The Advantages of Puzzles: Enhanced Memory and Focus

benefits of solve Jan 07, 2024

Team Solve believes in the value of a daily puzzle ritual as part of a healthy lifestyle.  We know it can be challenging to justify to ourselves the benefit of doing just this one thing at a time, but we believe that setting time aside to concentrate on your daily Solve puzzle ritual is good for you.  Science agrees too, maintaining that puzzles are fun to do and important for good brain health.  The real benefits of solving puzzles depends on a few factors including the type of puzzle you choose and your degree of commitment.

Solving puzzles helps to enhance our memory by reinforcing the existing connections between our brain cells and boosts the preparation of new relationships.  Both of these benefit our mental speed and thought processes.  Science agrees that puzzles are beneficial for every age – young minds because they are flexible and easily trained, and adults and seniors because they are more susceptible to decreased memory function.

The...

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For the Good: The Power of Life Changing Rituals

ritual Dec 03, 2023

It is said that a lot of our beliefs and expectations about daily life are encoded into habits that we integrate into our regular commitments and tasks – like your Solve puzzle ritual.

From Gilbert Ross, in his article entitled “7 Morning Rituals to Empower your Day and Change your Life”, 

“The most common trait of highly successful people is the recognition of the power they have in co-creating their reality through changing the way they think, believe or expect their reality to be.  One of the most effective ways of changing our belief patterns is through practicing and maintaining daily rituals. 

Ancient traditions had clearly understood the power of rituals in reinforcing habits and changing the way we see and create our reality a long, long time ago.  Once again, if you look into the life history of any highly successful individual, you will find some form of ritual in his or her daily routine.  Some of these rituals may seem...

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The Joy of Solving Puzzles

benefits of solve Nov 05, 2023

Janice from Team Solve has enjoyed solving puzzles on a regular basis for most of her life. And she has spent many years constructing puzzles of all kinds, shapes and sizes.  She puzzles !  

And now we know that science agrees because according to Daniel Bor, a research fellow at the University of Sussex in England, it’s because we take great pleasure in pattern-finding.  He says,

“Human brains have an extreme form of consciousness:  they’re ravenous for new innovative solutions to problems in the world, ravenous for optimizing our lives, for building pyramids of knowledge.  It’s about trying to solve novel or complex problems.  We have a mental space dedicated to complex problem solving.  What makes human consciousness unique is our ravenous appetite for these innovative lessons that help us solve these novel or complex problems.”

There’s a reason why puzzle solvers sometimes experience a need to keep...

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Brain Training, Health Eating, Regular Exercise

healthy habits Oct 01, 2023

Healthy eating, regular exercise and brain training – the experts tell us these are three factors to consider for a healthy lifestyle.  Another way to help stay active, youthful and mentally agile is by adopting a daily ritual of solving puzzles.   Team Solve supports a daily puzzle ritual as a convenient and economical way to support a healthy lifestyle.

Following is an excerpt from Prevention magazine, April 2016 edition (www.prevention.com) about an extraordinary Canadian woman who accomplished extraordinary things – and one of her daily rituals was completing a word puzzle!

Aga Burzynska is rock climbing on a bluff outside Fort Collins, CO, as she often does.  While she reaches for craggy finger holds in the veined surface, Burzynska, a neuro-scientist, calculates and recalculates, her brain and body working together to scale the vertical.  Burzynska loves the outdoors and the way exercise makes her feel.

But the challenging physicality of...

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Fun with Classic Quotations about Success

fun wih quotations Apr 01, 2023

Team Solve enjoys searching out classic quotations and we’re always on the look-out for new and inspiring quotes.  We support and encourage you to build a healthy daily ritual of solving puzzles daily.  We decided to bring these thoughts together and have a bit of fun inserting the phrases “puzzle” or “puzzle ritual” into the classic quotes we find that inspire us.   We’ll show you how we do it with quotations about Success ….

Let’s play with a classic quotation from Winston Churchill (remember, words in italics have been added by Team Solve).  “Success in solving puzzles is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.”

Here’s a classic quote from Pele (soccer star) about Success (words in italics added by Team Solve).  “Success in solving puzzles is no accident.  It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of...

