FOUR CHAIRS, NO SCREENS: LIEZEL VAN DER WESTHUIZEN BRINGS MAHJONG INTO THE MENTAL FITNESS CONVERSATION

South African neuroscience and mental fitness coach explores how an age-old game can encourage strategic thinking, learning and meaningful connection

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA — 5 OCTOBER 2026: In a world increasingly dominated by screens, notifications and digital interaction, Liezel van der Westhuizen is making the case for something much simpler: four people sitting around a table, learning, thinking, laughing and playing Mahjong.

The Cape Town-based neuroscience and mental fitness coach, keynote speaker, broadcaster and endurance athlete has spent the past year learning and teaching Mahjong to South Africans, including older adults. What she has seen repeatedly is a shift from uncertainty to confidence as beginners learn the tiles, recognise patterns, develop strategies and connect with the people around them.

“There is something quietly radical about four people around a table, concentrating, laughing and learning, without once reaching for a phone,” says Van der Westhuizen.

Originating in China, Mahjong is a four-player strategy game that requires players to draw and discard tiles while building combinations. Along the way, players use memory, attention, pattern recognition, planning and adaptability while constantly responding to the three people sitting across from them.

For Van der Westhuizen, the appeal is not about claiming Mahjong is a treatment or cure, but about the combination of mental challenge, novelty, learning and social connection.

“We spend so much time talking about training the body, but the brain also needs challenge, novelty, connection and recovery. Mahjong brings many of those elements together in a single afternoon,” she says.

The growing interest comes at a time when loneliness and social isolation are increasingly recognised as major global concerns. Research into Mahjong is also encouraging, with a 2024 review finding associations between Mahjong and positive cognitive, psychological and social outcomes among older adults, although researchers caution that more rigorous studies are needed.

Van der Westhuizen has taken her interest further by creating Africa Mahjong, a growing learning community aimed at making the game more accessible in South Africa and, eventually, across the continent.

She has taught Mahjong in Zanzibar, travelled to Hong Kong to deepen her knowledge and will travel to China later this month to explore the game’s history, culture and traditions at its source.

Her ambition for Africa Mahjong is simple:

More people. More tables. More connection.