Do crosswords stave off mental decline? It’s the wrong question

It’s time to stop pussyfooting over any link between puzzles and dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and all the rest. It’s easy to understand why the question is often asked: might Wordle – or the crossword, or the sudoku – be a shield against forgetfulness, senescence, even dementia? After all, puzzles sit right there, new ones appearing among the news every day. And in fiction we’ve seen the very smartest people – the people superspy George Smiley turns to for advice – knocking off wordplay while cracking espionage rings.

When it comes to detail, though, the answer has one of two flavours. The first, the responsible flavour, is a gentle letdown: dedicated solvers may be intellectually active, but perhaps that’s why they’re dedicated solvers. Or: doing puzzles might make you better at something, but that something could be limited to the doing of puzzles. The second kind of answer is heavy on metaphor: your brain is a muscle and will atrophy without a daily workout. This is the kind of answer you hear only from people who have a product named something like Your Daily Brain Workout App (first week free).

Enlightenment comes from asking smaller questions. For example, probability theorist John McSweeney has asked why …. a solver, presented with two puzzles of ostensibly equal difficulty, may solve one readily and be stumped by the other. … which I discovered in some recent writing on how the term “percolation problem” can be used to describe the moment when the grid contains enough written-in answers that the rest seem to start solving themselves.

The utter delight that accompanies that moment is the answer to a much more sensible question than “are crosswords a kind of Alzheimer’s prophylactic?” The question: is it a good thing to solve puzzles? The answer: yes, they bring delight to our lives. In a world seemingly intent on pathologising and medicalising the things we try to do, a puzzle can surely be left alone and understood as something we’re allowed to do purely because it’s fun.

PS in our cluing conference for WHIPS, the runners-up are KenJam’s charming “Cats like what chef does with cream” and GappyTooth’s stark “Those who give discipline to politicians in leathers”; the winner is the raucous “These cats know how to organise a party!” Kludos to Peshwari. Please leave entries for PERCOLATE below, along with any favourite clues or puzzles you’ve spotted. 188 Words for Rain by Alan Connor is published by Ebury (£16.99). To support the Guardian and the Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.