#Free printable easy sudoku puzzles how to#

Remember that although you want to finish a puzzle, the point is to enjoy the challenge and work your brain as you relax. If you keep asking yourself which numbers you’re missing in a line or grid, you might find it more quickly. It might narrow down the possibilities or make another number obvious. Whenever you place a new number, see if that opens up a new row or box. Let your eye scan the puzzle to find another place on the grid with new possibilities. If you get stuck, don’t concentrate too hard on one part of the grid. In the above example, the box now has a 5, and that may help you solve that 3×3 area, or might help you solve the lines that cross that area. Seek the Missing NumbersĪs you fill in the easy solutions, you may start to find other missing numbers that are easy to place. Filling these blanks will get you on your way to a solution. The same may be the case for one or two missing numbers in the smaller boxes. A line might be missing a 5 and a 6, but a box along that line will already have a 6 in it, so you know this blank must be a 5, and the other blank must be the 6. Many puzzles will leave one or two blanks either in a line or in a box.

Here are a few tips that can help beginners solve sudoku puzzles: 1. The puzzles will help you get started by providing some correct numbers – the fewer numbers provided, the more difficult the puzzle. To challenge you more, there are 3×3 squares marked out in the grid, and each of these squares can’t have any repeat numbers either. A 9×9 square must be filled in with numbers from 1-9 with no repeated numbers in each line, horizontally or vertically. A short break combined with brain work can help with stress.

Relaxation – Taking even 10 minutes to tackle a sudoku puzzle helps pull you away from the other concerns of the day.

As you work these puzzles, it will help you sharpen your memory. Memory – Sudoku is all about memory, keeping track of numbers and their location.

The brain enjoys learning, so this may help with other tasks.

Learning – As you work more puzzles, your speed will increase, which indicates that you’re learning more about the game.

Since it requires careful thought, you will zero in on what you’re doing.

Concentration – Sudoku makes you think critically, which requires concentration.

Here are four areas in which sudoku can help seniors: In fact, study participants who worked such puzzles more than once a day had superior cognitive performance in key areas, such as reasoning, attention and memory. When people over 50 engage in thought games like sudoku and crossword puzzles, their brains function better, according to a study in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. Like chess, it encourages you to think a few steps ahead to your next move, which is a good exercise for the brain.

#Free printable easy sudoku puzzles how to#

> Read “ Fun Handheld and Video Games for Seniors ”įind out more about how to play sudoku for beginners, why it’s a great game for seniors, some tips for playing it, and more you should know. Variations of the puzzle first appeared in the 19th century, then reappeared again in 2004 in The Times of London, where it enjoyed a renaissance as a fun brain game. Sudoku, which has gained in popularity in the past dozen or so years, actually originates long before that, and not from where you might expect.Īlthough “sudoku” is a Japanese word (meaning “digit single”), it got that name only around 1986.