In today's technological era, we spend most of our time on computers and devices. Whether you are a student or a full-time worker, you cannot avoid screen exposure. However, sometimes it's best to unplug yourself and do a little mental workout. The Rubik's Cube is an example of a puzzle that stimulates your cognition. This thrilling puzzle can phenomenally improve the brain's performance. Find out more about the benefits of puzzling with Rubik’s Cubes!
What are the benefits of solving a Rubik's Cube?
- Boosts Cognitive Power
- Improves Memory
- Develops Problem-Solving Skills
- Enhances Brain-Hand-Eye Coordination and Reflexes
- Improves Concentration
- Builds Patience and Perseverance
- Stress Reduction
- Nurtures Creativity
- Improve Reflexes
What Is the Rubik's Cube?
The Rubik's Cube is a 3-D combination puzzle invented by a Hungarian sculptor and professor, Erno Rubik, in 1974. Scientists and scholars initially used this puzzle for scientific research and technology development. However, this puzzle attracted the world's attention due to its unique characteristics.
The standard Rubik's Cube is comprised of 26 small cubes that rotate on an axis. There are nine mini cubes on each face of the cube, having different color arrangements. Once the Rubik's Cube has been disfigured, the player must return it to its original configuration.
The only requirement to solve the Rubik's Cube is to ensure that every side of the cube has the same color. All the mini cubes of one color group should be arranged on each side of the cube. Every small cube is attached to a central pivot, making it easy to move and rotate independently. The Rubik's is also known as the magic, puzzle, or speed cube. Rubik's Cube brain benefits have made it a mind-training toy throughout the world.
9 Ways That the Rubik's Cube Is Good for the Brain
The Rubik's Cube has become widely known across the world due to its exceptional benefits. It's also become quite the symbol of mental achievement! Here are some of the Rubik's Cube brain benefits:
Boosts Cognitive Power
One of the most significant benefits of the Rubik's Cube is that it boosts cognitive power. The Rubik's Cube stimulates cognition, which develops different spatial areas of the brain. This puzzle is regarded as a tool that can be applied to mathematics to train students on algorithms.
This is because this puzzle challenges the brain to solve different sides of the cube all at the same time. As you practice solving the cube more and more, your solving speed increases, meaning your cognitive abilities are allowing you to think about the spatial puzzle faster. It pushes your brain to achieve a new goal and enhance cognitive skills and powers.
Improves Memory
The Rubik's Cube plays an essential role in improving memory as it demands thinking, concentration, and memorization of different patterns. Most of the famous Rubik’s Cube players praise the cube for its ability to improve memory. Playing the cube will up your memory game as you will be learning complex scientific theories, patterns, and methods for constructively solving the cube.
Seasoned players will come to recognize repeating situations and patterns and will be able to recall the complex series of steps that helped them solve the puzzle previously. This improved memory skill can carry over into other areas of life, improving one’s memory ability for other concepts.
Develops Problem-Solving Skills
Perhaps the most-touted of all Rubiks Cube benefits is its mechanism for helping players increase their problem-solving abilities. Becoming a skilled Rubik's Cube solver means you can develop exceptional problem-solving skills, which not only help you in mastering this puzzle but also in other professional and personal areas of life.
With a mind experienced in thinking several steps ahead, it will become easier to understand how to achieve goals in other areas of life.
If you want to learn the problem-solving skills required to solve this puzzle efficiently, hire a private Rubik's Cube tutor from Superprof. Not only will your tutor teach you how to master solving this puzzle, but they will also ensure to teach you the necessary problem-solving techniques for becoming a skilled professional!
Enhances Brain-Hand-Eye Coordination and Reflexes
Solving the Rubik's Cube (the speed cube specifically) involves alertness, concentration, and consistent hand movement. Since you are juggling between three bodily actions simultaneously, it enhances your brain-hand-eye coordination and reflexes. It ensures your brain is working at the right pace and manner, your vision is strong and on point, and your fingers' dexterity has increased.
This connection between the senses can help you become more spatially aware and adept at moving throughout your environment. In short, it may make you more agile, less clumsy, and more confident in your bodily movements.
In 2018, Yusheng Du of China completed a 3x3 cube in 3.47 seconds.
Improves Concentration
The Rubik's Cube is a complex puzzle that demands focus and attention in a single place to solve it in less time. This improves our concentration in an exclusive place so that we can identify opportunities and solve them without wasting any time.
Especially in our modern world full of screens and other distractions designed to ensnare your attention, being able to push aside everything else and focus on the task at hand is a great boon for mental health. You can even consider practicing the Rubik’s Cube as a form of meditation if you like! After all, it’s a singular activity that requires the player to ignore distractions and focus on a singular activity in the present.
Superprof teaches you to learn this interesting puzzle in the easiest ways.
