On a cold November day, hundreds of people flocked to an arena in Coventry, which has previously hosted performances by Oasis, Rihanna and Harry Styles, for a Very different activities.

The 500 people in attendance - some from as far away as Mongolia and Canada - were taking part in a lesser-known crowd-puller: the British Rubik's Cube Championships of "Quick Cube", which involves solving a Rubik's Cube at breakneck speed.

The arena was lined with rows of tables and hosted 15 events over three days. Some require solving puzzles with one hand, others while blindfolded. Teenager James Alonso won the biggest event of the tournament - solving the classic 3x3 cube in an average of 6.3 seconds.

Quick Rubik's Cube has been popular since the 1980s world record The single clearance record in this event is currently held by American Max Park, with a time of only 3.13 seconds. That's a far cry from the initial speed of architecture professor Ernő Rubik, who invented the Rubik's Cube in 1974 and took about a month to solve.

Fast forward to today, an estimated 412,000 people attended Global Speed ​​Cube Competition. Popularity has also increased, with global sales of Rubik's Cube products reported to be $86.6 million (£67 million) in 2023, a 13.5% increase on 2022. (The brand was acquired by Canadian multinational toy company Spin Master in 2021.)

This does not include sales of other types of puzzle cubes from different brands. Some are wooden, some have electronics with built-in Bluetooth, and some come in a variety of colorful designs.

But now, scientists are praising speedy Rubik's cubes not only as a popular hobby but also for its health benefits.

"The Speed ​​Cube provides a unique combination of cognitive challenge, social connection and personal achievement that contributes to well-being," said Polina Beloborodova, a researcher at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

This is said to be much deeper than a simple passing impulse.

“The Speed ​​Cube satisfies basic psychological needs for competence, effectiveness, and a sense of mastery,” explains Dr. Beloborodova. It involves many factors, including problem solving, memory, spatial reasoning, and motor coordination.

Dr. Julia Christensen, a senior researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Germany, said solving the cube may also bring joy because it triggers other emotions. "Awe, beauty, moving, these are all aesthetic emotions, and experiencing them gives us an ultimate sense of happiness," she said.

"For example, when a pattern is the right pattern, when a movement on a cube is particularly striking, these aesthetic emotions can lead to transformative experiences."

Some speedsters describe the mental state produced by this activity as a sense of "flow."

“This state is achieved when the difficulty of the activity matches your skill level, when distractions are minimal, goals are clear, and feedback is timely—all characteristics of a speed cube,” says Dr. Beloborodova.

Ian Scheffler, author of Cracking the Cube, has experienced this firsthand and says Flow feels "almost meditative." “You get into this state where you’re thinking but not thinking at the same time – you react to what the cube gives you, but in an almost instinctive way.

“It’s a very beneficial form of mindfulness…a peaceful, calm state that allows you to be fully attuned to every twist and turn of the puzzle.”

Dr. Christensen says there's a good reason to seek out a flow state regularly. “Science shows that people who regularly experience flow are healthier mentally, are likely to be healthier physically, and are more coordinated.

"When we repeat actions, they are recorded, or encoded, from the explicit, all-out effort memory system and passed on to the implicit, less effortful, and procedural memory system," she continued.

Nicholas Archer, a fast 17-year-old Rubik's cuber from West Yorkshire, wins this year's one-handed competition british championship The average time was 8.69 seconds, and he said he had experienced such a thing. "When I'm solving a Rubik's Cube, I certainly don't have to think too much about what I'm doing. It's all automatic."

Dr Adil Khan, reader in neuroscience at King's College London (KCL), said: "Speed-running a Rubik's Cube or solving it yourself may increase your happiness. But any benefits are likely to be even greater if combined with a social aspect .

"Since Speed ​​Cube is a social phenomenon, perhaps the social aspect combined with solving the puzzle could provide a very satisfying experience."

Jan Hammer started playing Rubik's Cube at the age of 44 after being introduced to it by his 13-year-old daughter. He has since solved the Rubik's Cube about 10,000 times, but he doesn't think he would have maintained the same enthusiasm if he had done the speed cube alone.

"The fact that I get to do this with my daughter and we cheer each other on is awesome. Plus, being a part of the Cube community has been a huge motivator."

Competitions tend to have more children and teenagers - it's not uncommon for contestants to be as young as six years old. The activity is also significantly more popular among men. The World Cube Association reported that 221,117 men participated in their events, compared to 24,311 women.

Regardless of demographics, "for those who view speed cubing as an important part of their lives, such as tournament participants, it can provide a sense of well-being that fosters a sense of purpose and meaning through dedication, achievement and a community of like-minded people," Dr. Beloborodova argued.

Psychologists distinguish two aspects of happiness: "hedonic happiness," which is related to emotional experience, and "eudaimonic happiness," which is related to meaning and purpose in life.

"Both are crucial to overall well-being, and the Speed ​​Cube can contribute to both types of happiness," she says. All of these "help improve mental health."

However, the effects of speed cubing on the brain and cognitive function are unclear.

When solving a cube, the brain tries different moves and asks, "What will happen if I move the cube this way?" explains Dr. Toby Wise, senior researcher in neuroimaging at King's College London.

"Your brain stores memory traces of different configurations of the cube, and it can run through different configurations to predict which configuration will produce the best results."

However, it doesn't necessarily lead to long-term benefits, such as improved memory function. As Dr. Khan explains, this is because the brain doesn't need to flex in order to grow like muscles do.

For years, some people have believed that solving puzzles, whether Sudoku or crossword puzzles, could help slow cognitive decline or dementia. However, this is not necessarily the case.

A 2018 study published in the British Medical Journal by Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and the University of Aberdeen found that people who engage in frequent intellectual activities throughout their lives have higher mental abilities, providing a "higher cognitive function." "Knowing point" from which they can begin to decay, but their rate of decay does not slow down.

"Solving puzzles doesn't improve your brain power beyond the puzzle itself," Dr. Khan said. "And it almost certainly won't prevent age-related brain decline."

Another benefit of the Speed ​​Cube, according to regular players, is that it provides an escape from the madness of modern life.

"Having a clear goal, something you can actually achieve, is something that we don't necessarily have in our daily lives, it soothes our brains," Dr. Christensen said.

This might explain why the cube is so popular in an era when there are countless computer games and technological activities to choose from. As Mr. Hammer said: "When I picked up the cube, I became more alert and focused."

He also uses it in the workplace. “It helps me go into the next meeting with a more structured perspective,” he says.

Mr. Scheffler agrees: "The process of transforming a cube from this chaotic, disordered state to the same ordered state, which is always different, is fundamentally what humans want to do," he said. Because there are so many permutations of the puzzle.

"The basic human need is to bring order out of disorder, because the universe is a very chaotic place and most things don't have order."

Top image credit: Getty Images

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