Playing Bingo - Playing for Your Health

There is yet another good reason to get addicted to the game everyone loves - bingo.

A study done recently in the United Kingdom revealed that aside from giving amusement and alleviating boredom, playing bingo is also a good way to attain good health.

The study, which is done in the University of Southampton's Psychology Department, suggests that regularly playing bingo actually results in good health especially in the aspect of boosting one's mental activity as it helps in keeping the mind astute and sharp, a good thing especially for the older generation who make up most of the numbers of avid players.

The experiment that was conducted to correlate the game to good health, specifically good mental health, involved 112 people divided between age groups of 18 to 40 and 60 to 82.

To make the experiment random, the half of each of the two groups is made to comprise of avid bingo players while the other half is made to be composed of non-players. The two groups were then given tests that measure an individual's good health in terms of mental agility.

After the test, results show that in the experiment, the devoted bingo players showed clear advantage in terms of quickness and accuracy over the non-players.

In addition, the group that is composed of older people who regularly plays bingo fared better in tests that measure accuracy than their younger counterparts who tend to be carelessly quick and hasty.

Bingo players in the experiment also appeared to be more aware of their surroundings as they have better abilities in picking up information from the environment around them.

This may be attributed to the fact that alertness is a required quality of a player to avoid falling behind in the balls that are being called up in the game, hence the heightened sensitivity to environmental stimuli.

These good health benefits of bingo to an individual's mental wellness can be credited to its mechanics concerning time.

Like poker or backgammon, it extensively utilizes the mind with hand-eye coordination but unlike these other pastimes, bingo has severe time restrictions because one has to thoroughly check his or her card(s) before another ball is to be called, and this procedure greatly helps in maintaining a regular player's mental agility.

With the results clearly demonstrating the good health condition and commendable mental aptitude of the elder participants, the experiment showed the extent of help a long term mental activity can give in fending off the deterioration of cognitive abilities like speed, accuracy and comprehension of patterns.

Overall, bingo should not be dismissed as it has been in the past. With these strings of studies coming up to prove the benefits of wellness brought by playing bingo, it is best that one shreds off those misconceptions of it being a game fit only for pensioners as not only it is fit for everyone, it actually benefits everyone, young and old alike.