National Puzzle Day!

Today is National Puzzle Day! At Private Home Health Care, we love puzzles! Not only are puzzles a fun game, but they are phenomenal for brain health! Maintaining sharp brain function is especially important for healthy aging.

Benefits of doing puzzles include:

-Improves memory

-Enhances problem-solving skills

-Boosts your mood

-Encourages attention to detail

-Offers fun social collaboration

Puzzles are proven to help prevent and delay cognitive decline. Researchers discovered that puzzles can help battle dementia because when you exercise your brain while doing puzzles, you counteract the buildup of plaque in the brain that destroys brain cells.

A study found that adults aged 50+ who regularly challenge themselves to word or number puzzles had sharper brain function of someone ten years younger. These mind sharpening benefits included improved memory and other cognitive abilities. Jigsaw puzzling has similar effects and is particularly helpful for short-term memory, due to the focus on remembering shapes and colors.

Also, puzzles improve problem-solving skills. When using different parts of your brain to find dynamic solutions, you increase neuroplasticity, which is your brain’s ability to learn new things. When you solve problems, you are exercising your brain. If one approach doesn’t work, you learn to pivot and use trial and error for different strategies. In this way puzzles can help enhance your problem-solving skills, making it easier to shift perspectives and find adaptable solutions to challenges in everyday life.