Puzzles and Board Games as Therapy

There a million ways to meditate and unwind.

Yet, in our humble opinions, puzzles and board games are particular powerful modalities. Of course, by the time you are reading this article you may already have your mind made up whether you love puzzles or games. So if you are among the rare few who haven't explored your preference or you're open to reconsidering, these activities have a lot to offer beyond just entertainment.

Puzzles, for one, encourage us to practice the following skills:

• Problem Solving: It requires to see an image as a whole then shift our perspectives as break down this large task into smaller and more manageable parts. The analogy to other challenges in life is hard to miss, and unwinding with a puzzle can help practice the skill without larger stakes.

• Mindful Observation: Puzzles require us to take notice of shape, color, patterns, and how they fit together. This exertion can help us feel more present even in the midst of large challenges in our lives.

• Patience and Increase Frustration Tolerance: Puzzling requires some tenacity and positive self-talk over long periods of time.

• Perspective Shift: Puzzling requires a frequent shift between small detailed work to bigger picture thinking, and back again.

• Collaboration: Working on puzzles with a friend or team can exercise effective communication skills, delegation of tasks, and coordination in order to complete the puzzle.

• A Sense of Accomplishment: The completion brings self-esteem and a willingness to take on challenges.

Board games, a broad category no doubt, have many of these benefits and several others:

• Humility: No matter our occupation or passion in life, we are always going to take losses. In fact, many people who consider themselves successful likely take more losses than the average person in the form of rejection, set backs, and high stakes missteps. Allowing yourself to lose with dignity and humility in a board game is therefore excellent practice for the real world where it is a fact that you will win some and lose some.

• Learning from Mistakes without Self-Blame: In many strategy games, you can do just about everything right and still lose based on luck. Board games therefore offer a microcosm to understand how to process and learn without believing the greater world is somehow against you.

• Relationships: In board games, your relationships can matter if even in subtle ways. People do not always make the rational decision but rather one that may punish another player for putting them back somehow. While just a game at the end of the day, board games represent a great opportunity to practice this maxim: being nice matters. And when you demonstrate you have the ability to lose with grace, it can build trust further.

• Communication: Nearly every game has scenarios that the rulebook and google are not readily able to address. Games also have complex rules that can change, leaving players confused and making mistakes. In this sense, board games are an opportunity to practice giving grace to others to achieve equitable competition.

• Cognitive Health: Board games are being explored as a both a diagnostic and intervention to help adults who may be experiencing cognitive decline. A brain in motion stays in motion.

As an organization, we are going to be exploring opportunities to create more third spaces in our community including with the use of environmental education board games at several of our events this year. If you would like to be a part of that work building sustainable community, we hope you will connect. Until then, game on and puzzle on. And we hope you'll use these opportunities as a way to practice therapeutic skills too.

Brenda's recommendations for puzzles:

• Magic Puzzle Company makes 1000-piece puzzles with incredible detail on each piece, funky shaped pieces, and adventure modes.

• The Clearly Impossible Puzzle makes a variety of puzzle with see-through pieces for an extra challenge

• eeBoo is a woman-owned business that produces puzzles for children of all ages and developmental stages

• Find a variety of discounted puzzles at your local thrift store!