Five Reasons Why Puzzle Building Is A Great Hobby

On a lazy, rainy day there’s nothing better than sitting down at the family coffee table and putting together puzzle. Puzzles have been around in some form since 250 B.C. and their appeal to folks of all ages have provided many hours of enjoyment.

Knocking out easy puzzles on a rainy day is obviously fun, but building puzzles can have many benefits too, especially for kids. Children who work on puzzles learn many developmental and mental skills and the benefits of puzzles include:

• Cognitive development
• Problem solving
• Hand/Eye coordination
• Fine motor skills
• Self esteem
• Social skills

Puzzle building can also be beneficial for adults. It keeps your mind active and studies have shown that folks building puzzles have a better quality of life and can reduce their risk of developing issues associated with mental illness. Puzzle building, whether you’re work on easy puzzles or complicated puzzles, helps your brain produce dopamine, helping you relax and feel good about working on a puzzle.

With that in mind, here are five reasons why puzzle building is a great hobby:

• Numerous options: Are you a fan of comic books? Got a soft spot for trains or boats? Do you enjoy sports puzzles? To paraphrase Apple, regardless of your interests, there’s a puzzle for that. Whether you’re looking for easy puzzles for yourself or for your kids or looking to test yourself (and perhaps your patience), there are any number of puzzles available. Doing a basic search on Amazon for puzzles, brings up more than 20,000 results so the sky is literally the limit. Whatever your favorite themes are, you can likely find at least a dozen puzzles with that theme to keep your interest.
• Challenges: There are plenty of easy puzzles out there to put together. But maybe you want to challenge yourself by building 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles or even a 2000 piece puzzle. Regardless of what your puzzle-building skill level is, there’s something for everybody. If you’re a puzzle fanatic and can construct 500 piece and 1000 piece puzzles like clockwork, there are bigger challenges out there if you feel daring. Amazon offers puzzles as big as 32,000 pieces or 40,000 pieces so you can really challenge yourself if you want to.
• Keeping goals: Puzzles can be fun, but they can also teach folks young and old about the importance of not giving up. If you’re a master puzzle builder, chances are that you’ve run into a puzzle with a few hundred pieces of a solid color. If you’re a novice, puzzle building can be daunting. But regardless of whatever puzzle you’re attempting to build, you’ll learn the importance of sticking with a challenge. Rather than trying to attack the puzzle right away, develop a strategy and go at it piece by piece. Once you’re all done, you’ll feel pretty pleased with yourself at what you’ve accomplished.
• They’re Fun: Puzzles definitely help with brain function and cognitive development, but people do them because they’re a lot of fun. If you’re a fan of superheroes for example and you’re working on a Superman puzzle, chances are you’re going to be engaged in the building process because it’s something that peaks your interest. Perhaps you’re an old pro who attacks puzzles with a tried-and-true strategy of knocking it out in sections or doing the border first. Whether you’re knocking out easy puzzles or more complex 2000 or 10,000 piece puzzles, you’re going to have fun and you can even hang on to your work by using puzzle glue and framing them.
• Everyday application: Going through the mundane tasks of everyday life can be a chore, but puzzle builders may approach them differently. An architect may see a building project as a puzzle. A newspaper editor may look at putting stories and headlines in the next day’s paper as a sort of puzzle. It can keep things fun and change up your routine from the mundane.

No matter your age or skill level, building jigsaw puzzle is a great hobby to have, an excellent way to keep your mind sharp and a great way to pass the time. The possibilities of you’ll build are endless and you’ll have fun as you navigate through all the pieces to put together the puzzle you’re working on.