A post for those waiting too anxiously for the next puzzles here; some unexpected and potentially fun puzzles will soon be coming but this public service message on how puzzles and other stimulants may affect your brain seemed more important today.

At SudokuCon, I told a story about how after the WSC2 in Prague the first interview was with a sex advice columnist asking how I use sudoku in a relationship or even in the bedroom. I did not then have examples as I do now of a marriage proposal sudoku, or a witty joke about having too much experience as a “naked single” to know a lot about “naked pairs”. The doku in sudoku comes from dokushin meaning “lonely” or “bachelor” after all. And I got into Sudoku soon after a break-up and have been in a twenty year relationship with Sudoku without being willing to put a ring on it because making puzzles is not my life mission. Anyway, I keep a log of good answers for the future when an unexpected media request comes to me.

The most frequently repeated answer is how does Sudoku connect to my life and/or to my work in science, and that is about problem solving. I am a great problem solver even if you think of me as a great Sudoku solver. In sudoku, all puzzles should have one answer and we should agree on it when we see it. Many different techniques might be taken and it might take an open mind to find something hard when stuck, so stepping away from the problem and coming back with fresh eyes can help. Those problem-solving techniques also apply to science and medicine, but in a space where there may or may not be an answer and we have to use the scientific method to assert a rationale, test it, and advance from there. The problems of science take teams and different perspectives and not just fifteen minutes and a pencil. But being a great problem solver starts from something as simple as figuring out Sudoku, and I enjoy coming back to the places of comfort when the rest of the world feels too difficult to solve so puzzles are also part of my mental health journey.

The newest logged answer comes to the question of what to do if you are “addicted” to sudoku. It was first asked to me by a comedic podcaster who takes unique approaches to solving people’s problems. The remaining words are pure, crystal blue Snyder, and I know I’ll at least come back to these a lot because being an addict and having a bipolar brain is a dangerous mix:

We talk about someone “addicted” to sudoku in quotations as if it is not a drug. I am here, as a huge drug addict from hardcore puzzles, to tell you that you can actually be addicted to sudoku, when you abuse it too much. In a world in which there are a lot of problems and none of them seem solvable, you might first find comfort in a simple number puzzle that you slowly work your way through until there are just ten and then five and then fourthreetwoonedone digits left and it feels good. Dopamine rushing through your brain. You go a little further and get a little better at Sudoku and now you can do even the “hard” ones better and the rush is even higher with the hard grids. You start losing track of time, you forget to eat, you stop being intimate with your partner, your brain is thinking everything is right because all the pleasure neurotransmitters are signaling but they are not firing for the right reasons and you haven’t eaten and your partner has left you and that only makes you want to solve even more.

Sudoku may sometimes be a medicine and make you happy, but too much of it can be an addiction and that is bad. Now Sudoku is weak sauce compared to the drugs the FDA regulates, but it is hitting many if not all of the same processes in the brain at a fundamental level. We don’t live in a world where someone running naked in the streets screaming “Will Shortz” is instantly identified as a crossword addict, and police don’t check for graphite residue on your fingers when they pull you over for driving under the influence. But you do need to do some of the same things an addict might in the more extreme situations to get better because they know best how to treat an addiction. First, detoxify. Stop solving any sudoku puzzle that Thomas Snyder wrote that might activate your brain a lot — go to the uninteresting ones that still look like sudoku but are boring like a computer-generated very easy. Or go to something sudoku-adjacent. Maybe word searches are something that detoxifies you with the letters A-Z over fifteen minutes in a safer way than Sudoku did with 1-9. Find an accountability partner. Have them limit your supply of sudoku so you do not overdose in a day. If still in trouble, seek professional help. As someone smart once said, moderation in all things, even sudoku itself.