Good morning! 
It’s Friday, 29 January 2021 (W4/D29)
Today is:
In 2002, Jodi Jill created National Puzzle Day as a way to share her enjoyment of puzzles. As a syndicated newspaper puzzle maker and professional quiz maker, Jill developed classroom lesson plans especially for the observance.
It’s not clear whether she chose today’s date for her Puzzle Day celebration because it also is the day when the Rubik’s Cube - the most popular puzzle toy of all time - made its commercial debut in 1980.
Puzzle Day recognizes how exercising our brains with puzzles is just one of its many benefits.
Whether it’s a crossword, jigsaw, trivia, word searches, brain teasers or Sudoku, puzzles put our minds to work. Studies have found that when we work on a jigsaw puzzle, we use both sides of the brain. And spending time daily working on puzzles improves memory, cognitive function, and problem-solving skills.
Word searches and crossword puzzles have the obvious benefit of increasing vocabulary and language skills. Sudoku, a puzzle sequencing a set of numbers on a grid, exercises the brain as well. By testing memory and logical thinking, this puzzle stimulates the brain and can improve number skills.
Puzzles also offer social benefits. When we work on these brain teasers with someone, we improve our social interactions. Whether we join a group or play with our children, those interactions keep us socially active and teach our children social skills, too. Even working them quietly together provides an opportunity to focus the mind in a meditative way that isn’t forced.
Of course, you can keep it computerised as well, like our friend @Entity is doing over on his Twitch channel at the moment, and take on any one of the very many challenging puzzles games available. Or just keep it simple with a few rounds of good old expert level Minesweeper or Solitaire.
Whatever you do, make it a puzzletastic Friday! 