Video Games Are Like Powerlifting for Your Brain

The debate around how good or bad video games are for us has been going on for years. Ever since games like Pong and Tetris, some people have claimed that video games are bad for us. But fear not gamers, it turns out that playing them is really no different than going to the gym. It’s just a workout for your mind instead of your muscles! Games just seem like fun, but they also increase gray matter. The gray matter in your brain is the part of your central nervous system and essentially controls all your brain’s functions.

These include regions of the brain involved in muscle control, and sensory perception such as memory, hearing, seeing, emotions, speech, decision making, and self-control! Basically, all the most important things! It makes sense to keep this part of the brain healthy because it will lead to faster thought processes and improvements in general well-being and quality of life.

At the University of Rochester in New York, researchers found that playing video games increased the players’ sensitivity to things going on around them. Playing action games compared to slower games increased the performance in visualization tests by 25%! This benefit doesn’t just make them better at playing video games. It improves a wide variety of general skills that can help with everyday life, like driving or finding your friends in a crowd. This in no way means that you get to sit in front of your console or PC and play for hours or days on end to get smarter!

It just means that those who still like to immerse themselves in a game or fantasy world no longer need to feel guilty about sitting back and playing! If setting goals in life seems tough, it might be time to look at video games for this very reason. People who’ve played video games know how to track their own growth because everything is measured in the game! You’ll have experience points, levels, goals, and objectives. All of this information needs processing, so it teaches us to track progress and form our own goals.

In a lot of games, there are daily quests. If you miss a day, you don’t get those rewards. This makes gamers integrate these tasks into their daily lives. Some of the very best gamers create a structure of small habits or routines they perform each day that build over time. The satisfaction of getting that new skin or weapon you’re after can lead to pushing through all the boring bits to get that prize! There might have been a time when you would draw in the phonebook while talking to your friends on the phone for hours, just looking for something to do.

Although people might be more physically isolated now, games allow them to still have engaging experiences with their friends and family. They’re spending as much time with their friends but getting much more out of it! In this case, the headset is key! Online gaming allows people to engage with so many people from all over the world, all over a particular game they enjoy! You’ll likely hear from all kinds of people, in all sorts of languages, which helps to build communication skills.

This is particularly true for people with difficulty spending time with others in-person, like friends who live on the other side of the country or even in a different one! This unconventional method of communication helps to build the skills and confidence necessary to interact with people in real time. This might save you if you’re feeling shy or don’t know how to start a conversation face-to-face! If enhancing your memory is important to you, then video games should be at the top of your list!

You’re required to listen to instructions, which might only be provided at the beginning, and remember them throughout the entire game! Mastering the keys on your keyboard or buttons on a controller helps you easily move your characters and objects in a game, to the point where it just becomes muscle memory. This helps improve your memory and dexterity. Learning something while playing video games might make you groan. We often just want to drive that car, build that house, or go into that battle as fast as possible.

But there’s a good chance you’ll pick up a few things along the way. No, not the stats of that Orc on level 17, and it’s a weakness to fire potions! Early on, developers realized that video games could be used for much more than improving reading or math skills for people. Today, some games incorporate cooking, economics, world history, politics, science, literature, architecture, and other topics you may not have easy access to! Many use actual historical events to drive their stories. With so much that’s happened in the world, it’d make sense to use those ideas too!

History can come alive to a player participating in the game! These can spark an interest in learning more about specific periods of time, historical figures, and the universe itself. Start playing a game with dinosaurs, and before you know it, you’ll be learning all about them on the internet! Action games are very fast-paced. The character might be running and dodging attacks coming from all angles, while glancing at a map to make sure they’re going the right way!

With peripheral images and events popping up and disappearing ALL the time, it’s not as easy as it sounds! All these factors need to be taken into account, and that’s why playing more of the same game helps with the brain’s reaction time with our fingers and hands! Those repetitive actions and thoughts stimulate connections between brain cells, creating neural pathways between different parts of your brain. The more you practice a particular activity, the stronger that neural pathway becomes. That’s the structural basis of learning.

Doing anything repetitively physically changes the brain. With time and effort, you get better at the specific task you’re practicing, whether it’s evading and building in a video game or hitting a baseball out of the park. Physical activity and gaming aren’t things that’d usually work together, unless you can jog on the spot while hunting monsters! With the future of virtual reality, though, games might be able to make us more fit than the gym! Most major consoles now have the technology to get people moving and on their feet.

There are now mobile games that can be played in the real world. They can help to create experiences that get you exploring your town or city, meeting up with friends, and searching for hidden treasures in secret spots! Using video games to explore your neighborhood or city is a great excuse to get out of the house for a few hours! Where will games take us next? Every person who has ever existed has one thing in common — aging. While getting older and wiser has its benefits, there’s also a good number of reasons it isn’t so fun.

Just like maintaining a healthy exercise routine is good for you, our brain can also be kept “in shape”. Crosswords, board games, and even sudoku are all brain-stimulating exercises, but video games just take our brain to the next level. While opening up new pathways of thought in your brain, the developers have ways no-one ever would’ve thought possible to keep our minds sharp and adapting. Pretty much any task that requires thinking will help you exercise and sharpen your mind, and that includes video games.

“Don’t sit so close to that TV, or you’ll get square eyes”! Remember that old saying. While it’s not great to sit close, games can actually help improve your eyesight. Video gamers have better than average eyesight. Who would’ve thought staring at a screen could make you see better! A study performed by researchers from McMaster University found that playing video games could help improve eyesight. Games teach the brain to spot small details, follow movements, and spotlight changes.

After training for over 40 hours in a month, most patients showed improvement in one or both eyes after playing an action video game! When someone asks why you’re still playing that game, just tell them you’re improving your eyesight! In multiplayer video games, players often have to team up with other players. Some games even need a designated leader. It’s up to that team leader to communicate with other players, develop strategies, identify the team’s strengths and weaknesses, and keep everyone focused on the goal.

Players have to deal with immediate problems while keeping long-term goals at the front of their minds. These skills become finely tuned over time and adapting to multiple teams in different gaming environments and scenarios. In business, these are the same leadership skills that supervisors, managers, and CEOs have to have! Whether you’re the leader or just a team member, you’re gaining experience that can be applied to the real world of work!

No-one likes to hear that crushing “FAILURE” moment, knowing that all your effort is now gone! You might have to deal with starting the level again, losing all your points, trying to remember where you dropped your loot, and if you can even get back to it! Though it may not be a real-life danger, playing a video game raises the stakes by putting your character and all your progress on the line! Gamers quickly learn how to navigate the world they’re in and get used to tackling the unknown.

With video games, you either win or keep trying, learning from your mistakes as you progress until you reach the end goal. Because of this, video games can teach people to be more confident and to work towards their goals, treating each misstep as just another learning opportunity. Simple and easy to access video games can easily make you happier, cause relaxation, and even keep away the blues.

Heck, everyone deserves to take a little time off for themselves! Video games give you a feeling of well-being, which is a human psychological need! Hey, don’t feel guilty for enjoying yourself! With so many simple games to choose from, just jump on for a short time and significantly improve your mood! Start looking for a game that you can really enjoy and, most of all, have fun!