While aged people are encouraged to keep their bodies fit and strong, they should also go the extra mile to preserve their mental health and strength. After all, research studies have established that the brain tends to lose its efficiency as people grow older. As such, aged people are better off participating in activities that engage their brains.
Brains games and puzzles can be fun and engaging while also helping senior citizens to hone their mental skills. With this in mind, it’s important to list some of the cognitive benefits older adults likely derive from playing puzzles and word games.
Puzzles can keep the brain going
Before old age kicks in, the brain thinks at breakneck speed and tosses facts when needed. Unfortunately, all this tends to change when people become older. For senior citizens, age can be a recipe for a few mental issues, such as Alzheimer’s and dementia. While puzzles can help senior citizens maintain good mental health, they cannot cure or prevent these disorders.
Puzzles can help to alleviate stress
Senior years come with a certain amount of pressure. When senior citizens enter their sixties, there are times when stress becomes a never-ending thing. While it is impossible to end the stress itself, tackling a crossword puzzle can help ease the stress. By playing puzzles, aged people can enjoy the moment while locking their brains to other pressures.
Puzzles are good for building social connections
A person’s mental health largely depends on how well they interact with others. For older adults, puzzles allow them to develop positive social bonds, especially when they feel somewhat lonely. Furthermore, residents residing in retirement communities partake in puzzle tournaments where the winner is the person who finishes the puzzle as quickly as possible.
Puzzle-solving is a recipe for meditation
Health experts contend that meditation is integral to seniors’ lives because it enables them to keep away from all stressors and triggers. Puzzles can be a recipe for meditation because they are often a source for a relaxed state of mind. Since meditation helps to silence the mind, the anxiety of senior citizens will lessen. Besides, meditation helps improve brain function and the immune system.
Puzzles increase concentration levels
For an aged person to work their way out of a jigsaw puzzle, it is best if they put their whole mind to it. Simply put, they have to overlook or minimize any distractions that may come their way. Often, seniors’ concentration levels are likely to wane with time, but puzzles can help to make up the deficit. Improved concentration levels can help to minimize irritability and other related problems.
Puzzles teach perseverance
It is common knowledge that old age deters senior citizens from focusing on huge tasks. Such people often prefer to do simple and straightforward things. However, puzzles can teach them perseverance but in a fun way. When older adults master the patience of building more jigsaw puzzles, this encourages them to push on. Subsequently, they get to see where their progress is going.
Puzzles are often a source of serotonin and dopamine
When aged people solve a crossword puzzle, it gives them a feeling of victory. Often, this feeling implores the brain to produce serotonin and dopamine – which are feel-good hormones that enable aged people to fight depression. Most times, depression deprives senior citizens of the ability to maintain a happy and energized feeling.
Puzzles can go a long way in helping aged people to gain the most advantages, including brain exercise. In any case, playing puzzles can minimize the mental problems that come with old age, giving older people additional healthy brain years. This great pastime activity offers senior citizens a reason to walk away from boredom because it challenges them, enriches them, and entertains them.