How To Improve Your Mental Maths Game Without The Effort

How many times were you at school in a maths lesson and counting out on your fingers or using a calculator? The chances are you were also chastised by your teacher who said you shouldn’t rely on calculators as you wouldn’t have one on you in the future. Well that statement was made before the phenomenon of smart phones and as a result we all have a calculator in our pockets and handbags 24/7. If we’re being honest we probably all use calculators a little more frequently then we should because it’s faster, convenient and efficient, if a little lazy too. Remember that your brain is a muscle, and like any other muscle your brain will become more efficient the more you work it. So try a few of these ideas to help improve your mental maths skills.

Darts

Retired darts player, the King of Bling Bobby George has been advocating for years that darts should be used in school classrooms as way to improve children’s maths skills. A standard game of 501 requires you to have some decent maths skills when it comes to knowing where you need to aim for next. You need to know your times tables in order due to the doubles and trebles rings on a dartboard. The game 501 requires you to finish on a double to knowing who to multiply and divide is critical. Teacher Philip New set up a darts club at Woodlands Middle School and quickly noticed a dramatic change in students attitude towards maths and found them solving equations quicker in class.

Blackjack

Popular casino game blackjack has also proven effective in improving mental maths and how to play blackjack for beginners. It is obviously only basic addition as you’re only going up to 21 but in a casino environment you’re up against the clock and any mistake may prove costly. Practice playing blackjack and see how quickly you can work out the total on the cards in front of you, initially you may start off quite slow but with practice you’ll gradually work out the maths quicker and quicker. Some schools have even started to incorporate blackjack into maths lessons to improve mental maths in students, without the gambling aspect of course.

Puzzles

Try and do more puzzles in your spare time, the chances are you’ll find that you quite enjoy them. Sudoku puzzles are a good place to start and you can frequently find them in the daily newspapers, you can buy books for them at cheap prices with a range of difficulties. Just start with the easiest and gradually move up levels when you feel ready to. You can also now get Sudoku toilet paper which can be a great way of passing the time, plus you know what to do when you make a mistake.

Chocolate

Nope, that’s not a misprint. A number of volunteers were given cocoa laced with extra amounts of flavanols (compounds found in chocolate) and it was found that they were able to do calculations quicker and accurately. So there you have it, chocolate can make you do maths better, but you need to eat very dark chocolate to get the flavanols, so sadly eating Maltesers and Mars bars won’t help.