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Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood
41–50 of 189 posts
Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood
#42Never expected to see a healthcare site recommending WoW raiding! If you're not careful, a game that addictive and time-consuming is a rapid route to weight gain, back pain, maybe even an unhealthy drinking habit... (To be fair though, for those who enjoyed the game in it's early years, WoW Classic was really good 'comfort gaming' during the Covid period, but it's certainly added to lockdown weight gain)
Same goes for just hanging out with your friends in the evening without any sports, eh?
Just to take the comment seriously, when I kick it with buddies, I seem to be naturally attuned and attentive to my bodily needs way more than when I get sucked into a very addicting videogame, where after I finally snap out of the fugue state, a lot of my bodily needs are like, "WERE YOU NOT LISTENING TO US FOR THE PAST 2-3 HOURS OR SOMETHING?"
It's legit made me try to find videogames that are not that addicting, but not that boring, and it's extremely hard to find lol.
Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood
#43[deleted]
Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood
#44I thought this was going to be an article about optimism ("geeking out" as in getting excited about things). I acknowledge that I'm responding to the headline and not the meat of the article.
I've recently (past ~5 years) stopped viewing the world pessimistically. I don't believe it's because I'm blindly optimistic, but because I didn't have the perspective to understand our ancestor's problems and how good of a life I had. It's pretty cool that I didn't die in 6th grade when I put that knife through my hand, that my knee doesn't lock anymore after having my meniscus removed, and pretty cool my wife survived to adulthood with unbelievably poor vision and asthma. It's pretty cool that a large portion of living is automated now by the systems around us, from food to cleaning, and that those systems are affordable enough that they're common place in most households. We've freed our societies up to focus on arts and science which has created a flywheel that keeps paying us greater and greater returns that we keep investing into arts and science.
Humans have done some cool things to conquer our basic nature and environment, and we continue to do cool things. Compared to other species we are absolutely killing it. Yes we suck compared to what we are going to be in the future, but that's the point!
Whenever I get a brief feeling of "this is bad," I remind myself that humans have conquered far worse than whatever "this" is and that we are likely to triumph over this thing too. Taking a second to appreciate what our species has accomplished, and "geeking out" about it, has helped improve my quality of life, thought I'd take a moment and share that with you.
Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood
#45I think it would be useful to play a simulation of cancer treatment that includes realistic odds of survival. It's difficult to grok the idea that you have an X% chance of surviving for Y months by just looking at the numbers, or that Z treatment will affect those odds for some cost in extra misery. Simulating the meaning of those odds by gameplay, watching your avatars live and die, suffering more or less, could giv…
"Chemotherapy simulator" seems like a bit depressing game.
It sort of exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Dragon,_Cancer
Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood
#46Different take on the headline: when I was little and scared at the doctor, my mom would distract me from shots etc. by telling me about how they work and all the science behind them. I still do this at the doctor if I'm nervous about the procedure. Try distracting yourself by attempting to work through the details of what's going on. Even if you're wrong, it's a distraction and a good exercise, and maybe you can ask…
Not necessarily a good thing knowing the science - just off the top of my head... Topics I wish I'd never known about - General anaesthesia and low dose - General anaesthesia and the idea you are actually awake but forget. - General anaesthesia stats and possibility of being awake (moreso if you're anxious about not going to sleep - it's happened to me with gas). - Flying and why the plane needs to dive for certain s…
>Flying and survival stats if there's actually a serious incident.
This is such a bad contextualization of the risks if you actually know the stats on the matter, since there are ~600 million passengers per year and My point is that this is very much an example of where internalizing the stats should make you feel safer, unless you're letting a cognitive bias (like anxiety) prevent you from actually internalizing the real risks.
Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood
#47Caveat being Super Smash Bros Ultimate - Online:
This greatly increases stress and anxiety.
Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood
#48Different take on the headline: when I was little and scared at the doctor, my mom would distract me from shots etc. by telling me about how they work and all the science behind them. I still do this at the doctor if I'm nervous about the procedure. Try distracting yourself by attempting to work through the details of what's going on. Even if you're wrong, it's a distraction and a good exercise, and maybe you can ask…
The best dentist I ever had was as much a geek about all things dental as I am a geek about all things computers. He would happily describe, in great technical detail, every aspect of what he was doing, why, etc. It was pretty awesome, and I left every visit feeling very positive about the experience.
There was this one time I had a prolonged dental operation, I was fully conscious, the dentist talked himself through a delicate situation while hunting in my mouth for the right angle to do it. And I thought suddenly, hey, it's just like me when I'm debugging! Cool!
Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood
#49Stress response depends vastly on the game. A lot of games will actually increase stress levels. Take Elden Ring for example, that game will make you sweat at almost every encounter. But it’s possible that this kind of exposure might make you more resilient to stress in the long tun.
Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
> General anaesthesia and the idea you are actually awake but forget Do you mean that this happens for some people? For me, GA felt like a very deep dream where I didn't notice falling asleep but I definitely remember what I dreamed.
I think the parent poster if confusing general anesthesia from sedation [1]. If you got a colonoscopy or your wisdom teeth out, it was probably sedation. If you got major surgery where they cut a big hole in you, that's more likely to be general anesthesia. "Twilight sedation" is pretty spooky from a philosophical perspective. You are somewhat aware of what's happening to you and are experiencing it in the moment. Bu…
When I had my wisdom teeth out, I had a "dream" that I was on a old wooden mine-cart styled roller coaster with wheels that were sparking dramatically against the rails first on the left side, then on the right. (mirroring the teeth removal)