find a good one). Most escape room puzzles have a twist to them. You have to adjust your thinking to find the combination to the lockbox. Unlike most work problems or those exciting math worksheets in high school, the way forward in an escape room is rarely straight.

The time pressure created by escape rooms also promotes quicker problem-solving. Your brain not only has to view things in a different light, but it also has to do so on a tight deadline. We deal with deadlines and quick turnarounds all of the time. Escape rooms teach you to handle those problems creatively and efficiently.

By pushing you to see problems in different ways, escape room riddles force you to use different parts of your brain. You may need a dust mop to clear the cobwebs! However, the next time you need a dose of creativity, your brain will know where to find it!

We are not claiming that escape rooms will help you remember where your glasses are (on top of your head), why you walked into your bedroom, or even why you clicked the link to open this article! However, solving escape room riddles can enhance short-term memory, especially memories needed to complete projects.

To avoid becoming a permanent resident of the abandoned mental institution (of course, if it is peaceful with a good view of the lake, it sounds better than your usual Monday morning), you have to keep in mind the backstory of the game and the information found in the room. You do not have the time to review every piece of evidence for each new puzzle. This forces your brain to try to expand the amount of information at your fingertips.

Solving one escape room riddle leads to another, forcing your brain to sort past information to get through this new puzzle. You may need to remember where you found certain objects or clues, especially if the clues are part of the furniture or walls. Moving quickly to these solutions requires more retention and recall than most of us normally utilize.

Do you remember why escape rooms enhance memory? If so, you may proceed. If not, reread this section.

You've heard of a runner's high (it's real, or so we've heard)? Solving escape room riddles and ultimately escaping leads to an escape room high!

Running 20 miles or solving puzzles and riddles makes the brain happy (which would you rather do?). A happy brain rewards us by producing dopamine, also known as the "feel good" hormone. Dopamine enhances our mood and makes us more self-assured.

Therefore, you need regular doses of escape rooms to keep a steady supply of dopamine flowing through your veins! It's that easy to be happy!

As you might imagine, the feel-good hormone will ease your stress as it lightens your mood. As you feel lighter and happier, your worries slip away. It's almost as good as saying supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

Aside from flooding you with mood-enhancing hormones, escape rooms let you leave the real world behind. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you know that even if you're still in the room when the hour runs out, you won't be the serial killer's next victim. A gamemaster will open the door and then explain everything you did wrong.

But for that hour, the real world slipped away. After all, it is an ESCAPE room. Not only are you trying to escape from the room, but you are also escaping from all the cares and worries of the real world. You can extend that escape with a great meal to rehash your escape room success! Stress? What stress?

While science still struggles with the causes of many mental diseases, it also seems to indicate that an active mind helps ward off many mental diseases. That's why many medical providers recommend that people regularly read, attempt crossword puzzles, or try to figure out what cats are thinking.

Doctors should recommend escape rooms! For an hour, your brain will redline as you try to quickly solve a series of escape room puzzles. You'll feel the adrenaline coursing through your veins even though you're not taking more than a few steps at a time.

The benefits of escape rooms on brain health seem quite clear. Make sure to get your next dose before your next physical.

No one wins an escape room on their own. Most designers plan their escape rooms to keep 4-8 people busy for an hour. We've tried solving some with just two people, and it's really difficult. We don't recommend it.

Escape rooms improve teamwork skills. You learn quickly how to work and play well with others when you have a series of puzzles and only one hour to solve them.

Escape room riddles teach you how to value input from others. Your teammate may solve a puzzle with a glance that had you frustrated and confused. Escape rooms quickly reveal that everyone has a strength and can contribute to the group's success. You can carry these lessons with you to all other aspects of your life... and this also makes them awesome corporate team building games too!

Not only do escape rooms make you a better teammate, they make you a better communicator. Solving puzzle after puzzle requires that you alert your teammates to helpful information as clearly and concisely as possible.

More importantly, escape rooms teach you to listen. Not hear, listen. Actively listening helps you understand the other person's message and quickly incorporate it into the current problem. Successfully escaping will require all team members to communicate clearly and listen closely.

Clear communication is the core to succeeding in an escape room. Master that, and the rest of these winning escape room tips will probably come easily to you.

But be warned! The next time your partner tells you to wash the dishes, you won't be able to claim that you did not hear them. After seeing you in the escape room, they will know you know how to listen!

Few games teach time management as well as escape rooms. The minute the game starts, a clock starts running and does not stop. There are no timeouts in escape rooms. You have an hour to escape. As you progress through escape room riddles, you keep checking that clock.

You know that you can't spend too much time on one puzzle, or you'll be left with no time for the 10 puzzles following it. At some point, you realize that it's worth the time penalty to grab a hint or even a solution from the gamemaster. It makes no sense to waste 10 minutes on an escape room riddle when a hint only costs 3 minutes and takes you right to the solution!

Fortunately, most real-world problems don't involve intentionally tricky puzzles and a one-hour time limit. But you will learn that sometimes doing things differently is quicker. You'll soon realize that it's always faster to go inside to get your Starbucks coffee than it is to wait in the drive-through! Time savings are everywhere!

Escape rooms throw a lot of information at you at once. Your team may have to solve more than one escape room riddle at a time. Information is flying back and forth like mashed potatoes in a food fight.

You will quickly figure out how to handle the information flow and puzzles. If not, you'll be a permanent resident of Tut's tomb. The more calmly and patiently you can manage the chaos, the better your chances of escaping. (But if you're still having trouble after a few tries, maybe this article can help.)

Real-life occasionally decides to pile many tasks on you without asking permission. While it may not be as fun or rewarding as an escape room, you can apply the same multitasking techniques that allowed you to escape to meet the conflicting demands of the real world. Just when you think it will overwhelm you, head back to the escape room for more practice!

Now that you know the many mental benefits of solving escape room riddles, we know that you'll head to an escape room shortly. 

Or, you can download a DIY escape room. It has all the mental benefits without the spooky, sandy setups and downtown traffic! Either way, you're doing something to promote a healthy lifestyle. Your doctor will love you!