12 Remarkable Reasons Why Escape Rooms are Good for your Brain

Yes, Escape Rooms benefit your health. No, not like kale or gluten-free doughnuts. Escape rooms are good for your brain, your relationships, your work performance and even more! Okay, that’s great, but what is an escape room? Essentially, it is a normal-looking room that contains numerous puzzles and brain teasers. You have one hour to solve them all and ultimately escape the room you are in. Check out these tips if you want to make sure you get out.

It’s difficult to stay healthy these days and it almost seems too much to ask for something that is fun and good for you. But look no further! Escape Rooms are the latest craze, and it is obvious to see why with all of the health benefits intertwined with simply enjoying yourself. 

Can’t escape those facts.

Here, we have listed 12 reasons why escape rooms benefit your overall health.

Escape Rooms benefit your health because each puzzle you solve is a little treat for your brain.

To put it plain and simple- it feels so good to win! Puzzles are known to spike the dopamine levels in the brain. Dopamine is a naturally occurring neurotransmitter your brain releases to positively encourage beneficial actions. While doing puzzles, the brain releases dopamine in response to any size breakthroughs in success (ever completed a 1000 piece puzzle?). This gives us an instant feeling of gratification and is why we see people in escape rooms fighting to be the one who inputs the code or turns the key. 

Benefits of dopamine include:

• Positive Mood
• Sharper Concentration
• Improved Memory
• Heightened Social Skills

The brain likes when we solve puzzles and reinforces this activity with an influx of dopamine that literally makes you a sharper learner. The brain craves more influx of dopamine, motivating you to find more and more difficult challenges and puzzles to solve! This is why people often find themselves itching to find the next best escape adventure. 

Get practice with your communication skills.

You are locked in a room with friends/family for one hour. Odds are you are going to have to speak to each other if you want to stand a chance!

Your team has to work together to solve all of the puzzles and exit the room. In order to do this, you will have to effectively communicate every single detail of the room. You will also need to listen to other players. This brings forth the opportunity to see the value in contributions from others. When you’re finished (whether you escape or not) you will be able to transfer these experiences to your everyday life and you will find it easier to communicate in general.

Practice makes perfect!

Escape rooms benefit your general mood.

All those small breakthroughs release dopamine in your brain, and all those tiny releases of dopamine add up and affect your general mood and mindset positively. These small doses of gratification help you feel less fatigued and more energized, less reclusive and more social, less glass-half-empty and more glass-half-full. Complete escape rooms regularly and those around you will notice a positive change in personality- you will too!

Develop problem-solving skills.

Want to be a better swimmer? Surround yourself with water. Want to be a better cook? Surround yourself with chefs. Want to improve your problem-solving skills? Do escape rooms!

Escape rooms are filled with completely unique puzzles. Each puzzle requires you to step outside of the box and think of things in ways you may not have in the past. While completing an escape game, you are equipping alternate ways to solve problems in everyday life.

Get into a teamwork oriented mind-set.

When everyone in the group is thinking in a teamwork oriented mindset, you will find it is a far a healthier environment for all members, opposed to being in a group where everyone is only thinking for themselves.

In escape rooms it is often required to have more than one person to complete a given puzzle, such as someone reading instruction to a player in a different room, or needing to push two buttons on opposite side of the room at the same time. With excitement and fun in mind, your game master has created a labyrinth of unique puzzles that get everyone on the teamwork train!

Develop your attention to detail.

Take a good look around! Nothing in an escape room is there by chance. While in play, people are far more focused and aware than they are in day to day life, and with good reason. Missing even the most minute detail could throw off your entire game and cost your team the title of master escape artists.

Attention to detail is a beneficial skill to have, and doing escape rooms is a fun way to hone in on and improve this skill! After completing a room or two you will find yourself more keen than ever before! Who knew building life skills could be so fun?

Escape Rooms Benefit your time-management skills.

In any escape room you are given a limited amount of time (usually 1 hour) to complete the puzzles. On top of THAT, you have up to 30 puzzles to solve in a single room. That’s a lot of adventure to manage! You’re about to see just how fast an hour can fly by!

Spending too much time on a puzzle could be your downfall, so you really have to manage your time properly and avoid the unnecessary. Try and look at the big picture, the real goal. Do you have all of the items required to solve a puzzle, or does it seem like something is missing? Try unlocking some boxes to obtain more items first. Make sure you spend your time constructively and split your team up to cover more ground in less time.

Practicing these skills benefits anyone; lawyers, nurses, soldiers, students, whoever you are!

Get your 30 minutes of physical activity for the day.

The AHA (American Heart Association) recommends everyone gets at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per day. With how busy everyone is these days, achieving that can be quite the fleet. In an escape room you get double that! Yep, you are trapped in a room for one hour, and if you’re serious about it you’ll be darting around all the corners of the rooms looking for and cracking codes! This is exactly the type of physical activity the AHA is referring to when they say moderate-intensity physical activity.

If this is something you have been struggling with doing for yourself, escape rooms are a great way to get more active. You won’t be straining yourself excessively but you will have a good time darting around the room in search for clues! So with this activity, there really is no excuse. Anyone can do it, even you!

Getting the recommended amount of physical activity benefits your health directly in many ways. Just to name a few, moderate exercise lowers:

• Blood Pressure
• Cholesterol
• Risk of heart attack/stroke

Create a more enjoyable work environment- sounds great, right?!

Spending quality time with people is essential to forming healthy and long-lasting relationships, and Escape Rooms are an exciting way to do so!

What better way to get to know people than to be locked in a room for one hour with a common goal? People’s personalities really shine through in an escape room scenario, and that can be great for really getting to know your coworkers. Once you start forming meaningful relationships and extraordinary teamwork with coworkers, your work environment will transform into a magical place! The benefits from a better work environment include lower stress levels and an improved general mood.

Bond with those you love.

There is no better way to get those feel-good vibes. Spending quality time with the people you love is like nothing else. If only there was more time to do this! Going out to dinner or catching a movie is so boring, and there is nothing to do other than stare at each others blank, bored faces! Instead, do something exciting as a team and enrich your time spent together. Hop into an immersive, stimulating escape room adventure and have some real quality time with anyone on your list of friends and family. Having a common goal such as stopping the zombie apocalypse or escaping a maniac clown makes your weekly get to together that much more exciting.

Improve the health of your heart.

With vast amounts of technology in the world today we all live very sedentary lifestyles, and it is wearing on our hearts. The average number of deaths from heart disease a year in the U.S. is staggering. 614,348 people die each year from heart disease in the U.S. Chances of developing heart disease drop a whopping 50% simply by getting the recommended 30 minutes of moderate-physical activity everyday. That is a considerable difference!

Games are one hour long, so you will actually be doubling the recommend time for daily physical activities. Instead of sitting at the movie theater for hours, hop into an interactive escape room game. You will have a blast and your heart will thank you.

Relieve stress.

Stress is actually beneficial in scenarios like an escape room. Your heart beat is racing and you are ready for action, your breath is quick and getting more oxygen to the brain. Stress keeps us sharp and on our feet in most cases. When left unmanaged, stress builds up and can lead to the development of serious health problems such as stomach ulcers, stroke, asthma, and heart disease.

Had a stressful week at work? Or a stressful year? You need to relax, man! Although we all live very busy lives, it’s essential to recharge our batteries by having a good time every now and then. Escape Rooms are fun for anyone, no matter how young or old. Escape games are great for winding down, and winding down is good for the soul. What are you waiting for? Get out and show yourself a good time. You deserve it!

Like this post? Tell us about it in the comments!

We would love to hear from you.