Switch off any distractions, focus for a while, study the problem at hand, look for patterns, try shifting perspectives if you’re stuck …but whatever you do, don’t give up trying. Here’s a selection of physical puzzles and mind-challenging reads that’ll provide hours of entertainment, boost mental fitness and keep your brain agile in an era of smartphones and video games.
Sudoku– Translated as “Single Number” and popularised in the mid-’80s by Japanese puzzle company Nikoli, this paper– and peg-based puzzle requires you to fill in the missing numbers in all blank squares in a grid, ensuring that all digits from 1 to 9 appear only once in any row, column and in each of the nine sub-grids that make up the larger 9×9 grid. Sounds simple, right? Not quite, because you’ll need to think ahead logically before every move. With regular practice, you’ll stimulate the mind and notice improvements in memory, focus and mood. Seeking a superior challenge? Try Killer Sudoku, Kaodoku, Hyper Sudoku and Twin Sudoku.
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Tease Your Brain: 11 Puzzles To Sharpen The Mind.
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Tangrams– Originally called “The Chinese Puzzle”, this engrossing game of geometry traces its roots to the Chinese tradition of arranging banquet tables of different shapes, though it gained immense popularity only after the first tangram book was published in London in 1817. The puzzle consists of seven flat pieces, or “tans” – two small triangles, two big triangles, a medium-size triangle, a rhomboid and a square – and your task is to arrange them to match a specified silhouette. Tangrams may look easy, but they’re surprisingly tricky – the possibilities are many to form similar figures using different arrangements. The best part: It develops problem-solving, critical thinking and spatial reasoning skills.
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Tease Your Brain: 11 Puzzles To Sharpen The Mind.
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Hanayama Cast Puzzle Series – Can you get two freely twistable nuts off a double-headed bolt? How about disjoining three swirled interlocked pieces and refitting them again? These die-cast zinc alloy puzzles may appear unsolvable at first, but we’ll let you in on a secret: you’ll need some pretty clever thinking to disentangle them. Compared to their wire puzzle counterparts, they offer a whole new level of mental stimulation, challenge and excitement, plus they make great collectables. Note that there are no accompanying solutions – you’ve got to keep trying to experience true solver bliss. No brute force or internet research allowed.
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Tease Your Brain: 11 Puzzles To Sharpen The Mind.
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Interlocking Burr Puzzles – Looking to improve your logical, spatial and creative reasoning skills? Consider these interlocking wooden Burr puzzles, which come in various shapes – from seeds to balls and stars – and which have been around since the 18th century. Your job is to disassemble and reassemble them. They’re accompanied by detailed instructions, but who needs them anyway? Not if you can bear with the Burr, bend your brain and keep fighting with it until you crack it, ultimately creating a symmetrical three-dimensional unit.
4/11
Living
Tease Your Brain: 11 Puzzles To Sharpen The Mind.
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String And Bead Puzzles – Challenge your problem-solving abilities with an old-school string and bead puzzle. They’re classic disentanglement problems, and the aim is to free one object or group of objects from another; in the case of this Gordian Octopus puzzle, you need to separate the middle ring from the hexagonal wooden structure. It’s a game of patience, and you never know when that first wave of inspiration will strike. But wait, there’s yet another challenge: to get it back into the original unsolved form. No scissors or cutting tools permitted.
Rubik’s Cube, Speed Cube And X2– The Rubik’s Cube, created by Hungarian inventor Ernő Rubik in 1974, was first used as a tool to teach and illustrate spatial relationships before it became one of the most popular brain teasers of all time. And it’s still frustratingly fun for those who attempt to unscramble it by twisting and turning the small cubes to get all six colours matched up on its six sides. If you’ve already cracked it, graduate to the next level of speed-cubing to the Shengshou Megaminx dodecahedron puzzle with 50 moveable parts, and try to get similar solid colours lined up – but this time, on all the twelve sides. And if that’s not enough, there’s the X-cube with 52 moving parts, 102 coloured stickers and approximately 125 decillion possible ways to arrange it. The challenge here is not just ordering the disordered colours, but also getting the puzzle back to its original X shape.
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Tease Your Brain: 11 Puzzles To Sharpen The Mind.
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Champions Of Illusion By Susana Martinez-Conde And Stephen Macknik– Intrigued by mind-boggling visual illusions? Prepare to bend your mind further with the delightful book Champions of Illusion: The Science Behind Mind-Boggling Images and Mystifying Brain Puzzles by cognitive scientists Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen Macknik. Besides a stunning selection of visual illusions (mind you, not the same ones you’ve been seeing everywhere), the book offers clear explanations on how and why they work. Many images in the book were selected from a contest for “The Best Illusion of The Year” and the remainder offer a new spin on the classics – perfect for all kinds of readers, from first-timers to specialists.
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Tease Your Brain: 11 Puzzles To Sharpen The Mind.
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Pento T Jigsaw By Jean Claude Constantin– Today’s jigsaw puzzles vary in complexity and scale, and have come a long way since 1760 when they were first imagined and used as a teaching aid in geography courses. Some evidence indicates that working on them exercises both the left and right brain lobes, besides facilitating the release of dopamine – the chemical responsible for learning and memory. So if you’re a jigsaw fiend, give the Pento T by Jean-Claude Constantin your best shot. This fine laser-cut wood packing puzzle looks deceptively easy, given the limited number of pieces, but puzzle fans say it’s fiendishly complex due to its intricate pattern featuring visually similar designs.
9/11
Living
Tease Your Brain: 11 Puzzles To Sharpen The Mind.
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3D Puzzle Movement Assembled STEM Learning Kits– A far cry from the commonplace 2D models, these meticulously detailed 3D Puzzle Movement Assembled STEM Learning Kits from ROBOTIME and Wood Trick will give your cortex an extensive workout and sharpen your motor, spatial, tactile, critical thinking, problem-solving and concentration skills. And once you’re done, you’ll have a fully functional mechanical model to display and brag about. Go on, try assembling any of these well-machined and precisely laser-cut models from a pendulum clock to a solar-powered space hunting Curiosity Rover and an oil derrick.
10/11
Living
Tease Your Brain: 11 Puzzles To Sharpen The Mind.
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The GCHQ Puzzle Books I And II – If you like crosswords, difficult riddles, secret codes or complex challenges, don’t miss this two-volume set of puzzle books by Britain’s secretive intelligence organisation GCHQ. Not for the faint of heart, the puzzles contained in volumes 1 and 2 are brain-bending and excruciatingly difficult, but not impossible to crack, having been put together by some of Britain’s best cryptographers and code breakers. What’s inside? Shapes, Wordgrid, I Spy, Sort Out The Characters, Word Hunting, Sudoku, Countdown, Cryptic Crosswords and even a GCHQ Puzzle Book Competition.
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