7 Benefits of Jigsaw Puzzles that You Should Know

 

Most people do jigsaw puzzles for fun. However, solving puzzles also comes with a plethora of health benefits. The benefits range from relaxation to preventing illnesses.Solving jigsaw puzzles also draws you away from screens. Spend too much watching affects your sleep pattern, brain development, eye health, cognition, and weight. Unlike watching TV, jigsaw puzzles do not affect your vision negatively. Here are some great ways in which jigsaw puzzles improve your health.

1. Improves Short Term Memory

To complete a jigsaw puzzle piece, you need to find specific shapes and color that complete the pattern. You have to store this information in your short term memory and use it later. The skill of storing and recalling information creates brain cell connections and enhances the existing one. As a result, you boost your thoughts process. Enhancing your short term memory helps in remembering important things in day to day life.

2. Puzzles Exercise the Whole Brain

Jigsaw puzzles enhance brain coordination. Solving puzzles involves both sides of the brain. The left side, which is the analytical side, sorts the pieces logically. The right side is the creative side of the brain. It promotes intuition to help you see the bigger picture and work to solve it.

When you successfully piece a puzzle together, your brain produces dopamine. This brain chemical enhances memory and learning, and ultimately promotes healthy brains. Assembling the puzzles successfully clears your mind and makes you feel relaxed. Completing tough puzzles also gives you a sense of satisfaction and entitlement.

Playing 300 piece jigsaw puzzle games enhances the intellectual and mental growth of children. It also enhances the coordination between the hand and the eye.

3. Improves Dexterity

Jigsaw puzzle enhances motor skills such as dexterity, according to a study by Princeton University. Picking, flipping, and fitting small pieces in small places exercises muscles in eyes and fingers. The puzzles come in different piece sizes and piece counts such as 300 piece jigsaw puzzles.

300 piece jigsaw puzzles are suitable for daily dexterity training, physical therapy, and recovery. You can start with small and easier puzzles such as 300 piece jigsaw puzzles and upscale to 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles gradually.

4. Boosts Cognitive Ability

One of the biggest advantages of jigsaw puzzles is that they boost cognitive ability. Whether it is a small 300 piece jigsaw puzzles or a 2000 piece jigsaw puzzle, they all challenge your intellectual capacity. Studying an image and its details help to exercise your mind. Recognizing the pattern, color, and shapes of different pieces to fit in a bigger picture, you develop your problem-solving skills. According to a study on puzzles and cognitive enrichment, puzzles develop your visual-spatial skills as you work on different pieces and how they fit in the whole puzzle. The visual-spatial skills are useful in activities like packing, driving and navigation.

5. Reduces the Risk of Dementia and Alzheimer’s

Solving jigsaw puzzles is one of the activities that reduce the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s and Dementia. Puzzles reduce brain cell damage and support the growth of nerve cells. Generally, people who play the jigsaw puzzle have a better life quality and longer life expectancy.

6. Meditation and Relieving Stress

Puzzling involves focusing on one activity for a long time without allowing extraneous thoughts to fill your mind. This is a form of self-medication. Therefore, you reap all the benefits of meditation and eliminate life’s stress and replace it with tranquility and peace. This can help you lower heart rate and blood
pressure.

7. Socialization

Sports puzzles create a good chance to socialize with other people as you tackle a common problem. It promotes teamwork and prevents boredom. It is very important to create bonds and socialize with other people. In fact, the lack of bonds with other people has a detrimental effect on your body. Next time you want to puzzle, consider inviting some friends. A jigsaw puzzle is one of the great family games. You can invite the whole family to participate. Parents can use the opportunity to strike a family conversation, solve family problems, and work towards achieving a common
goal.

Conclusion

Solving puzzles comes with numerous advantages, including health benefits. Consider starting to play the game today if you haven’t.