How a Crossword Puzzle Helps You to Escape From the Stress

A fun way to boost your mood and alleviate stress, solving crossword puzzles is a habit you must strive to make. Your daily newspaper could be the first place to start working out a crossword puzzle. You can also find crosswords in numerous puzzle books and online.

You don’t need to be an expert at solving a crossword puzzle. There’s a crossword out there for everyone, from beginner puzzles to brain-benders.

Science has proved that this specific type of puzzle is indeed a boon for your brain, and is key to keeping stress away.

Here are five ways that a crossword puzzle helps you to escape from stress:

It improves your mood.

There’s something truly pleasurable about solving a crossword puzzle. Even more beneficial than it initially appears to be, attempting a crossword puzzle prompts your brain to make dopamine, a neurotransmitter that gives you a sense of joy and bliss.

High levels of dopamine are released as you succeed in achieving a goal. This is one of nature’s ways of providing us with happiness and motivation in our daily lives. On the other hand, dopamine levels naturally drop if you are not stimulated or excited for long periods of time, eventually leading to the undesired conditions of depression and low energy.

So, maintaining high levels of dopamine is critical for having good mental health. You can easily include the activity of solving a crossword in your daily or weekly regime. The thrill of achievement of even small goals will help you to feel energetic about life by and large. It’s certainly a fun way to beat boredom!

Are you feeling lonely, depressed, or bored right now? Simply open your daily newspaper, and give the crossword a try. The blissful effects will take over instantly as you’d be hooked even before you’d know it!

It helps you to manage your problems in day-to-day life.

You really need to rack your brain to solve a crossword puzzle, and in general, crossword puzzles are seldom easy to solve, even with the simplest level available. Such hard and productive work for your brain actually helps you to deal with your day-to-day troubles in life. Deciphering the pattern of a crossword puzzle is an aid to understanding the patterns of life!

What crosswords actually do is engage you in a fun way, and divert your mind from everyday troubles for a while. This way, they provide you with that “alone time,” which is so necessary to decompress and unwind. In fact, studies have shown that such an intellectually stimulating activity reduces anxiety more effectively than seemingly relaxing pastimes, such as watching TV or shopping.

A crossword puzzle makes you dig deeper into the task at hand, thus honing the art of clear thinking. This way, you get to momentarily escape your own stress productively, and in fact, feel energized, and motivated to combat them later. For some it helps you to learn more English words, and improves your memory.

It reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s.

Today, approximately 5.8 million Americans are suffering from Alzheimer’s. The Alzheimer’s Association recommends doing crossword puzzles daily to keep the brain active and alert, particularly as you age. A crossword puzzle is certainly a great way to boost your memory and brain function, thus helping to exercise brain muscles effectively.

A study conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, shows that working out a crossword puzzle prevents the buildup of beta-amyloid, the prime component of the brain plaques that are a characteristic trait of Alzheimer’s disease. Including cognitively stimulating hobbies like doing crossword puzzles in your early and middle years, greatly helps to prevent the building up of toxic proteins. In this way, the mental stimulation that a crossword puzzle provides protects the brain, and lessens your risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

It boosts your self-esteem.

The "eureka" moments associated with successfully completing a crossword puzzle give you a feeling of achievement, thus boosting your self-esteem. Since a crossword puzzle exposes you to new words and expressions, it is a critical means of enriching your verbal communication skills, grammar, and vocabulary. An Irish study of a few university students also shows that a crossword puzzle ups your confidence in communication, which is an extremely prized skill. By learning and honing new skills, you certainly make yourself marketable.

By working a crossword puzzle into your daily routine, you’d surely get better at it in no time. This way, you’d sharpen your skills of solving crosswords, which would further boost your self-confidence. So, day by day, you’d find yourself working easily at the USA Today crosswords with USA Today crossword answers by your side, in case you get stuck.

It is a great way to bond with friends and family.

Solving a crossword puzzle gets even merrier when solved with friends and family! Try doing one with your family members, or with a few friends. Research proves that working out crosswords in a team certainly betters your pace of thinking and speaking. It also gives creative thinking a new dimension.

Furthermore, you get an opportunity to strengthen your cooperation and conflict resolution skills. While doing crosswords together, interpersonal conflicts could get resolved automatically, thus leading to a healing process. So, completing a crossword puzzle makes for a wonderful social activity.

While solving crosswords in a team, you can bond and share experiences with others. The added bonus is that you all gain good mental health. You’d get rid of all the negative stress, and fill your mind with feelings of respect as well as affection for others. This way you can create joyful memories together.

A perfect blend of fun, knowledge, and entertainment, solving crosswords certainly changes your life for the better. On reading these interesting as well as valuable benefits of solving a crossword puzzle, you’d certainly not want to think of other ways of passing the time. You can get numbers of crossword puzzles, and their answers on Crossword Answers 911.

So, get started with your across and down series, either with pen and paper, or online. Enjoy your “alone time,” or socialize.

Say goodbye to stress and live a better life.

Author Bio:

Ross is a blogger who loves to write, especially in the kids vertical. He has written many informative blogs about personal development, gifting, etc. Ross loves to travel and explore new things in his life.