Builds Patience and Perseverance
The best thing about solving the Rubik's Cube is that you never know how long it will take to solve the puzzle. You can solve the cube in minutes or take up to several hours. Moreover, you will face several challenges while solving the Rubik's Cube, especially at first.
However, this process will teach you exceptional patience and perseverance, preparing your mind not to give up no matter how complicated the situation is. Only by persevering past the frustrating learning curve of the cube can you hope to gain mastery. Fostering patience is one of the lesser-known benefits of solving a Rubik’s Cube.
Stress Reduction
The Rubik's Cube is an excellent device to declutter the mind. This is because while solving the cube, we list the necessary mathematical concepts and methods to solve the cube in the fastest way possible. As mentioned before, it can be a meditative experience.
If you are able to put aside feelings of frustration or agitation about not being able to solve the cube, especially in your early days, spending time cubing is a great way to de-stress. You can let your mind wander or concentrate intensely as you focus on the low-stakes task at hand.
Nurtures Creativity
You might not expect the Rubik’s Cube to be a creative outlet, but it certainly can be! Beyond solving the puzzle, you can learn how to make mosaic pictures with the squares. Some common examples are a checkerboard pattern, stripes, and borders.
But, you can invest in a larger cube, perhaps a 5x5, 6x6, or even 7x7 cube! With these larger options, you can create even more patterns and even simple pictures. Put together, you can create an entire mosaic artwork with multiple cubes.
In another way, since using a Rubik’s Cube can be relaxing and meditative, it can allow the mind to wander and even passively solve unrelated problems. Just like how many people find that they come up with great ideas in the shower, you might discover that great thoughts reveal themselves to you when you cube.
Many teachers use Rubik's Cubes as a hands-on educational tool to teach students about mathematics, geometry, and algorithms.
Improves Reflexes
One of the lesser-known benefits of the Rubik's Cube is that cubers can find that their reflexes are improved after spending time learning how to solve the puzzle. Because of the increased hand-eye coordination and brain-hand-eye coordination, cubers are better equipped to handle things that require fast decisions.
Note how fast professional cubers’ hands easily flick the cube’s rows and columns around with assuredness. Those reflexes can be translated to other hand-eye situations in life, like sports, cooking, driving, crafts, and more!
Of course, it is also a great form of entertainment! Compared to the toys and games we are used to these days it might seem like the Rubik’s Cube is quite boring, and while it might not have all the bells and whistles of other games, that doesn’t mean it can’t be a fun way to pass time.
The Rubik’s Cube can be a great way to help “reset” your mind to enjoy things with lower stimulation in a high-stimulation world. When it was a novel invention, the Rubik’s Cube was seen as a highly entertaining item because there weren’t other things out there specifically designed to ensnare people’s attention as we have now.
How to Learn the Rubik's Cube?
The Rubik's Cube is a demanding puzzle. You need to have specific necessary skills to solve this brain teaser. Some of these skills include:
- Mathematical skills and understanding
- Finger dexterity
- Excellent brain-eye-hand coordination
- Spatial intelligence
- Pattern recognition
- Excellent memory
- Analytical thinking
- Planning skills
It might sound like a daunting skill set for such a small puzzle game, but experienced cubers incorporate all these skills into their work. It will take a long time to develop these skills - that’s to be expected! It’s all part of the journey of becoming a Rubik’s Cube master.
Steps for Solving a Rubik’s Cube
You will have to use your maximum mental capacity in order to ace this game. Here are five basic steps that one should follow while solving the Rubik's Cube:
- Make a ‘daisy’ on one side, with a yellow square in the center and 4 white squares in the cardinal directions
- Make the white cross on the bottom face of the cube
- Solve the first layer
- Solve the middle layer
- Make the yellow cross on the top face of the cube
- Solve the yellow face
- Position the corners
- Position the edges
This process is easier said than done for learners, but once you master the algorithms used for moving squares around the cube, you will be able to master this technique and more.
Even though it can be challenging and frustrating to learn how to master the Rubik’s Cube, this does not mean that you will never be able to learn this challenging yet fun game!
You can expedite your understanding when you learn with a professional private tutor on Superprof. Superprof hosts expert Rubik's Cube private tutors with profound conceptual knowledge and practical skills for solving this cube. A private tutor will be able to give you individual attention, focus, time, and concentration in teaching you the best techniques to solve a Rubik's Cube.
Get Rubik's Cube Lessons from Superprof
Are you looking for Rubik's Cube lessons either online or in-person? Superprof is home to Rubik's Cube tutors who have an exceptional theoretical and practical understanding of how to ace this challenging puzzle. You can hire your favorite tutor in-person or online from our platform to begin learning about the Rubik's from scratch.
Harness the many benefits of cubing today when you begin learning with a tutor on Superprof!
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I am 85 years old. I find that once you have learned
the steps in solving the Rubix cube, it becomes less
challenging. Sudoku is more challenging.
Thank you, Eve, for the comment! I’m happy the article was helpful and that you enjoy solving the Rubik’s Cube!