Sudoku as brain exercise
From my AARP newsletter, right after I complain about the Xmas Quadoku requiring too much hand-eye coordination:
8. Leave your comfort zone. Getting good at sudoku? Time to move on. Brain teasers don’t form new neural connections once you’ve mastered them. So try something that’s opposite your natural skills: If you like numbers, learn to draw. If you love language, try logic puzzles.
AARP has a point. If I can solve the sudokus in the newspaper too easily, I’m not not getting as much benefit from them. However, forming neural connections takes a lot of repetition, and repetition takes motivation. If the activity isn’t intrinsically motivating, and the sudokuholics out there know exactly what I mean, “leave your comfort zone” becomes “force yourself to do something you don’t enjoy”, and who wants to live like that? I wouldn’t recommend sudokus to someone who doesn’t like logic puzzles. Give it a try, sure, why not? But if it doesn’t grab you, try something else.