The Best Puzzle Accessories

Buying Guide

For many people, spending a day inside doing puzzles is one of the best ways to pass the time. Puzzles are great for both kids and adults, as something they can do individually or with family and friends. Not only are puzzles challenging and enjoyable, but they are actually good for your brain.

One of the unique benefits of puzzles is that they require you to use your left and right brain at the same time. The left side of the brain is all about logic and linear reasoning while the right side is all about intuition and imagination. To complete a puzzle, you have to simultaneously use both sides. Doing a puzzle can also improve your short-term memory, so it’s a good idea to get started on one if you have trouble remembering what you did yesterday.

Another important benefit of puzzles is that they help hone your visual-spatial reasoning. When doing a puzzle, you have to have an understanding of what the completed image looks like and how each piece fits into it. This is a skill that is also used when you read a map, for example, or when you replicate dance moves.

While completing a puzzle on the dining room table works for many people, you can also enhance your puzzle experience by getting the right puzzle accessories — and there are many different types to choose from. If you often work on large puzzles with hundreds of pieces, consider getting a puzzle sorter tray. This innovative gadget enables you to sort puzzle pieces by color, shape or size into different trays, making it easier to find the piece you need. If you need a place to store your puzzle while you’re still working on it, consider getting a foam mat. You can do the puzzle on top of the mat and just roll it up and get it out of the way when you need to use the space for something else. The pieces stay intact so you can start up again when you’re ready to work on it.

• If you’re often feeling stressed, you can actually enter a meditative state when you do puzzles. This activity stimulates the brain while allowing you to focus your attention on the puzzle, instead of the things that are worrying you. Studies show that being calm can help you lower your blood pressure and heart rate.
• Puzzle accessories can help you incorporate kids into the activity. For example, if you have young kids, they can help you organize puzzle pieces into the sorter tray. They may also enjoy rolling up the puzzle mat with you when you want to put it away.
• Storing puzzles can take up a lot of space, especially if you have dozens of puzzles. For smaller puzzles, you can consider keeping them in zip-top bags with a cut-out picture of the completed puzzle so you can see what it looks like put together. Larger puzzles can be stacked in their boxes.
• Consider organizing puzzles by number of pieces. Typically, puzzles with more pieces take longer to do than smaller ones. Depending on the amount of time you have, you can select the right size of puzzle to do.
• Some puzzle accessories are multi-purpose. For example, you can use the sorter tray to also store the puzzle pieces. Each tray can hold an entire small puzzle or you can store pieces by categories depending on the size of the puzzle.