Jigsaw puzzles: surprisingly great for your mental health
These days, I spend almost all day looking at a screen. From the moment I wake up, mindlessly scrolling Instagram, to work, to workout (online at home, of course!) to bedtime doom-scrolling, I’m glued to my phone, laptop, and tablet. So rather than address the restlessness and addiction to technology, it feels incredibly soothing to spend time away from it—but to be honest, few things hold my attention these days.
Most well-intentioned offline activities have a habit of leading me back to media connectivity. Books remind me of things I need to buy, tasks that need doing, or inadequacies that need prompt correcting. Music and podcasts invite screen time. Cooking and walking outside are welcome breaks, but they’re often over too quickly.
For me, jigsaw puzzles are the only exception. Nothing provides such simple, satisfying escapism as a world made only of colors and shapes, patterns, and unmatched details just waiting to be reunited. It’s one of the few things I can easily get lost in, without worrying about finances, next steps, or that sense of needing to do more.
How jigsaw puzzles are proven to benefit your brain
As it turns out, there’s quite a bit of research to explain why that jigsaw puzzle habit could soothe my anxiety. A 2018 study conducted at Ulm University in Germany found that “regulation of distressing emotions through jigsaw puzzling could prevent chronic stress.” It even offers long-term mental health benefits (read: they think it might help prevent dementia). And while that’s a subject we’ll have to discuss another day, I’ll gladly try anything that soothes my stress levels.
Here’s how it works: a jigsaw puzzle engages several different areas of your brain—the right brain and the left brain, in layman’s terms. All that recognition, mental rotation as you’re wondering if pieces might fit differently upside down, visual and motor skills working together, switching attention, and creating your own systems for solving the puzzle does quite a bit for your mind, engaging all sorts of otherwise untapped cognitive abilities. And every time you find the right piece, a neurotransmitter sends a dopamine reward—cue all the happy feels.
During trying times, puzzles offer a welcome escape from reality
In 2020, the jigsaw puzzle industry saw a massive surge in popularity—to the tune of a three- to four-hundred percent increase in sales. Some would argue that it’s because the luckiest of us were stuck at home, or because Gwyneth Paltrow made the “boob puzzle” so popular on Goop.
But this wasn’t the first time puzzles had a surge in popularity during a time of crisis: in fact, jigsaws also found themselves in the spotlight during the Great Depression. By 1933, over ten million new puzzles were made every week, in response to the increase in demand. The artwork featured country homes, the world’s fair, and other scenes to escape to—anything but the daily realities of this time. Art and economics historian Anne Williams offered CNBC a glimpse of the American fascination with puzzles at that time:
“It’s something you can control, whereas they felt that their lives were totally out of control as far as the economy went. It’s also a challenge over which you can prevail.”
When I first started putting the pieces together, I felt it too. My anxiety, stress and constant digital connectivity actually felt like it was seeping away into a huge, invisible sponge. When I could eventually tear myself away, I felt a sense of accomplishment. Because of all the problems I can’t solve—hi, global pandemic, political turmoil, constant work-related fears—this was a problem I’d happily solve, over and over again.