Friday 28 December 2012

Some Reasons Why Christmas Puzzles Are Good Holiday Activities

By Hadley J. Jaskolski


Christmas puzzles with festive scenes are a good activity for families and friends to do together as they catch up on lost time. These puzzles are different sizes, the bigger ones are perfect for big groups, down to smaller ones for more intimate parties. The designs are also fun, because the holiday scenes they display often help to foster a holiday cheer. These types of puzzles are fun and are good for the mind as well.

Some of these benefits include improving concentration, expanding creativity, and making players more alert. Also, they can help develop and sharpen cognitive reasoning and problem solving skills, aid memory, and decrease heart rates and blood pressure.

Puzzles provide these multiple benefits because they make the right and left hemispheres of the brain work together. The logical, chronological, rational, analytical and objective left-brain looks at aspects that have to do with problem solving. The arbitrariness of scattered pieces and abstract shapes of the pieces in puzzles, however, engage the right brain. Because both sides work together, they remember particular aspects required for the player to put the puzzle together as quickly as possible. These details can include the shape, color, size, and pattern of one or more pieces that are required to fit in a section at any particular time. Therefore, puzzles are one of the best activities for duel hemisphere interaction.

Putting a puzzle together improves a individual's memory as well. This happens because as the person starts to identify and pick the first few pieces of the puzzle, their brain has to focus intently on the task at hand, but then as the image starts to form and there are fewer pieces it speeds up and finishes the process. This curve in attention is like the learning curve required to accomplish different life tasks - which is where it helps people with their memory.

Working on holiday puzzles requires that the player concentrate on the same image for extended periods of time, which can actually turn into something akin to a meditation session, and induce a certain level of calmness and inner peace. In these moments the brain blocks out everything that is not directly related to the puzzle, and concentrates exclusively on the pieces of the puzzle.

Additionally, each success with 2012 Christmas puzzles (from putting the first piece to the very last one in place) encourages the production of dopamine, an important neurotransmitter in the brain that regulates mood, concentration and motivation. This is what makes putting a puzzle together a lot of fun for the whole family, no matter what age groups are involved in completing the process.




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