From young children tinkering with a 20-piece puzzle to adults solving a 2,000-piece puzzle, puzzles provide a fun, challenging experience for most ages. However, a puzzle does more than provide entertainment for hours, days, or months. Each one has significant benefits that you can enjoy today and for years to come. Learn more below on why you should make time for puzzles during the new year.
1- Support Mental Health
When solving a puzzle, you look at a piece and search for its place amidst the many other pieces. If you cannot find a matching piece, you make a mental note of its appearance and set it aside. Puzzles bolster your short-term memory and hasten how quickly your brain functions. In addition, they spur the growth of new nerve cells and minimize damaged brain cells. These benefits are essential for those who are at risk of dementia or Alzheimer’s.
In addition, a puzzle is an immersive experience. You cannot solve it well when you are distracted. By engaging fully with a puzzle, stressors take a backseat. You live in the moment, which can be a relaxing experience. Solving a puzzle is a type of mindfulness, which can reduce anxiety and provide much-needed relief for those who are challenged by stressful situations.
2- Enhance Visual-Spatial Reasoning
With hundreds or thousands of pieces laid out in front of you, you are tasked with finding the exact shapes and color patterns that match. You must pay attention to the finest details in the puzzle to solve it. This requires substantial visual-spatial reasoning. As you work on additional puzzles, you will notice that your speed increases and that you can more easily spot pieces that fit together.
Visual-spatial reasoning has numerous real-world benefits. For example, it helps you better understand maps and can improve your sense of direction. It also allows you to more easily view images regardless of their orientation. In addition, visual-spatial reasoning enables you to better identify internal movement and even recall specific details about an image.
3- Promote Perseverance
Perseverance is an essential trait that can take a person far in life. It involves having the tenacity to work through challenges and overcome setbacks to achieve your goal. Challenging puzzles can take hours or even days to complete. Some people take a month or longer to solve a large, complex puzzle.
Whether you have 30 minutes a day to commit to the puzzle or several hours at a time, you must continue to work at it until the last piece falls into place. At times, you might feel stuck and unable to find any connecting pieces. The tenacity to continue searching through the pieces can lead to a breakthrough that allows you to continue solving the puzzle.
Find Your Next Puzzle Today
There are puzzles to suit all interests and skill levels. The options vary by the size of the puzzle and the number of pieces. In addition, you can find abstract images, nature or architectural scenes, themed images, and more. The first step is to find a puzzle that you are excited to put together, so explore the options today.