Games We Play with Ourselves: Solo Mental Challenges and the Inner Arena

Not all games need boards or pieces. Some don’t even need rules. You play them while walking to work, standing in line, or lying awake at night.

They’re private games—mental contests, rituals, or routines that live entirely in your head. No one watches. No one scores. But still, you play.

This essay explores the strange, creative, and often unnoticed world of solo mental challenges: the little games we invent for ourselves, and the rich psychological terrain they occupy.

The Invisible Arena

We usually think of games as external: chess, soccer, Scrabble. But many of our most enduring mental games are internal, informal, and self-imposed:

• Trying to remember all 50 U.S. states (alphabetically)
• Counting stairs or ceiling tiles for no reason
• Mentally calculating percentages at checkout
• Challenging yourself to remember a grocery list without writing it down
• Trying to recall a song lyric, a phone number, or a random trivia fact
• Setting arbitrary walking goals (“reach that lamppost in 30 steps”)

These aren’t tasks—they’re games. They serve no external purpose. No one told us to do them. But we do them anyway. Why?

The Brain’s Love of Self-Generated Challenge

Psychologists have long observed that humans crave cognitive stimulation. Our brains get bored easily. When external demands are low, we invent our own.

This tendency is part of what’s called intrinsic motivation—the drive to do something just for the satisfaction of doing it. Mental games provide small doses of structure, novelty, and mastery, all on our own terms.

In other words: the mind plays because the mind wants to play.

Miniature Mastery, Micro-Rewards

Many mental games are about control. The world is unpredictable. Life is chaotic. But remembering all the prime numbers under 100? That’s something you can do.

These small challenges offer quick wins—tiny bursts of achievement that boost mood and confidence. They also reinforce a sense of agency: “I can direct my attention. I can improve. I can finish something.”

In this sense, solo mental challenges act as microcosms of self-efficacy.

Examples from Everyday Life

Once you start looking, you’ll notice mental games everywhere:

• 📱 Memory mini-games: Recalling everyone at last week’s meeting without checking your notes
• 🧮 Speed math: Estimating tips or doing currency conversion faster than your calculator
• 📖 Reading rituals: Guessing what happens next in a story—or trying to summarize a page in one sentence
• 🛣️ Travel games: Trying to remember state capitals, solve mental riddles, or predict travel times without GPS
• 🏃 Physical constraints: “I’ll only turn the page at the end of this song,” or “I’ll finish this thought before reaching that stoplight”

None of these are necessary. But they’re oddly compelling. They give shape to time and texture to thought.

When the Game Becomes a Habit

Over time, some self-imposed challenges become rituals. You might always mentally spell-check signs. Or count syllables in speech. Or rearrange words into anagrams. You may not even realize you’re doing it—it’s just your brain keeping itself entertained.

These mental habits can serve many functions:

• 🧘 Regulation: They calm or focus the mind in anxious moments
• 🎯 Engagement: They keep you alert during routine tasks
• 🧭 Orientation: They provide continuity and control during transition or uncertainty

And while some may border on compulsion, many are harmless—and even helpful.

The Cognitive Value of Internal Play

These mini-games aren’t just distractions—they can sharpen real skills:

• 🧠 Working memory: Holding and manipulating info mentally (like repeating a number backwards)
• 🔎 Attention: Noticing patterns, details, and inconsistencies
• 🔁 Cognitive flexibility: Switching between mental frames or perspectives
• 🗣️ Verbal fluency: Word association, punning, rhyming

Even the simplest game—like alphabetizing a grocery list in your head—can exercise important mental muscles.

From Daydreaming to Mental Gymnastics

Solo mental challenges sit somewhere between idle daydreaming and deliberate problem-solving. They’re more structured than passive thoughts, but more open-ended than formal tasks.

This liminal space can be surprisingly fertile. It invites curiosity, creativity, and experimentation without the pressure of performance.

And because no one’s watching, you’re free to play badly, try weird strategies, or explore tangents without fear of judgment.

Playfulness and Self-Knowledge

One overlooked benefit of solo mental games is how they teach you about your own mind. You discover what kinds of challenges you like. What irritates or motivates you. How you approach problem-solving under zero pressure.

They also offer a kind of cognitive journaling: a record of the mental paths you walk for no reason except that they’re there.

And in a world of constant inputs and algorithmic nudges, those self-initiated explorations are precious.

Try This: Create a New Solo Game

Here are some starting points for your own mental playground:

• Pick a word and list as many rhymes as you can in 60 seconds
• Set a rule for your next walk (e.g., “I’ll only turn left if I see something red”)
• Invent a substitution cipher and try writing a note in it
• Mentally rearrange your daily to-do list alphabetically, by size, or by time
• Estimate the number of steps between two known points, then count them

None of these will change the world. But they might sharpen your mind—or spark something unexpected.

Conclusion: The Inner Arena Is Always Open

You don’t need a game console or puzzle box to play. The brain is its own arena, and you’re already the player, the rulemaker, and the crowd.

The solo games we play with ourselves offer more than idle distraction. They’re a quiet form of mental exercise. A way to explore thought for its own sake. A gentle rebellion against passive consumption.

So go ahead—count the steps, guess the stats, run the thought experiment. You’re not wasting time. You’re training curiosity.

This article is part of our Mental Playground trail — essays celebrating the rich interior life of play, problem-solving, and thought experiments that challenge the mind without requiring an audience.