Why you should tease your brain
It is so easy to lull into a routine, a rut when we go about our days that have the same structure, especially if we have a full plate of responsibilities, meetings, and appointments.
Even if you fit exercise in this routine, you may be flagging mentally. You might notice that your wide vocabulary has seemed to dwindle, you may feel as though it’s taking too much time for you to think of an answer or solution. If you’re healthy, these aren’t signs of forthcoming dementia or illness, it’s a cry for attention from your brain. Like a dog that’s let alone for long stretches, it wants to be exercised, refreshed and playful.
The importance of cognitive engagement
According to neuropsychologist Kathryn Papp, PhD of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in the mid-1990s, researchers found that the brain continues to grow new cells, a process known as neurogenesis, throughout life. One of the ways this can be accelerated is cognitive engagement, which helps protect against cognitive decline or mild cognitive impairment. A healthy brain is exceptionally pliable. So, challenging it by figuring out a puzzle, riddle, or brain teaser creates new connections between the neurons (brain cells) through altering the balance of available neurotransmitters that change how the connections are created.
The large “COGITO Study” showed that engaging in brain exercises enhanced working memory in adults across generations—young adults aged 21-30 and older adults aged 65-80. Both groups performed 100 hours of brain exercises, focusing on working memory, processing speed, and memory.1 Memory improvement in individuals with mild cognitive impairment was also found in another study that had participants engage in brain games.2
Types of brain excercises
Brain exercises include puzzles and brain teasers, which, according to one source, are not the same type of exercise. Puzzles, such as jigsaws, Sudoku, crosswords, and Rubik’s Cube, among others, tap the ability to employ vertical and lateral analysis.
These two types of analytical skills are different in key ways. Vertical thinking is working to an obvious answer while lateral thinking is expanding and flexing your mind to consider more obscure avenues and solutions. The act of employing lateral thinking is the brain booster. And, of course, the self-challenge is always fun.
A brain teaser engages lateral thinking. There are four categories of brain teasers—pattern, word-play, logic, and illusion. These brain exercises present information in a purposefully misleading way and also use illusion to trick you to arrive at a conventional (but wrong) solution. The right answer is arrived at unconventionally through creative channeling.
Riddles are fun and often frustrating brain teasers, which are described as short verbal or written scenario that calls for thinking creatively, yet logically to find the answer or solution. An example: “I travel the world, but never leave the corner. What am I?” Answer, a postage stamp.
Here are several brain teasers, courtesy of Forbes
A man and his dog are standing on opposite sides of a river. The man calls his dog who immediately crosses without getting his paws wet and muddy, and without using a bridge. How did the dog cross the river?
Of all the timepieces invented, a sundial has the fewest moving parts. What has the most?
In 1990, a boy is 15 years old. In 1995, he is 10 years old. How?
Two boxers are in a traditional boxing match set for 12 rounds, and one gets knocked out in round 6, yet no man threw a punch. How did this happen?
Answers:
The river was frozen.
An hourglass, with thousands of grains of sand.
He was born in 2005 BC.
Both boxers are women
Here are four more from Reader’s Digest
Q: A man lives in a 30-story building decides to jump out of his window. He survives the fall with no injuries. How?
A: He may live in a 30-story building, but he only jumped out the window of the first floor.
Q. A man is condemned to death. He has to choose from three rooms to accept his punishment. The first room has a firing squad with guns loaded. The second room has a blazing fire. The third room is full of tigers that haven’t eaten for six months. Which room should he choose?
A: The room of tigers. They are dead because they haven’t eaten for six months.
Q: Six pieces of coal, a carrot, and a scarf are lying on the lawn. Nobody placed them on the lawn but there is a perfectly logical reason why they should be there. What is it?
A: The kids built a snowman and the snow all melted away.
Q: Three people enter a room but only two walk out. The room is empty. Where is the third person?
A: The third person was in a wheelchair and wheeled out.
Brain teasers, riddles, and puzzles provide enjoyment while working on them bolsters brain health. The value of engaging in these routinely (say, once daily) is that after time, you will notice your quicker ability to problem solve and to improve facility with vocabulary.
Other activities to support cognition and neurogenesis include reading a magazine or book you wouldn’t normally read, learning a new vocabulary word and using it, writing and performing small tasks with your non-dominant hand, reciting the alphabet backward (it’s not that easy), and counting to 100 in another language, among others. You will train your brain to move beyond its normal, routine ways of thinking more easily when you need it to.
OMNITRIVIA: The next annual National Puzzle Day will be on January 29, 2023. (source)
Schmiedek,“Hundred days of cognitive training enhance broad cognitive abilities in adulthood: findings from the COGITO study.” Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience 2010; 2(27), 1-10[4]
Belleville, “Cognitive training for persons with mild cognitive impairment” International Psychogeriatrics, 2008; 20: 57-66