** Play our current TV Guide Printable Crosswords **
What happens when you combine TV knowledge with a four-sided black and white grid? Yes,
TV Guide Crosswords! Crossword puzzles are a lot of fun for so many reasons. It keeps a person’s mind sharp, for starters. It doesn’t matter if you have a fluent and encyclopedic lexicon or are just learning to spell, anyone can solve them. Crossword puzzles can be tackled alone or in groups. I’ve spent hours pouring over a copy of a crossword puzzle during a lazy Sunday morning with a friendly cup of coffee in my hand and my feline lap warmer, Sami, helping me decipher clues. One of my fond childhood memories is of working together with my mother and sisters to solve the weekly TV Guide crossword puzzle.
Perhaps not so amazingly, until we got older, my mom always did better than us.
Adding crossword puzzle games to family picnics or other social events is a great way to get everyone together and bond over something that has no age limits. It seems that when there is a crossword puzzle to be worked on by friends or family, the outcome is a more socially open and friendly experience with others who come together in positive ways.
One sure-fire place to find an entertaining crossword puzzle is in each issue of the TV Guide. As you know, there are many kinds of TV listing magazines but there is only one TV Guide, and there’s only one TV Guide crossword puzzle. I remember us doubling the fun by remembering, “that episode” of a favorite show while solving three across, or six down.
Established in 1953, TV Guide has a circulation of 15 million subscribers and from its earliest days, there has been a crossword puzzle in each TV Guide. Whether it is to see what is trending on streaming platforms, or to learn about what is going on with the “Housewives” on cable. Every issue is filled with required reading. Here are three quick clues, see if you can come up with the answers:
- 1. The number of spin-offs resulting from Kim Kardashian Superstar . (three letters)
- 2. It was the most-watched series finale in U.S. television history. (four letters)
- 3. Whose photo was on the first cover of TV Guide? (eleven letters)
How many did you know? The answers were 1. TEN, 2. MASH, 3. DESI ARNEZ JR
When a TV Guide crossword puzzle is layered on top of that, the conversations possibilities multiply. Imagine all the times you would get to use newly acquired words and recently learned tidbits of trivia while chatting with a coworker? Now, couple that feeling with the satisfaction and happiness you felt when you solved a crossword puzzle.
Crossword puzzles exercise your brain and keep your memory sharp. There are added benefits that go beyond keeping your brain engaged. Studies show that any kind of cognitive exercise activates a person’s brain. By trying to solve a crossword puzzle your brain gets to exercise and stores those memories to draw upon in the future. Both of those activities help stave off the effects of Dementia and other brain diseases, such as Alzheimer’s. In other words, keeping your mind involved with solving crossword puzzles helps prevent mental lethargy
Literally, crossword puzzles force us to think outside the box. So, besides being a boredom buster, solving crossword puzzles helps us to problem solve by building on the knowledge we already possess. Your brain is then able to build a word association scaffold. It’s a wonderful
way to super-size your vocabulary!
When you work on crossword puzzles with others something else special happens. It is called collaborative cruciverbalism. (That’s a seriously “ super-sized ” term.)
Collaborative cruciverbalism is an individual’s ability to interact in an enhanced and strategic manner when working in a group. That’s right, crossword puzzles can help you improve social skills and enhances your ability to understand someone else’s problems.
In addition to improved relationship skills, there appears to be another beneficial side effect of crossword puzzles, people tend to understand and solve problems faster than people who don’t play daily crosswords.
To put things into a more clinical perspective, crossword puzzles cause dopamine to be released into your brain. Accomplishment, like finishing the TV Guide crossword, triggers Dopamine to be released into the brain. Releasing dopamine improves motor skills, elevates concentration, enhances confidence and generally makes a person feel capable of greater things. The effect even occurs when the crossword puzzle isn’t particularly complicated or difficult, completing one can boost the dopamine production in your brain.
At an even deeper level, crossword puzzles can help an individual solve problems. It’s hard to believe that something as simple as coming up with the answer to twenty-three across in the last issue of TV Guide can help with deeper, more personal challenges, but it’s true.
Think about it. Puzzles are not always easy to solve, however unraveling one, letter by letter happens because of a methodical process derived from years of structured thinking, careful planning, and logical considerations. Those same problem-solving skills are used to deal with
real-life problems.
Although there are some challenges in life that seem to be insurmountable, solving crossword puzzles has regularly provided a way to organize thoughts during challenging times. As with life, crossword puzzles are confusing mazes that require step-by-step consideration to resolve a clue.
Using a slow, deliberate process to arrive at an answer in a puzzle allows individuals to approach other areas of life in a similar manner. This happens because a person learns to work through a problem to solve it using the information they have at hand. Put another way, solving
crossword puzzles helps a person study the patterns of life.
In today’s world, focusing on anything past 20 minutes is intense concentration. Being able to study anything requires a person to be completely engaged and willing to focus for prolonged periods of time. Interestingly, people find crossword puzzles both challenging and relaxing, which makes it easier to keep working for extended periods of time. Those factors make for more productive outcomes.
In studies, the benefit of having relaxed, yet focused feelings of optimism has been shown to make a person feel more motivated. Motivated people believe that the desired results will be rewarding and find it easier to put extra effort into a project. So, solving a single crossword
puzzle daily can actually help you become more efficient and productive because you have increased your concentration capabilities and enjoyed doing it. Although there are studies that support and question the positive effects of doing a daily crossword puzzle there are a few undeniable advantages of completing one every day.
The elation a person feels when filling in that final blank space is a mix of pride and satisfaction for a job well done. The cost to sit down with someone and work together to solve a puzzle is almost nothing. The closeness a family can feel at gathering with a crossword puzzle that tickles your memory like the TV Guide crossword puzzle, brings us all together.
All-in-all, crossword puzzles are good for your mind, heart, and soul. What can be better than that? To get your TV Guide crossword puzzle, download it now!
