06/05/2024
🧩 So many people discover (to their surprise) that they actually enjoy puzzling!
These puzzles are perfect for weekend puzzlers of all ages and skill levels. Larger pieces provide better visual clues and are easier to handle.
🌷We also carry 500 to 1000 piece puzzles as well,
But we recommend starting at a 250 piece puzzle 🙂
❤️
Additional information:
Puzzling stimulates both sides of the brain, both the left, logical side as well as the right, more creative side. Medical science has shown that stimulating the brain makes it better, even if that brain is already affected by Alzheimer’s or Dementia.
🌷9 Benefits of Puzzles for Older Adults :
1. Decreases Stress Levels
Jigsaw puzzles naturally help us to relax by allowing our brains to enter a state similar to that of meditation. Stress has a negative impact on cognitive decline and behaviours associated with people who have dementia. By immersing ourselves in a state of relaxed mindfulness while puzzling, we can better regulate distressing emotions.
2. Improves Short-Term Memory
When picking up a puzzle piece, you have to sort through the pieces to find the matching colour. Have you ever thought, “Ah Ha! I just saw a piece this colour, where did I put it?”
You are also remembering the picture of the completed puzzle on the box. Referring back to the picture in your mind’s eye and where you have places previous matching colour pieces, triggers your short-term memory and exercises the part of the brain that reinforces connections between brain cells.
3. Brighter Moods
Another benefit of puzzles is that they increase our brains’ production of the neurotransmitter, dopamine. This is a chemical that regulates mood and feelings of optimism, happiness, and satisfaction. It also affects memory, concentration, and motivation.
Dopamine is released every time we successfully solve a puzzle, even when we just get one piece in the right place. This encourages and challenges us to continue finding and fitting the next piece. This cycle results in a consistent release of dopamine and even higher levels of satisfaction.
4. Improves Problem-Solving Skills
Putting puzzles together involves formulating theories and using trial and error to determine which pieces fit together. This can significantly improve problem-solving skills, analytical and critical thinking.
A fun fact: The first jigsaw puzzles were maps, designed as a learning tool to teach geography in the 1760s.
5. Improves Visual-Spatial Reasoning
When completing a Jigsaw puzzle, you are looking at small puzzle pieces of different shapes, fitting shapes together, and then visually placing them within a larger image. By visualising objects and shapes, this enhances your spatial awareness and pattern recognition.
6. Social Interaction and Communication
Puzzles can easily be a solo activity, but they’re also fun to do with others. Building a puzzle together and achieving a common goal can be very satisfying, and creates opportunities for easy conversation, collaboration, and building friendships.
For older adults who are more isolated, prefer quiet environments, minimal social interactions, or struggle to communicate, this is an activity where any level of communication is appropriate. You can simply sit and puzzle in comfortable and relaxing silence, enjoying the company while building together.
7. Improves Dexterity While our Eyes Relax
Puzzles are a great way to exercise the small muscles in the fingers and eyes. While these are simple movements, picking up puzzle pieces, turning them over, and fitting them in their right place, they can still be quite a challenge. This is especially true for seniors who have experienced a stroke or who have arthritis.
Consistently using these muscles in the hands can help improve manual dexterity. Puzzling also gives our eyes a break from looking at screens and blue light, offering a natural way for our eyes to relax.
8. Improves Cognitive Ability
Puzzles are filled with different images, colours, and shapes that form one big picture. Organising these elements when putting puzzles together helps promote neuroplasticity. This is the ability of neural networks in the brain to generate new relationships and function in a different way. This helps positively influence our behaviours and improves our mental speed and thought processes.
9. May Delay Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease
The causes of Dementia and Alzheimer’s are linked to many factors such as genetics, diet, medications, and stress. Doing regular puzzles is not enough to keep you from getting dementia, but keeping your brain active as part of a holistic healthy lifestyle can delay symptoms of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Numerous studies have shown that those who do word or number puzzles regularly perform better in cognitive domains compared to those who never use them.
