Let's Get Neurological: 10 Contests for Mental Athletes

Maybe your days of physical athletic prowess are far behind you. But brains can grow more efficient over time if properly worked out. Fortunately, there are many competitions out there for those of us who have to start choosing brains over brawn. Here are a few of them—and some suggestions for how you can train with products from the floss store.

1. THE MEMORIAD

Held every four years (yes, just like the Olympics!), the Memoriad is a global memory, mental calculation, and photographic-reading competition. Categories of competition include memorizing the order of a deck of cards, adding one- to four-digit numbers seen flashing on a screen, and calculating the correct day of the week for randomly selected calendar dates between the years 1600 and 2099. And no, you may not take out your graphing calculators … or your iPhones. Gold, silver, and bronze medals are awarded in each category.

This unique Frank Lloyd Wright Designs Memory Game could bring some fun into your memory training regimen.

2. LOLLAPUZZOOLA

Though possibly more subdued than the Lollapalooza music festival, Lollapuzzoola is a summertime crossword puzzle contest held in New York City and the second-largest contest of its kind in the United States. Competitors are broken into four divisions (two based on skill, one for rookies, and one for pairs), and are scored on both speed and accuracy. But watch out, there’s a 10-point deduction for each wrong letter. So maybe you do this one in pencil, huh?

Train for this one with Mental Floss's own book of crossword puzzles.

3. THE MOMATH MASTERS TOURNAMENT

The National Museum of Mathematics in New York City hosted the MoMath Masters Tournament this past spring. The night consisted of cocktails and challenges from three categories: Gardner Greats (questions selected from the work of math writer Martin Gardner), Math Pulse, and Math Classics. Question one:

Lewis Carroll’s Alice is wandering around the Forest of Forgetfulness, where she is unable to remember the day of the week. In the forest she meets the Lion and the Unicorn. The Lion lies on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and the Unicorn lies on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. At all other times both animals tell the truth. "Yesterday was one of my lying days," says the Lion. "Yesterday was one of my lying days too," says the Unicorn. Alice is able to deduce the day of the week. What is it?

If you can puzzle this out, you’re better than I. I’d like to hear more about the cocktails.

In Einstein's Riddle, philosopher and mathematician Jeremy Stangroom has collected some of the classic riddles and paradoxes from throughout history and brought them together in a fun and visually-appealing way—we really like this book.

4. THE PUN-OFFS

The O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships have been held every year since 1977 in Austin, Texas (for those wondering, O. Henry was the iconic short story writer who gave us "The Gift of the Magi"). Competitors face off in two categories: Punniest of Show, where they have 90 seconds to recite prepared material, and Punslingers, a “shootout” between two players that ends when one competitor runs out of puns. There is a reason why pun and fun rhyme.

Train your punny bone—and learn more on the history of punning and how the author took home the Punslingers trophy in 1995—in The Pun Also Rises.

5. THE DECAMENTATHLON

Created for the Mind Sports Olympiad, the Decamentathlon is the less physically challenging version of the decathlon—you know, the Olympic event Bruce Jenner won in 1976. While mastering the Decamentathlon will not put your face on a Wheaties box and probably won’t score your family your own reality TV show, it will mean you’re pretty darn smart. It’s a four-hour test broken into 10 “events": Backgammon, Chess, creative thinking, Checkers/Draughts, Go, intelligence, Mastermind, memory, mental calculations, and Othello, or Reversi. Mind Sports Olympiad die-hards can also compete in the Pentamind, which includes half the amount of events, but categories can change from year to year.

Sounds like your Whole Brain ought to be optimized to compete in this one—try training with the Whole Brain Game.

6. THE USA MEMORY CHAMPIONSHIP

This competition was created in 1997 by a businessman who wanted to prove to people that the brain can get stronger with age, and competitors in the USA Memory Championship fashion themselves as “Mental Athletes.” Events include the memorization of names and faces, a shuffled deck of cards, an unpublished poem, and a list of 200 words. Hopefully the event organizers keep enough Gatorade on the sidelines.

Journalist Joshua Foer spent a year training his memory as research for his book, Moonwalking With Einstein, and in preparation for this event.

7. THE WORLD PUZZLE CHAMPIONSHIPS

This three-day international competition consists of both team and individual challenges. Each participant completes a 13-part puzzle booklet in the first two days, and the leaders face off in the individual playoffs on day three. The World Puzzle Federation, which hosts this event, also runs the World Sudoku Championships.

Get your puzzle-solving up-to-speed with Mental Floss's Book of Logic Puzzles.

8. THE MENTAL CALCULATION WORLD CUP

Every two years, mathematicians gather to show off their skills in problems based on basic arithmetic principles. The 2012 Cup was held in Germany, and winner Naofumi Ogasawara of Japan broke a world record by adding 10 sets of 10 10-digit numbers in three minutes and 11 seconds. The Usain Bolt of math, ladies and gentlemen.

Prep for this one by honing your mental math skills with the book Secrets of Mental Math.

9. THE NATIONAL ADULT SPELLING BEE

As the Scripps National Spelling Bee continues to build on its reputation as the country’s most-watched mental sport, adults are getting in on the action: The National Adult Spelling Bee has been held in Long Beach, Calif., since 2006. After four years of competing, a French professor from Alabama took the 2013 competition by correctly spelling “quincunx.” The competitor in second place got caught up on “tourbillion” in the 26th round.

Hmmmm, don't know how exactly to help you with this one—maybe you should read a lot more. Try Mental Floss: The Book—Only The Greatest Lists In The History of Listory.

10. PUZZLEHUNTS

In this scavenger hunt for puzzle lovers, each team has to first find puzzles that are hidden in secret locations, and then solve them. Each solved puzzle usually leads to the next. Puzzlehunts are fairly popular among the techy-crowd, and are held annually at institutions like MIT, which hosted its longest one (73 hours and more than 150 puzzles!) this year. Puzzles can include mind-stumpers such as anagrams and cryptograms, but really, anything goes. Some puzzles in the MIT event may not even have an answer, but organizers promise this is rare. Just keeping everyone on their toes.

Start your brain training with a good baseline measurement using this IQ Test Kit. Prepare with the included practice question, take the test, and then mail in your answers in the included postage-paid envelope—and receive your personalized certificate and results within 28 days!

Primary image courtesy of Flickr user TrishaLyn.