Brain Games for Seniors: Choosing Ones You'll Actually Enjoy

An honest word first

Plenty of 'brain training' products make grand promises about what puzzles can do. We won't. What we can say plainly is this: puzzles are an enjoyable way to spend time genuinely engaged — reading, recalling, reasoning, noticing — and enjoyable engagement is a fine thing in anyone's day. That is reason enough.

The best brain game is simply the one you'll happily return to tomorrow. Enjoyment is what keeps a habit alive, and a habit is where any benefit of practice lives.

What to look for

• Familiar formats: crosswords, word searches, sudoku and pairs need no rulebook — the game starts immediately
• A gentle floor: 'easy' should mean genuinely easy, not 'slightly less fiendish'
• No timers and no penalties: a clock turns a pastime into a test
• Print that respects your eyes: large type and high contrast, on screen and paper
• Variety across the week: words one day, numbers the next, memory the day after — different puzzles exercise different pleasures

What to avoid

• Anything that scores you against other people when you'd rather it didn't
• Apps crowded with adverts, pop-ups and 'streaks' that scold you for missing a day
• Puzzles so hard they end in defeat more often than satisfaction — difficulty is not a virtue

How Puzzle Pastime approaches it

Five gentle puzzles a day, big print throughout, no timers anywhere, nothing to download and no account needed to play. Finish one over a cup of tea and you've had a good sit-down with your mind pleasantly busy — which is all we promise, and quite a lot really.