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Missing Your Daily Newspaper Puzzle?

benefits of solve Mar 04, 2023

In uncertain economic times or due to cost constraints, some large and community newspapers have had to discontinue their puzzle features or at worst, some have stopped printing altogether.  This might have resulted in a loss of your daily puzzle routine – but this is where Solve can fill that void.

Are you missing your daily newspaper puzzles?

Solve Sudoku collections are the ideal way to still receive your daily puzzle; similar to how you would in newspapers.  Here is an opportunity to try something you are already familiar with, just in a slightly different format, and the bonus is that your Solve collection comes direct to your inbox.  It’s easy and economical to subscribe to a daily puzzle ritual with Solve.

Team Solve promotes many benefits to a daily puzzle ritual as part of a healthy lifestyle.  That’s why our puzzle collections are designed to provide several puzzles per week so you can maintain a daily solving ritual.

Solving puzzles...

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“We are what we repeatedly do” – the Value of a Daily Ritual

ritual Jan 28, 2023

Team Solve supports a daily puzzle ritual as a simple way to modify your lifestyle in a healthy way.  In recent blogs, Team Solve has highlighted the benefits of healthy and positive rituals or habits.

After quoting a phrase from Aristotle (“these virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions”), writer Will Durant sums up Aristotle’s thoughts this way in The Story of Philosophy:  The Lives and Opinions of the World’s Greatest Philosophers, “We are what we repeatedly do:  Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” (he goes on to quote again from Aristotle’s work).

The idea of acting without really thinking about it – such as a daily ritual – is known in science as being a central driver of habits.  If the habit comes naturally – daily exercise, nutritious meals, regular social activities, daily puzzle solving – then the habit forms more easily.  If the habit is more complex or...

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The Story Behind Sudoku

sudoku Dec 31, 2022

The following is an excerpt from “The Appeal of Sudoku”, by Marcel Danesi, Ph.D, posted June 19, 2009, author of “The Puzzle Instinct”)

Despite its Japanese name, the concept behind Sudoku crystallized in the United States in the form of a puzzle called “Numbers in Place”, which appeared for the first time in the May 1979 issue of Dell Puzzles and Crossword Games magazine.  It went virtually unnoticed, except by readers of the magazine.  By the way, the late architect Howards Garns is pegged as being its inventor.

In 1984, an editor for Nikoli magazines in Japan came across one of the puzzles, changed its name to Sudoku (meaning “only single numbers allowed”) and included it in his magazines.  Within a year, major Japanese dailies were carrying the increasingly popular puzzle.

In 1997, a retired judge from New Zealand, named Wayne Gould, saw a Sudoku puzzle and started making his own.  These appeared in 2004 in the...

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Daily Rituals for Success – Healthy Habits to Help You Today

healthy habits Dec 03, 2022

How do you build a relaxing and entertaining daily ritual that supports a healthy lifestyle?  Helpful and engaging daily rituals can positively impact your life.  Puzzle collections by Team Solve provide an ideal way to start a daily puzzle ritual.  You can set your positive mindset with these other ritual suggestions that may make your lifestyle healthier, happier and more productive.

  1. Learn something new every day that will make you grow and helps you approach life from a fresh perspective:
    - daily Solve puzzle ritual
    - read or listen to something inspirational and/or educational
    - this may not make a big difference initially, but consistently over time it helps develop a fresh perspective
  2. Clear your head after you wake up:
    - clear thoughts of what happened yesterday or dreams from last night
    - review what you need to do today (include your daily Solve puzzle ritual)
    - spend a few minutes thinking or meditating and/or mentally visualizing the day
  3. Try this:  on just...
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Building Daily Rituals

ritual Nov 14, 2022

Why is a puzzle ritual an important part of a healthy lifestyle?

Team Solve believes in the importance of a daily puzzle ritual and our mission is to support puzzle solvers who have or want to have a daily puzzle ritual.   We’ve been exploring the importance of rituals and how they play a significant role in society.  Rituals remind us of what is important and provide a sense of stability.  Some rituals help us to work more effectively (like making a list to organize work tasks) or how to stay focussed on our goals by regularly setting objectives for the day or for the week.

When you wake up in the morning do you get started on moving through your day, or do you take a little time for yourself?  A few quiet moments -- even if it’s just for five minutes -- to start your morning rituals of that first cup of coffee or a walk in the fresh air --- and time for your puzzle ritual:  your Solve ritual.

A great quote from Lewis Howes, author,...

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