Sudoku Jumbo

A couple of years ago I used to go through weekly ergotherapy sessions. These had the duration of an hour and aimed to sync my nervous system and bring peace to it.

Part of these sessions would have me go through a set of exercises, one of which was a sudoku problem. At first I thought that I was challenged by the session's time limit, and my psyche would often compare me with people online who seemed to breeze through these matrices at ease. I thought at first that I had someone to best, then it took me a couple of sessions to realize that this was never a competition, but it should have been exercised as a medium of focus.

After I stopped dealing with these artificial difficulties, I began printing Sudoku problems from the same source that the therapist gave me. Attempting to solve these brought me some joy, especially after being stuck for hours trying to find the value of a key cell.

On the spring of 2022 I bought the book from a book store and a new routine was born: Right after each lunch, I attempt a puzzle until 14:00. Sure, solving these in a small time frame does boost my confidence sometimes, but each time I get stuck, I try to focus and find if I missed something. Coupled with a drink and a podcast in my ears and that's how I achieve harmony.

As of the writing of this article, I made it to page 255. After solving each puzzle, I grade my meditation and my intelligence, and if I am being stuck on a given matrix after 2 weeks, I allow myself to look at the answers sheet to borrow a number. These exercises help me often benchmark my concentration and train my short- and longterm memory, because by the time my imprisonement reaches 14 days, I can garanty 100% that I know the potential position of each number.

My experience with this book was great, so much so that I always bring it with me everywhere. Not only it taught me the aformentioned, but as I gradually kept progressing, it helped me drop my ego, because the goal was always to enable to focus on a given task and enjoy it, something which proves how effective these were as a choice in the ergotherapy domain. I miss the people of the ergotherapy, I hope that they are okay.