Challenge Your Brain With a Fun Improv Game

Quick Win

Improv games encourage you to think on your feet and can improve your communication skills.

Try this today

• To play Questions Only each person takes a turn that’s limited to one sentence. That sentence must be a question.
• The conversation will go back and forth for as long as possible, but it also has to make sense. For example:
  • “What would you like to do today?”
  • “What would you like to do?”
  • “Have you seen the new Johnny Depp movie?”
  • “Was that the one with the pirates?”
• Anyone who violates the one-sentence question rule is “out.” Try to make your friend laugh. Better yet — see if you can get them to disqualify themselves.

Why

If you’ve ever seen an improv comedy troupe or watched the TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway? then you know just how hilarious the outcomes of an unscripted scene can be. But you don’t have to be a comedian to play improv games. Because improv can teach people to be more adaptable and better at communicating, it has been used in employee trainings. It can benefit you and your loved ones, too: In a survey published in Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics in 2017, 10 adults between the ages of 57 and 81 who took an improv course for older adults called Humor Doesn’t Retire reported increased positivity and self-awareness, better problem-solving abilities and feeling closer to their social circle. And in another small study, of 58 adults between the ages of 20 and 40 published in the Journal of Creativity in Mental Health in 2020, those who completed a six-week improv course reported greater psychological well-being (better self-esteem and self-efficacy, in particular) compared with those in the control group.