20 Brain Teasers That'll Give You a Serious Mental Workout

Keeping an active mind has been long considered a key component to a healthy lifestyle, improving memory and overall brain function, and a great way to do that is with brain teasers. Not only are they a fun and challenging mental exercise that’ll keep you sharp, they’re also the perfect way to take a little break from the stresses of everyday life. And in addition to challenging yourself, you can test your friends and family to see who can reach the answers the quickest! Keep reading for 20 brain teasers that’ll seriously stump (and amuse) you, and don’t forget to scroll down for the answers.

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Brain teasers:

1. If I am holding a bee, what do I have in my eye?
2. A sundial has the fewest moving parts of any timepiece. Which has the most?
3. How can 8+8=4?
4. If you have me, you want to share me. But if you share me, you don’t have me. What am I?
5. I am heavy and hard to pick up, but backwards I am not. What am I?
6. A cowboy rides into town on Friday, stays for three days, and leaves on Friday. How is this possible?
7. Turn me on my side and I am everything. Cut me in half and I am nothing. What am I?
8. You’re in a dark room with a candle, a wood stove, and a gas lamp. You only have one match, so what do you light first?
9. A woman stands on one side of a river, her dog on the other. There is no bridge. The woman calls her dog, who immediately crosses the river without getting wet. How did the dog do it?
10. What is unusual about the following words: revive, banana, grammar, voodoo, assess, potato, dresser, uneven?
11. A coin is in an empty bottle but a cork is in the neck. How can you remove the coin without removing the cork or breaking the bottle?
12. What makes this number unique: 8,549,176,320?
13. What do the following words have in common: polish, job, herb?
14. What type of cheese is made backwards?
15. Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain in the world?
16. What can be seen once in a minute, twice in a moment, and never in a thousand years?
17. Which tire doesn’t move when a car turns right?
18. What can travel around the world while staying in one corner?
19. How many months have 28 days.
20. I have a money box that’s 10 inches wide and 5 inches tall. Roughly how many bills can I place in my empty money box?

Answers:

1. Beauty, because “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
2. An hourglass.
3. If you’re thinking in terms of time. 8 a.m. plus 8 more hours equals 4 p.m.
4. A secret.
5. A ton, which is equal to 2,000 pounds and spelled backwards is N-O-T.
6. His horse’s name is Friday.
7. The number 8. On its side, it looks like an infinity sign. Cut in half, it looks like two zeros.
8. The match.
9. The river was frozen.
10. If you take the first letter of each word and place it at the end, it’ll spell the same word backwards.
11. Push the cork down into the bottle and shake the coin out.
12. It contains each number, zero through nine, in alphabetical order.
13. All three words are pronounced differently when the first letter is capitalized.
14. Edam cheese.
15. Mount Everest. It was still the highest in the world, it just hadn’t been discovered yet.
16. The letter m.
17. The spare tire.
18. A stamp.
19. All 12 of them.
20. Just one, after which it will no longer be empty.