Benefits of Sudoku: 11 reasons to play Sudoku
The benefits of Sudoku are the reason behind the great popularity of this game. In essence, it is a simple puzzle, with a simple design and easy and straightforward rules without hidden pitfalls. Yet, kids and adults of all ages cannot help but fall in love with its challenges. The motivation behind the dedication to this number puzzle lies in the benefits players can experience firsthand, even if they do not think about them consciously.
The main benefits of Sudoku
1. Improves concentration
It is impossible to solve a Sudoku puzzle without concentration. Since this game requires logical thinking, an interruption can break the chain of thought and force the player to restart their analysis. The frustration of having to constantly go back to square one in order to progress will eventually train the brain to block any source of distraction.
The more puzzles you play, the more absorbed in your task you will be each time, improving your concentration skills step by step.
This better-developed skill will not only be felt when playing Sudoku but will also transpire to other activities in your life, be it at work, studying, or performing a task that requires your full attention.
2. Helps to reduce anxiety and stress
The two big bad words of today’s society can be tamed by a simple numbers puzzle. One of the benefits of Sudoku is that it requires the player to concentrate on the grid and use logical thinking to find the solution for each cell. While doing this, the brain becomes fully focused on the task at hand rather than the source of stress and anxiety.
This break can be just enough for the player to regain their sense of balance and become calmer. Once the puzzle is over, they might even find that the task or the problem that generated so much anxiety is not as daunting as it initially seemed.
3. Promotes a healthy mindset
When the brain is not stimulated, it tends to dwell on negative thoughts and infuse the person with an overall sense of unhappiness.
Just as exercising can boost your vitality, so does playing challenging thinking games like Sudoku. A fitter and happier brain is the first step to regard the world and your life with a healthier and more positive mindset.
4. Helps kids develop their problem-solving skills
Sudoku is a puzzle with simple, easy to understand rules that any kid can try. The need to engage in logical thinking to fill the grid correctly plus the process of trial and error they must apply will naturally and subconsciously help them develop their problem-solving skills.
Furthermore, the challenge of solving what to a kid will seem like an easy and boring game also helps them to engage more intensely to finish it quickly and improves their concentration skills.
These benefits of Sudoku can also help them in other areas and even improve their school performance.
5. Promotes a healthy competition
Sudoku can become a competition against yourself. Although time is not 1a constraint in this game, a timer is always provided allowing the player to track their performance.
Since logical and concentration skills increase with each challenge, you will become faster at completing a grid each time.
You can then use the timer as a motivator to promote a healthy competition against yourself and to improve your skills more and more.
6. Improves thinking skills
As far as the benefits of Sudoku go, improved thinking skills are likely one of the first that players experience.
In the initial stages, solving a puzzle can be a chaotic process and you are likely to jump from the analysis of rows and columns to groups randomly. However, the brain will instinctively begin to find patterns of solutions. As the game progresses, you will come to understand which elements and which patterns are more likely to result in a quicker and easier solution.
Slowly, you will begin to apply this improved skill in your daily life too, and you will be able to identify more efficiently the best way to attain the outcome you desire.
7. Improves memory
The first time you play an easy Sudoku level, you might find yourself noting down all the candidates for one single cell in order to keep track of your progress. The more challenges you face, the quicker you will drop these notes as your brain will retain the information naturally.
In harder levels, notes will become essential once again, but your memory skills will still be stimulated in different ways. You will become able to remember more complicated strategies and how to apply them without referring to a tutorial. Patterns from previous games will also be memorized and you will find yourself looking for the opportunity to apply them once again.
8. Helps to analyze the relation between the whole and the part
One of the hidden benefits of Sudoku is the way it improves your capacity to analyze the relation and dynamic between tasks and subtasks.
This numbers puzzle cannot be solved by completing each row, column, or group individually and once at a time. Their information is intertwined, and you must learn which subtask to tackle each time in order to progress in your goal of filling the whole grid.
If you want to succeed in life, you must also be able to take the information of a project as a whole and understand how and which subtasks to perform to achieve its successful completion.
9. Improves logical thinking
Logical skills are the only true requirement to be able to play a Sudoku puzzle. Even in this case, the inference pattern is a simple one: if X is true, then Y is false. The difficulty levels in Sudoku depend solely on the number of allocated clues given at the beginning of each puzzle. The logic behind the game remains the same every time.
However, the more challenging the puzzle, the more complicated the inference pattern will become. As you progress in the game and face more challenging puzzles, the more you will improve your logical thinking.
10. It is an affordable hobby
Sudoku does not socially discriminate. It can be played by people of any age and of any economic background. Having a logical brain is the only requirement to play these puzzles, and every human being is gifted with one.
You can buy books and magazines with printed puzzles, but online you can find endless free games to solve, with various difficulty levels.
11. Gives a sense of accomplishment
Completing a grid and finishing a Sudoku puzzle successfully infuses the player with a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. The harder the puzzle and the struggle to solve it, the more joy and happiness a player feels at the end.
This is an individual and self-rewarding game. It is a chance to put one’s skills and mental capacity to the test, without external interference.
When playing these puzzles, you are collecting the benefits of Sudoku but also experiencing the opportunity to know yourself better. Discovering your skills and completing a table can provide a good feeling and a sense of rejoicing that is hard to find in other games.
It is remarkable that such a simple game can have so many positive effects on one’s health and life. The benefits of Sudoku are nothing short of amazing and now you have multiple excuses to indulge in the challenges these numbers puzzles pose.
