‘Cross’ With A Loved One? Get Over It By Solving A Crossword Puzzle

Ever find it hard to overcome a squabble with a loved one? Here’s the clue according to an interesting research. Scientists claim that solving crosswords or anagrams stimulate the brain’s problem solving and decision making ability, which in turn helps overcome differences with dear ones quickly.

Lateral pre-frontal cortex is the puzzle solving area of the brain, helps in determining good from bad, in being focussed and making tough decisions. An increased activity in this area is found to better control one’s emotions.

The US psychologists, from Harvard University studied healthy couples that had been in a relationship for longer than three months by conducting a three-week experiment using scanners. This brain scanner recorded the mental reactions among the volunteers as they watched pictures of their partners with positive, negative, or neutral facial expressions. The findings of the study suggested that people who regularly get stuck into brainteasers appear to recover quicker after a conflict.

Prof Christine Hooker from Harvard University said: “It appears that those with low lateral prefrontal cortex activity continued to feel badly after a dispute. The key factor seems to be that brain activity can predict our experiences in life.”

Written by Snigdha Taduri for Biomed-ME