For a very long time, puzzles have been one of the only ways of entertainment family members or friends could engage in. Having no tv, no bars, clubs or tournaments it was obvious that puzzles were the only thing people could get fun out of. One of the oldest puzzles were word-riddles but some suggest ancient greeks and egyptians used maze drawings or labyrinths as a form of entertainment. Much later puzzles like the classic jigsaw or Sudoku number grid became popular. Classic or not the puzzles and the challenge they presented were satisfying brain teasers and often offered a sense of accomplishment to the winner.

Benefits for Brain Health

Beyond being an entertaining activity, studies, for some time have been evidencing the positive impact that puzzles have on ones cognitive health as long as it’s done in moderation and hasn’t turned into a mindless addiction.

You can think of the brain as a muscle, as such, it needs stimulation and exercise to remain in a good state and not shrink. Puzzle solving is no different than problem solving, and it is known that such activities provide mental stimulus that proves to boos cognitive abilities. It may also be able to maintain a healthy brain and delay or possibly avoid dementia later in life. If you constantly give your brain a work out, improve concentration, memory there is a great chance that you will not suffer from any decline.

Word Salad is a phenomenon that happens when a person, usually an elderly person is deprived of the ability to organize thoughts into correct phrases or sentences, something similar happens to people who get drunk or high on some substance. Word salads can also be made up words, or joined words that have no meaning when put together.

Grass Bear while those two words have meaning on their own, when put together they have no semantic meaning even though grammatically those are correct words. Together they result in a non sense phrase and whoever listens to it, is not able to comprehend whats being said.

The person engaging in a word salad speech may not be aware that the words are meaningless, instead they may feel like there is a significance to what they are saying, in reality the illogical sentences convey no meaning. Certain politicians have been noticed engaging in word salads.

Examples include:

Clanging

Where a speech pattern will follow a certain rhyming and other sound associations rather than following a coherent meaningful discourse.

Graphorrhea

This type is non verbal and it occours in written versions of word salads are rarely seen as opposed to logorrhea cases.

Logorrhea

People with logorrhea are known to engage in excessive talking often compulsive and not coherent.

Receptive aphasia

This variant is characterized by someone making fluent speeches but who lack meaning nonetheless, this could be the result of a stroke.