Are you looking for a fun pastime in the current quarantine period? Then why not take out a challenging jigsaw or crossword puzzle! Puzzling is not only a very mindful and (in a family context) social activity, but it is also very good for your brain.
These are 9 positive effects that puzzles have on your brain:
- Puzzling stimulates neuroplasticity
- Puzzling improves your memory
- Puzzling stimulates your visual-spatial intelligence
- Puzzling reduces your stress levels
- Puzzling improves your state of mind
- Puzzling stimulates your problem-solving abilities
- Puzzling improves your IQ
- Puzzling stimulates both hemispheres
- Puzzling keeps your brain younger
Puzzling stimulates neuroplasticity
Most of the things you do every day use existing connections in the brain. However, a difficult puzzle can challenge your brain in a new way, stimulating the production of new brain connections. So you are making your brain more flexible and smarter! This adaptability of the brain is also called neuroplasticity.
Puzzling improves your memory
Puzzling not only stimulates the creation of new brain connections but also strengthens existing ones. While puzzling, you remember shapes, images, and the way they fit together. This is an excellent way to train your short-term memory and can help you perform better in other areas of your life.
Puzzling stimulates your visual-spatial intelligence
Visual-spatial intelligence is the ability to make an inner representation of three-dimensional reality. This form of intelligence is trained during puzzle solving because you are constantly imagining how the pieces of the puzzle could fall into each other’s space. This stimulates the hippocampal area in a similar way to navigating in a taxi.
Puzzling reduces your stress level
Stress is one of the biggest threats to brain health today. Putting together a puzzle is soothing and can help reduce your stress levels. Jigsawing puts an end to worrying and forces you to focus on one task. This encourages a mindful state of being that you normally only achieved through activities such as meditation dancing or yoga.
Puzzling improves your state of mind
Every time you manage to put together a missing piece of the puzzle, your brain releases neurotransmitters such as dopamine. This happiness substance is produced in the nucleus accumbens, the reward system in your brain. Dopamine provides a happy, fulfilled, or even euphoric feeling and is therefore strongly involved in motivation.
Puzzling stimulates your problem-solving abilities
The ability to solve problems will serve you well in life. Puzzling trains your brain to analyze things critically from different angles and to come up with new or creative solutions. Solving a challenging puzzle also teaches you to be patient and not to give up when you make mistakes. This in turn helps to train a positive mindset.
Puzzling improves your IQ
The educational performance of children (as well as the social performance of adults) is often linked to their IQ. It is therefore interesting to know that puzzles can increase your IQ. A crossword puzzle, for example, can expand your vocabulary and a jigsaw puzzle can stimulate your spatial insight. Just 25 minutes of puzzling a day are enough to improve your IQ by 4 points.
Puzzling stimulates both hemispheres
What is special about putting together a puzzle is that it activates both hemispheres of the brain. For example, the left hemisphere is involved in analytical skills and logical thinking, while the right hemisphere is responsible for creativity and imagination. Putting together a puzzle calls on all these skills and therefore trains your whole brain.
Puzzling keeps your brain younger
Use it or lose it is a well-known English saying that certainly applies to the brain. Brain connections that you do not use are pruned away by the brain. This results in faster cognitive decline. Playing word, number, and jigsaw puzzles ensure that your brain connections are preserved and therefore literally keeps your brain younger!
