Benefits of Solving Jigsaw Puzzles

Maybe you are an enthusiastic, veteran, champion jigsaw puzzle solver, perhaps just a beginner, or maybe, you just stumbled across this article and have no idea what a jigsaw puzzle is or how to solve one. Whoever you are and regardless of how advanced you are in problem-solving, know that playing this somewhat complicated, complex, stimulating, challenging, and the mind-boggling game has many benefits for your adult brain.

What’s the History of the Jigsaw Puzzle?

Jigsaw puzzles were first built around 1760 by a British cartographer and engraver named John Spilsbury. They were made from wood, not cardboard as many are nowadays. The first puzzles were educational, being used to teach geography at that time. Maps were put on wood and then cut around each country’s borders with a jigsaw, hence the name.

Cardboard puzzles appeared only later, around 1800, and they were lighter. Over time, they become more and more complex, including pictures, paintings, and images of all kinds.

Of course, nowadays, the puzzles are printed and cut using advanced technology (laser) – there are even 3D puzzles, but their names remains the same. Everybody knows them as jigsaw puzzles, yet no jigsaw is used in the process anymore (except woodworkers).

A typical, family-friendly puzzle would have around 100 to 500 pieces, while more complex games have over 1,000 pieces. The world’s largest jigsaw puzzle was created in 2018 by a Czech company, and it has 52,110 pieces composing a collage of different animals.

Top 7 Health Benefits of Solving Jigsaw Puzzles

It’s true. Jigsaw puzzles have stood the test of time. They have been enjoyed and still are by kids and adult alike. Now, recent studies reveal that these games are not only for entertainment and family time, but they also have health benefits and can improve your brain functions.

Jigsaw puzzles keep the mind active, make your brain more flexible, can prolong your life, and reduce the risk of developing mental illnesses like Alzheimer’s.

1. Stimulates Both Right & Left Brain Hemispheres

Did you know that your brain has two different sections? The left side of the brain is the reasoning, logical part that functions linearly. Your right side of the brain is the creative, intuitive part that operates in a non-linear manner.

When you’re solving a jigsaw puzzle, you stimulate both sides of your brain simultaneously, as you think logically and intuitively at the same time. This collective thinking translates into a more balanced state of mind, vivacity and inner peace, calmness, and an increased ability to solve problems.

2. Better Memory

Puzzle-solving solidifies the connections between your brain cells and creates new ones. What does this mean? That it accelerates your thinking (you find solutions faster and easier) and improves other cognitive functions.

Puzzles also boost short-term memory. It’s the type of memory that jigsaw puzzles use to identify shapes, colors, images, and to visualize the bigger picture internally to figure out how the smaller pieces fit together.

3. Makes Your Brain Happy

Your brain produces neurotransmitters, which are a chemical messenger between your mind and your nervous system. They send signals that excite or inhibit the nervous system and tells it what to do.

Puzzles have shown to trigger dopamine production. How is that? Dopamine is the “feel-good” neurotransmitter produced in the brain, sending signals to nerve cells. One way to release dopamine in the brain is exhibiting reward-motivated behavior. It involves reward, motivation, memory functioning, and attention – that are all manifested during puzzle solving.

The anticipation of solving a jigsaw puzzle and the final moment when you have completed it triggers the productions of dopamine. That is why, the more you solve puzzles, the more you want to solve. Also, you feel like increasing the challenge every time. The more complex the problem is, and the more it took you to solve it, the happier you’ll feel in the end. That is dopamine’s power.

4. Makes You Think Outside the Box

Solving puzzles is no easy task. You’re forced to make the pieces go in the right places by trying different approaches and thinking outside the box.

Also, puzzles help you develop essential skills like solving problems in a creative, out-of-the-ordinary-never-though-of way and analytical thinking. All these skills are incredibly valuable. They and can be taken outside of the puzzle-solving time and used at work, for example, which will give you great results. You will be more productive, more effective, more innovative at your workplace, and you will adapt better to critical situations. So, take the puzzle outside the box and think outside the box as well, to solve it.

5. Power Brain

Research shows that adults can increase their IQ levels by 4 points after playing a jigsaw puzzle for 25 minutes a day. Your cognitive functions, thinking, memory, and solving skills are improved as well. Jigsaw puzzles can make you smarter.

6. Zen Brain

Zen is a state of total bliss, where your mind is solely focusing on one thing, and no thoughts are present.
That’s what a jigsaw puzzle does to your brain – it puts it into a Zen state. When you focus on the puzzle image, or the problem solving for hours and hours, your mind gets into a Zen-like state.

Your brain relaxes, stress and anxiety go away, and instead, a sense of peace and tranquility develops in your mind.

7. Prevents Neurocognitive Disorders

Jigsaw puzzle-solving keeps your brain active, and thus, it keeps your neuronal connections alive and functioning, slows down brain cells damage, and it can even stimulate the growth of new cells, which is fantastic for people with neurocognitive disorders.

Thus, people suffering from neurocognitive diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia may see their symptoms slowing down. As a result, their neuronal health is improving.

Brain scans showed that the plaque that is formed between nerve cells in the brain in patients who solve puzzles with Alzheimer’s disease is regularly is cleared.

Stimulate Your Brain with Jigsaw Puzzles

So, bring your family around the table in the evenings and solve jigsaw puzzles together to boost your brain function, increase your IQ, enhance your memory, wind off stress, renew your brain, and have fun at the same time.