Gaming & Mental Health
Gaming is one of my favourite pastimes to indulge in, as it serves as a gateway to an alternate reality whenever I am feeling depressed or sad. I have seen friends that have gone on the path of gaming addiction, but I have also seen others using it as an effective coping mechanism for their mental health.
Since gaming has been an interesting field of study for researchers, there is an increase in the uptake of research articles being published about gaming and its effects on the brain. But the main problem is that most research documents only the negative aspects of playing violent video games whereas we need to take into account the other conditions such as the nature of video games, the exposition to the games (hours of gameplay, age of onset, etc.) and also the individual characteristic of each participant as mentioned by Marc Palaus. This gives a holistic view of how gaming affects the brain and emphasises the need to go beyond the dichotomy of gaming presented as a good or bad thing.
How does gaming affect the brain?
According to Science Daily, gaming has the ability to impact the brain in terms of brain performance and its structure in these ways:
Attention: Playing video games has shown improvements in several types of attention, such as sustained attention or selective attention. Also, the brain regions involved in attention are more efficient and require less activation to sustain attention on demanding tasks
Size and efficiency of brain regions related to visuospatial skills: The right hippocampus was enlarged in both long-term gamers and volunteers following a video game training program
Can gaming be an effective coping mechanism for mental health issues?
According to Game Reviews, gaming is used in many inpatient facilities in the US and abroad as therapy and it provides mental health benefits in the form of:
1. Boosted Confidence- Some video games are capable of creating surmountable odds that can be achieved easily as compared to insurmountable odds that one faces in their life. Thus, this boosts their ego and makes them feel satisfied with being able to beat the game.
2. Meaningful distraction: Gaming can provide enough diversion to help you get back and reflect on the triggers that the person was facing.
3. Compatible socialization: Individuals who deal with social anxiety could find it challenging to socialize in person. Having a screen in between the interaction can make it easier for individuals to express themselves freely and comfortably.
4. Anxiety relief: Individuals who are diagnosed with an anxiety disorder will find it challenging to control themselves when an anxiety attack hits them. Playing a video game can give them solace and the avenue to express their excess energy.
5. Sense of accomplishment: Playing an interactive game helps you to achieve self-worth and a sense of accomplishment as the choices that you make in the game will dictate the outcome of the game.
While video games can be used as a healthy coping mechanism for mental health issues, problems can arise when it is used as a maladaptive coping mechanism. That is when it is used in excess to avoid and suppress negative emotions and attitudes, low self-esteem, and loneliness.
When can video games become an addiction?
According to The Campanile, whenever someone is enjoying a game, a neurotransmitter that offers feelings of happiness and pleasure called dopamine is released when someone is doing something that the system thinks is very important. It keeps on repeating this action to get more dopamine.
Addictive behaviors will hijack the dopamine process, and its repeated action of the rewards system dulls the receptors, creating less of a rush. This can result in someone spending more hours gaming to achieve the same dopamine hit. This can cause the brain to become addicted to gaming and create a pandora's box of problems for an individual, from their mental and physical health to their family, and even their community.
Finding the line between responsible use of gaming as a coping mechanism versus gaming as an addiction is key. As for me, I had a fair share of experiences with gaming addiction in the past as I was irresponsible in using it as a coping mechanism.
My experience with gaming addiction
When I was five years old, video games to me were the only thing that made me happy as I found reading books and watching TV to be too boring. Every day, I was looking forward to gaming whenever I came back from visitations, going shopping, or eating out with my family. The screen time that I usually got was about an hour but as I played more, the hours grew to six or seven hours. My family was quite worried as they saw me become devoid of life, not interacting with them as I was glued to gaming. They consulted a psychologist and found out that I was going through gaming addiction at a very young age. I was advised to look to other sources like reading. Initially, when I was starting to recover from my gaming addiction, I found it really hard to rewire my brain as the years of abuse that irresponsible gaming brought to my brain were so damaging that it was quite hard to do it. When I first started reading a book, the first few pages in, I was really bored and decided to go back to my gaming but my parents limited my duration to 15 minutes. I kept trying and trying, but it failed to help me recover.
There were moments when I managed to break the addiction when I had major exams or tests, but after that, I went back to square one. The turning point for me was when I started to be more involved with other commitments and interests in my life (i.e. mental health initiatives, work, writing to penpals, reading manga, etc). I naturally began to reduce the hours I played video games as I began to have other priorities that were more important to me.
How does one be a responsible user of video games?
Here are some of the tips I found that help me conduct myself in a more responsible manner when playing video games:
1. Be aware of your priorities and your surroundings
Are there any other priorities that you are currently building up like attending school or working at an office? Are you in a situation where there is a major examination taking place around a corner or a presentation is needed in a few hours? By recognising the situation and other current priorities that we are faced with,, we are able to assess whether gaming would be ideal in this situation, and allow us to make a decision in accordance with our priorities and surroundings.
2. Ask yourself what are you trying to gain out of playing a game?
Are you gaming because you want to relax? Because you want to stimulate your brain? Or because you’re trying to escape a difficult situation? By asking yourself this question, you can reframe gaming in a more purposeful way.
3. Practice mindfulness when you are gaming
Pay attention to your emotions and thoughts that are running through your head when gaming. If you’re facing difficult feelings at the moment, this will help you to be more aware if you’re using gaming as a distraction, and whether there’s a more constructive way to deal with them.
There's definitely more to be said about overcoming video game addiction, and if you would like to read more resources, here are some links: