While not medicaly documented, Jigsaw puzzles are commonly used by institutions and individuals to help find a balance in their mind and bring a sense of control to a brain that may be overworked or damaged.

Many mental health institutions have been using them for decades as a means to help patients improve their mental fitness and promote concentration. Individuals have successfully used them as distraction and relaxing method to forget, at least temporarily, about the life problems surrounding them. Some hospitals have even found them successful at providing temporary pain relief.

The mind is an amazing thing and jigsaw puzzles seem to provide the temporary relief to many of  life’s problems. The young and the old can also benefit from the improvement in mental prowess that most believe come from Jigsaw Puzzles.

A Texas judge is taking a new approach to punishing kids who do not attend school regularly. Judge John Sholden is sentencing kids to a fine, and to complete a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle with their parents. The reason for the jigsaw puzzle punishment, to force kids and parents to spend some quite time together where they work together and most importantly spend time talking. The hope is that this forced time together will force the kids to discuss issues and problems with their parents in a relaxed and positive setting.

“The rules are a parent can’t put in a puzzle piece without the child being present, and the child can’t put in a piece without the parent being present,” said Sholden.

As a tribute to the success and commitment to the program the judge has dozens of the completed jigsaw puzzles put together under this project lining his office walls. A tribute to this unique but promising and well intentioned program.

Eric Smith, a retired Sales Manager from the UK completed the 12ft by 6ft jigsaw puzzle in 179 days, spending on average about 2 or 3 hours a night on it. The puzzle, featuringpictures of ships and dolphins, is said to the largest jigsaw puzzle ever created and is only known to have been completed by a handfull of people.

The puzzle was so big that Eric needed to remove multiple pieces of furniture from the room and build it on the largest table he had in his house. “It has about 10 or 12 different puzzles inside one giant puzzle, I was really pleased to complete it, I’ve enjoyed spending two or three hours a night on it,” Eric stated.

World's Biggest Jigsaw Puzzle