Why Puzzles?

It is a widely accepted fact that Puzzles and other such brain teasers like Sudoku, Crosswords and MEJJI are a fun and exciting way to spend free time. I picked up the following sentence from the site: http://www.howtodothings.com/hobbies/c543-puzzles–brain-teasers.htmlp

It says, “Puzzles and brain teasers provide healthy and invigorating mental challenges.” The word ‘healthy’ here immediately connotes some sort of biological contribution to brain wellness and activity – almost like some disguised brain-food. The mind boggles…

Why would a seemingly harmless set of, what is fundamentally, numbers, letters, and lines in your daily newspapers (or books) provide elements of ‘health’ to your brain? hmmm…

Could puzzles really be ‘brain-food’ in disguise? Why haven’t doctors simply come out with it? For instance, newsflash – “Solving puzzles will greatly improve your vitamin B12 levels” – or something… and rank puzzle solving amongst the cadres of omega-3 fatty acids – found in oily fish – and crucial to the health of our nervous system. Without which, memory loss may result. Something tells me, solving puzzles should be added to this BBC article: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/content/wellbeing/features/boost-brainpower/1/

Before I progress, I must add a biased opinion, namely… I love puzzles. Hence, be warned that whatever the outcome of this blogpost, like all true scientists would, I will be aiming to paint puzzles in a good light and make you a puzzle convert.

At this point I will search out and reblog the interesting things people are saying about puzzles to attach as comments to this post, and hopefully try and draw a conclusion on the question, “why puzzles?” Here we go…