Each year on January 29th, National Puzzle Day recognizes how exercising our brains with puzzles is just one of its many benefits.
Whether it’s a crossword, jigsaw, trivia, word searches, brain teasers or Sudoku, puzzles put our minds to work. Studies have found that when we work on a jigsaw puzzle, we use both sides of the brain. And spending time daily working on puzzles improves memory, cognitive function, and problem-solving skills.
Word searches and crossword puzzles have the obvious benefit of increasing vocabulary and language skills. Sudoku, a puzzle sequencing a set of numbers on a grid, exercises the brain as well. By testing memory and logical thinking, this puzzle stimulates the brain and can improve number skills.
Puzzles also offer social benefits. When we work on these brain teasers with someone, we improve our social interactions. Whether we join a group or play with our children, those interactions keep us socially active and teach our children social skills, too. Even working them quietly together provides an opportunity to focus the mind in a meditative way that isn’t forced.
The bottom line is, puzzles stimulate the brain, keeping it active, and practicing its skills.
How Doing Puzzles Can Benefit Your Mental Health (and More!)
1. Better Memory – When we are solving puzzles, we are reinforcing current connections between our brain cells, also known as neurons. This activity increases the number of new relationships between the cells. In layman’s terms, this means that we are enhancing the speed of our thought processes and mental equity.
2. Improved Problem Solving – Puzzles require us to look at different ways to solve a problem. A lot of trial and error is involved. In doing so, we learn the importance of coming up with theories, testing our hypotheses, and changing our perspective whenever something doesn’t quite work out. Applying these skills to our work and career can create innovative and game-changing experiences for us.
3. Visual-Spatial Reasoning – Solving a puzzle requires you to take a look at the different pieces and find out how they fit into the larger picture. Regularly practicing this exercise can help enhance your visual-spatial reasoning. This skill helps with different daily tasks such as driving, organizing, using maps, and more.
4. Educational Benefits – Puzzle games such as crossword puzzles are also helpful in developing great vocabulary. They are effective in improving research, spelling, and language skills – often without us even noticing.
5. IQ Points Booster – Doing puzzles can improve vocabulary, memory, logic, and reasoning. It’s not very surprising that another benefit of puzzle-solving is possibly raising your IQ.
6. Patients with Dementia and Alzheimer’s – Studies tell us that keeping the brain active by puzzle-solving and other similar activities can significantly lower the amount of brain cell damage that usually takes place in patients with Alzheimer’s. It also improves the growth of new neurons and fortifies the existing connections between them.
7. Better Mood – The most obvious benefit of puzzle-solving is how it increases our brain’s ability to produce dopamine. And while we cannot actually see and visualize this production, the effects can be felt almost immediately. Dopamine is responsible for improving our concentration, memory, motivation, and even feelings of optimism.
8. Managing Stress Levels – It might sound contradictory for a puzzle to reduce stress levels since they are usually challenging. However, puzzles have been proven to help us relax. The human brain has a beta state, also known as the wakeful state. This is the counterpart of our alpha state, or the ‘dreamful’ state. Both are helpful when solving problems.
9. Attention to Detail – Trying to solve a puzzle, particularly a jigsaw puzzle, involves attention to detail especially if you have a puzzle with very tiny pieces. You have to train your eyes to sort out the slightest differences in shapes and colors in order to put everything together. Being able to pick up on the small details can help not just in puzzle solving but in almost every aspect of our lives, including work. Being more detail-oriented and precise can improve the quality of our work and career.
10. Productivity – Being stress-free and happy lets us focus more easily. When we have a high level of concentration, we can also greatly improve our productivity whether at home or at work. For instance, if you are struggling to focus on a task at work or in school, it helps to take a short break. Consider doing a puzzle and help reset your brain, helping it to refocus.
11. Collaboration – Another reason to incorporate puzzles in the office setting is its ability to build collaboration between employees. Research conducted at Yale University revealed that allowing people the opportunity to collaborate together to solve puzzles can improve relationships, their abilities to work together, and finishing tasks.
12. Family Bonding – Finally, if you are among the many people who are quarantined with their family or friends during this time, puzzle solving can provide a fun and relaxing activity that you can share. You can reap all of the benefits mentioned above while also spending quality time with the people who are with you.
HOW TO OBSERVE #NationalPuzzleDay
Spend time putting together a jigsaw puzzle with a friend, or grab a cup of coffee and complete a Sudoku or crossword puzzle. Another way to celebrate is by challenging yourself with a new kind of puzzle. You can also try creating a puzzle that stimulates the brain in entirely new ways.
NATIONAL PUZZLE DAY HISTORY
In 2002, Jodi Jill created National Puzzle Day as a way to share her enjoyment of puzzles. As a syndicated newspaper puzzle maker and professional quiz maker, Jodi Jill developed classroom lesson plans especially for the observance and the popularity has grown year after year.
~ https://optmlperformance.com/blogs/optml-blog/puzzles-mental-health-benefits
~ https://nationaldaycalendar.com/national-puzzle-day-january-29/