The Effects of Working on Jigsaw Puzzles to Your Brain

Jigsaw puzzles are said to help increase our mental power as well as concentration, memory and sharpness. We tend to become more alert and healthier while playing with jigsaw puzzles. Do you know the reason behind this? It has to do with human brain that is divided into two separate parts called left and right brains, which deal with linear functions or tasks and holistic or emotional and creative tasks. If and when we are able to harness the power of both the parts of the brain, we get fantastic results and jigsaw puzzles helps us do this.

When you work to put together the jigsaw puzzle, you are using both the parts of the brain concurrently. Left-brain is used to deal and think logically, sequentially and deal with symbols etc while the right brain thinks more with emotions, intuition and concepts.

While working on jigsaw puzzles, it has been studied that there exists continuous activity thought the brain involving all the cells and parts of the brain. This intense activity works to exercise the brain cells and thereby activate them and increase their efficiency and capacity too.

There have been several studies like the MacArthur Study, that has found that people who have been used to doing jigsaw puzzles as well as cross word and were fully active stood to gain a longer life span and also lesser chances of falling prey to Alzheimer’s, memory loss, dementia and other old age problems.

Brain produces a chemical known as dopamine that is chiefly responsible for learning and memory. The production of this chemical increases in the brain at the time when it is engaged in solving the jigsaw puzzle.

Jigsaw puzzles not only enhance our creativity and expand our thinking ability; it also increases our concentration, focus and visualization. Visualization is what helps us go ahead and create the physical solution for mental activity always precedes physical activity. Using the power of visualization you can set your mind to achieve anything you desire and achieve happiness in life.

Working on jigsaw puzzles and focusing on the same image for longer periods can actually turn out more like meditations and induce a certain calmness and peace in the mind. Mind will now be focused only visualizing the image in front and will concentrate on this alone in exclusion to everything else around him. Thereby he arrives at a meditative and peaceful stage where no other thoughts occur to disturb his tranquility.

Doing puzzles keeps you mentally active and young. You will find that with increasing clarity of thought and mind, you start perceiving things clearly and gain new insights into your situations and problems. It further helps you clean the clutter in your mind and have a shining intellect. Keeping doing puzzles everyday and keep growing younger day by day.