Do you lose your keys, forget where you stashed your sunglasses and then make a crack about how your memory isn’t what it used to be? If so, you can take steps to boost your brainpower and feel better about occasional mental misfires.
One top way to stay mentally sharp is to exercise your brain, according to Harvard Medical School. In fact, mental exercise may “activate processes that help maintain individual brain cells and stimulate communication among them.”
Top ways to get a mental workout include:
- Acting as a mentor or teacher
- Learning a new skill
- Taking up a hobby
- Volunteering for a good cause
But there’s another way to get some mental exercise that’s easy, fun and can be done at home — solve our In the Balance brain teaser. This math and logic puzzle gives you three perfectly balanced scales with different shapes on each side. A fourth scale has shapes only on the left side. You need to study the three balanced scales to figure out how many shapes are needed to balance out the last one.
Tackling brain teasers like this can jog your brain and strengthen your synapses in a fun way. This brain teaser works the parts of the brain that handle math, numbers and spatial relationships. These parts of your brain are essential for everyday tasks like budgeting, doubling a recipe and comparison shopping at the grocery store.
Oh, and here’s one more easy and fast way to improve your memory: bite your tongue when you get the urge to make a quip about your aging brain. Research shows that negative stereotypes about aging and memory can actually be self-fulfilling. Middle-aged and older people do better on memory challenges after being exposed to positive messages about aging and preserving memory.
So go ahead, believe in your brainpower and take on this brain teaser with confidence.
How’d you do? Click here to check your work.
Did you solve the puzzle correctly? Leave a comment to let us know how you did and what you thought of this puzzle.
View Comments (51)
I got it right. Love to do number puzzles. Send more please.
Great to hear, Virginia! You can find additional puzzles here on our site.
Good grief, I used to think I was good at algebra, but that was 40 yrs ago. I can't get the answer even with all the explanations given..I am out of touch.
Answered correctly. great teaser!
Got it right, 1 green triangle. FUN!
My answer to the brain teaser was correct.
Thanks for giving this rusty brain a workout..
We're glad you liked it!
Very Fun!!!
By inspection I knew that I had to substitute a triangle for the circle in #2. So in # 1, I calculated that 2/3 triangle = 1 circle. Then in #2 we have 2/3 triangle =one square. In #3 we have 2/3 triangle X 3 =2 triangles balances 4 diamonds. Finally in #4 it takes one triangle to balance two diamonds.
I will be 89 in august and love to solve brain-teasers.
We're glad you liked the brain teaser, John! Thank you for sharing!
We're so glad you liked it!
I solved this puzzle in the amount of time it took me to look at all four of the scales, in other words, in less than a minute.
Two diamonds are equal to one and one half circles or one and one half squares, and it is plain to see that one triangle is the same as one and one half circles. So the answer is one triangle. Thanks.
I figured it out by giving each side of the scale a number value of a 100. Three squares and three circles equal 100, four diamonds equal 100, so two diamonds equal 50. Since two triangles equal three circles equal 100, and each diamond is worth 25 as four are a 100 and each triangle equals 50. It becomes a simple math problem. 50 + 25 + 25 = 100
Love Math and Logic.
Since 1 square = 1 circle, then 3 circles = 4 diamonds or 2 triangles
Thus 2 diamonds would = 1 triangle and scale 4 would be balanced.