Puzzles are great for your brain. Here's why.
What's the story
Raise your hands if you are addicted to puzzles. Puzzles are not only fun and interesting to solve but they are also great for your brain. They help to clear a foggy brain and improve your brain functioning and visual-spatial reasoning. Solving a puzzle needs concentration which can sharpen your memory and improve problem-solving skills. Puzzles can also spark imagination and boost creativity.
Stress
They help to relieve stress and anxiety
If you are looking to release your stress after a long tiring day, then trying your hands at some brain-teasing puzzles can genuinely help you to unwind. Puzzles can help your brain to relax and focus on a more productive activity. They put your mind in a meditation-like state as you concentrate on completing the puzzle. This creates a sense of peace within you.
Workout
They give you a brain workout
A good brain workout is necessary to make your memory sharp and improve concentration. Math-based or word-based puzzles help to challenge your brain and activate both the right and left sides of it. Your brain's right hemisphere is more intuitive while the left side is more logical. Puzzles help to activate imagination and reasoning and are the perfect workout for your brain.
Activity
Certain puzzles change your brain activity patterns
Most mind games or puzzles follow a similar path through the brain and move along a way which is also known as the low-dimensional manifold. However, when you come across a difficult puzzle that has you stumped, those portions of your brain that are normally dormant, start to wake up to help you get through the problem. This helps boost your intellectual ability.
Cognitive function
Help improve cognitive function
According to studies, engaging in number-based and word-based puzzles can help to stave off cognitive decline and prevent the loss of your mental capacity. Your brain releases a neurotransmitter called dopamine when it responds to a puzzle solution. This improves your motor skills and memory and boosts concentration. Research shows that playing puzzles or mind games can increase your intelligence quotient by four points.
Brain
Puzzles stimulate various parts of your brain
Puzzles are designed to stimulate various cognitive skills. One can be about your reasoning, and the other will help you delve into your language side and yet another your logical side. Puzzles in the form of acrostics or riddles stimulate your brain's language area while puzzles involving placing symbols in a grid stimulate the logical-processing parts. This is immensely beneficial for your brain health.