Riddle me this (Riddle Solving and the mind)

Riddle me this, riddle me that, name me a fish that is round and flat.

A puffer fish

Did you like my riddle? What’s that? No! Okay.

Well my bad riddle aside, the reason why I mention them at all is because of the way they make you think so that you can deduce what the answer might be. Riddles are often obscure things, and the only way to get the answer is to think obscurely and laterally. This basically means you have to change your mind-set if you want to get the answer to the riddle, ah see what I did there?

Now obviously you can’t just start solving riddles right off the bat, it’s not like you have an “obscure and lateral” switch in your head that you can turn on and off at will. You can think of riddle solving as an exercise, at first it’ll be difficult, but as you keep on doing it, becomes easier for you and you become better at it. This way you learn how to change your mind-set more easily, which can be used not just to help you deal with your stress and anxiety better but can also help you with some of the problems you face in your daily life.

I will admit, I don’t have any concrete scientific research to back up all of this, but this excerpt from an article in MSN.com titled, “Research shows that these 7 hobbies will make you smarter,” does support what I just said. According to one part of the article, puzzle and riddle solving increases neuroplasticity which makes it easier for “the brain to reorganize itself.”

What’s more, it also says that, “people with high neuroplasticity are less prone to anxiety and depression while learning faster and memorizing more.”

That’s pretty awesome, isn’t it? You’re exercising your brain and you’re calming yourself down too, what more could you want?

Here are some cool riddles I found along with links of the places I found them (don’t worry they’re a lot better than the riddle I put in at the beginning of this post):

I travel all over the world, but always stay in my corner. What am I?

A stamp.

Where I got it from: http://www.rd.com/jokes/riddles/

The man who invented it doesn’t want it. The man who bought it doesn’t need it. The man who needs it doesn’t know it. What is it?

A Coffin

Where I got it from: http://gpuzzles.com/quiz/clever-riddles-with-answers/

What is as big as you are and yet does not weigh anything?

Your shadow.

Where I got it from: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/hard-riddles-good-brain-teasers.html

Or you could search for some others yourself, or you could try to get a riddle book from a library or a bookstore or that one uncle who keeps asking you riddles; I’m sure he has one.

So go give riddle solving a try, and see if it helps you out. Go on then, go get riddled.