Finding peace in a puzzle
Illustration by Molly McCammon
by Tessa Kauppila
When my family gets together, there's almost always a jigsaw puzzle splayed out on the dining room table. Here, young and old alike hunch over in comfortable silence, all working toward one picturesque goal (a scene so greatly juxtaposed by family game nights).
Puzzling is an immensely soothing process. Emptying the box of technicolor pieces and then arranging them provides a sense of control and satisfaction; you know the destined outcome and simply must work steadily to arrive at it. It’s the busying of your hands, the quieting of your mind.
Interestingly enough, jigsaw puzzles seem to become more popular in times of economic uncertainty, like during the Great Depression and the early days of COVID-19.
“Many people find a sense of stress release doing puzzles, a form of meditation,” said Amy VanCamp, clinical assistant professor at University of New Hampshire, who uses an assortment of puzzles with her occupational therapy clients. “We work a lot with individuals with mental health challenges and, as a stress management tool, puzzles can be really helpful.”
Beyond the ability to address stress for some, jigsaw puzzles are also often touted as a tool for cognitive health. In the Jigsaw Puzzles As Cognitive Enrichment (PACE) study, researchers evaluated the effects of jigsaw puzzles on visuospatial cognition, daily functioning, and psychological outcomes. They’re applauded as a low-cost, intrinsically motivating, and leisurely cognitive challenge. Similarly, in a clinical trial published by Frontiers, jigsaw puzzles were studied in relation to dementia and cognitive health, and researchers ultimately found that jigsaw puzzling strongly engages multiple cognitive abilities long-term, particularly global visuospatial cognition (which includes perception, processing speed, and working memory).
“It’s the busying of your hands, the quieting of your mind.”
Molly McCammon
While jigsaw puzzles are used in occupational therapy to address mental health issues, the use cases are even more expansive, adapted by the therapist depending on their client’s age, cognition level, diagnosis, and goals. As VanCamp says, “There’s lots of cognitive benefits, fine motor skills, gross motor skills, visual processing skills, and even some social skills that you could be working on [with puzzles].”
Fine motor skills are employed as one grasps and releases pieces, rotating and manipulating it to fit into a space; gross motor skills are displayed as eye-hand coordination and crossing one’s midline to place a piece; visual processing skills are refined as one scans the pieces and visually discriminates by color or shape; and social skills are enhanced by practicing emotional regulation. Puzzles also help hone our concentration and attention span, as we focus on one single task for an extended period of time.
“[Jigsaw puzzles] can help with concentration across the lifespan,” said Mandy Chamberlain MOTR/L, occupational therapist and founder of OT Flourish. “You can use it for anything from ADHD to cognitive impairments to autism, and everything in between.”
If you don’t have the counterspace or penchant for jigsaw puzzles, fear not: sudoku, anagrams, riddles, word searches, crosswords, and the like boast similar meditative and brain health-nurturing properties.
In a study published by the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, they found that participation in crossword puzzles during late life, independent of education, was associated with delayed onset of memory decline in people who developed dementia — a significant finding given the wide accessibility of crosswords in newspapers and online.
“If puzzles are to the brain what physical exercise is to the body, then let's see puzzles, not just for fun, but more importantly, brain fitness,” says Marcel Danesi in his book, The Total Brain Workout: 450 Puzzles to Sharpen Your Mind, Improve Your Memory & Keep Your Brain Fit.
“Each genre, each area, [of puzzles] has its own unique form and involves its own unique way of solving it,” said Danesi. “My goal with The Total Brain Workout and subsequent books was to say, ‘Well, all of them work. Let’s bring them all together.’”
For bolstering your own puzzle diet — and targeting different aspects of brain health, like language or visual centers — there are plenty of resources online. The New York Times has a hub, including the ever-popular Wordle; the beloved classics, crossword and sudoku; Connections, a word-association game; and Spelling Bee, where you work to form words out of a scramble of seven letters. Apple’s App Store is also a great place to find virtual versions of your favorite puzzles.
As you work to solve the puzzle of your preference, you may find that every clue conquered or piece properly placed leaves you with a boost, propelling you to keep working on the puzzle in hopes of repeatedly achieving that feeling. This drive is rooted in science: The Aha!-moment can cause a rush of feel good-hormone dopamine, according to one study.
While I know that puzzles are a way to actively support and build my cognitive health, puzzles, to me, are even more so about cultivating peace. I often find it hard to sit and meditate, but with a jigsaw in front of me, I can replace my relentless barrage of thoughts with a moment of calm, presence, and joy.
And it makes sense that I do that, especially when I consider these words from Danesi: “You cannot create order out of the chaos of your life, the world. But, at the very least, you can do it with a jigsaw puzzle.”