Do you often find yourself feeling anxious? Are you the type of person to worry about things until you feel nauseous? If so, it’s advisable that you seek to rectify this situation right away. Allowing yourself to get too stressed too often could end up having an adverse effect on your overall wellbeing. Raised blood pressure, heart attacks, suppressed immune system, depression — these are just a few of the health complications that you will be liable to face should you fail to lower your stress levels.
When searching for the perfect activity to distract you from the pressures that you experience in your everyday life, be sure to consider gaming. There are a whole host of stress-busting benefits associated with game playing, five of which include:
1. Gaming puts your brain on autopilot
When you play games, you become fully immersed in a whole other world. In a roundabout way, this puts your brain on autopilot. It stops you from worrying about the state of your life or what the future holds for you. It engages you on a deep cognitive level and ultimately distracts you from the difficulties that you face in your everyday existence.
2. Gaming is an expression of creativity
Sometimes, stress will rear its ugly head as a result of you feeling stifled or suffocated. Should you ever experience this specific plight, it’s important that you find a way to express yourself, your thoughts, and your feelings. As you may have already guessed, gaming will help you to do all of those things and more!
The top gaming sites of 2021 all have one thing in common — ingenuity. Twitch, Roblox, and Steam are all incredibly creative platforms, and you can use these platforms to showcase your true self. Doing so will aid you in your attempt to banish negativity from your life, which in turn will help you lead a lifestyle that is devoid of stress-induced anxiety.
3. Gaming releases dopamine
Gaming is proven to release the feel-good hormone known as dopamine. As soon as this chemical is released within your brain, you instantly feel a lot happier and far more content. When you’re feeling particularly stressed significantly, this will help you to calm down and see the bigger picture.
4. Gaming forges friendships
If loneliness is the root cause of your stress, gaming is very much at hand to help. When you play online games, you find yourself virtually surrounded by like-minded individuals. This allows you to forge connections with people that get you, which ultimately allows you to air your grievances to people that understand what you’re going through.
For many people in the post-pandemic world, online gaming has become a social lifeline. For more information about this burgeoning phenomenon, check out this insightful BBC article on the matter.
5. Gaming boosts self-confidence
Self-confidence has an indirect yet definitive impact on stress. The more confident and self-assured you feel on a daily basis, the easier you will find it to brush off situations that have the potential to heighten your anxiety levels. This is down to the simple fact that you won’t feel the need to concern yourself with external problems and the actions of others — you will be too focused on your own life and what you need to do to remain happy and healthy.
Unfortunately, self-confidence is not always an easy characteristic to come by. As you grow and learn more about yourself, doubt will be sure to rear its ugly head, and you will find it difficult to trust in your own capabilities. Fear not, however, as gaming is very much at hand to provide some much-needed assistance in this instance. Gaming is proven to boost self-confidence simply because it provides access to what is known as the Triumph circuit. As stated by Healthy Gamer, this is a psychological pattern embedded deep within our brains that make us feel happy and fulfilled whenever we overcome difficult challenges. Whenever you complete arduous gaming missions, you automatically enjoy profound levels of satisfaction and competence. Both of these emotions have a positive effect on your ongoing self-confidence levels, which in turn helps you to effectively counteract the symptoms of stress going forward.
Recommended games for stress relief
If you want to tackle your stress in a highly efficient and effective fashion, gaming is a highly recommended pastime. As we have covered extensively in this article, gaming actively puts your brain on autopilot; it is an expression of creativity, it releases dopamine, it helps to forge lasting friendships, and it boosts self-confidence levels.
But what specific games should you be playing in order to reap these stress-busting benefits? Of course, the games that you choose to play are completely dependant on your unique preferences. What works for you in this sense may not work for your friends, and vice versa, which is why you should consider exploring your options and trying out a plethora of different games. The more you broaden your game-playing horizons, the more likely you will be to encounter a game that helps you to unwind whenever you’re feeling anxious, worried, and distressed.
To aid you in your attempt to unearth the ultimate stress-busting game, here are our top recommendations:
Casual games
1. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
2. Tomodachi Life
3. Pokemon Go
Co-op games
1. Fortnite
2. A Way Out
3. It Takes Two
Skill-building games
1. Brain Age
2. Big Brain Academy
3. Human: Fall Flat
Role-playing games
1. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
2. Mass Effect 2
3. The Witcher 3
Are you determined to enjoy a life that is devoid of stress and anxiety? If you’re serious about leading this type of healthy and fulfilling lifestyle, you should seriously consider playing video games. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to drop everything you’re currently doing in order to embark on a career in gaming. It simply means that whenever you find yourself at a loose end, you should consider picking up your controller and booting up your console.