Created by Saidamir Saidaloev
How Gaming Affects your Mental and Physical Health
When you spend a lot of time gaming away on your laptop, phone or ipad, its easy to forget that Video Games can cause you lots of problems in the long run. Some of these effect your Physical Health, while others can even effect your Mental Health. Some of these effects include:
| List of Negative Effects |
|---|
| Poor Sleep Hygiene |
| Exhaustion |
| Physical Health Atrophy |
| Dehydration and Poor Diet |
| Obesity and related health problems |
| Aggression |
| Lack of motivation |
| Depression |
| Suicidal thoughs |
| Social anxiety |
| Poor emotional regulation |
Poor Sleep Hygiene
Lots and lots of gamers don’t get enough sleep nowadays. Its easy to lose track of time, especially when playing with other. You always can play “just one more game”, which just leads to “just a little less sleep”.
Sleep deprivation is a terrible symptom and effects you in many ways, including but not limited to:
- Trouble Learning
- Focus Problems
- Reacting Issues
- Hard to judge other’s emotions
- Frustration
- Crankiness
- Anxiety
When you start to lose sleep it effects other parts of your life too. You won’t be able to focus during day in activities such as school, and work. Sleep is not just a recommendation, its a necessity for living a good and fulfilling life. You need to sleep between 7-9 hours per day. It is sad to see so many people playing games well into the night, losing out in so much sleep. It is impossible for them to function when you get barely or no sleep at all.
Physical Health Atrophy
Movement is essential for a human body to survive. If you don’t move then you will suffer many side affects such as:
- Weight Gain
- Muscle Loss
- Stiff Joints
- Poor Posture
- Chronic Headaches
- Head and Back Pain
Obesity does have a relatively low correlation with gaming, but note that 1% of all gamers suffer from it. Obesity can also lead to heart problems and heart-related disorders.
Many Pro-Gamers had to retire because of these complications such as professional League of Legends player (of course its a LOL player), who had to retire because of his type 2 diabetes that he gained from his fatty diet and lack of exercise from excessive gaming.
Dehydration and Poor Diet
When you play games for several hours straight, you forget to eat, drink, and keep yourself healthy. Without the proper nutrients and water, your body will not be able to function correctly.
If you don’t eat 3 meals and drink at least 2-3 liters of water a day you’ll experience severe side effects such as
- headaches from dehydration,
- muscle loss,
- irritable bowel syndrome,
- celiac disease,
- and in extreme cases, cancer.
Aggression
Despite common belief, gaming does not increase a person’s angry and aggression, but in facts represses those feelings. After gaming though, your feelings will no longer be repressed and, in fact, will be increased due to the withdrawal.
Lack of Motivation
Because of the required hyper-stimulating activity, gaming is much more engaging and than other activities in the world. This hyper-stimulating causes a huge amount of dopamine - or good juices - to be released into your system. This rush of dopamine makes other, less stimulating, activities seem boring, since is doesn’t give you that rush of dopamine. This makes you quickly lose focus on other activities.
Depression
While there are still ongoing debates on whether gaming directly causes depression and social anxiety, people have found a link between them. There are research such as Tortolero et al. from 2024 that shows playing video games for more than 2 hours incredibly increased the risk of depression and anxiety. They have found that shame and regret are the 2 main emotions that make them spiral into depression and anxiety, and that excessive gaming can lead to lower self-esteem.
Suicidal Thoughts
Caution: This section contains talks of death. You have been warned
As with everything, things can be taken to the extreme. Once gamers start having depressing thoughts they back into gaming as it represses their thoughts and allows them to escape from the real world. But this is a trap as once they enter they can no longer leave, no longer being able to stomach the real world. Once these gamers are severly disconnected from the real world, to the point where they don’t even leave their room, their depression quickly grows into suicidal thoughts with no one around to help. Once they are at this level, it is incredibly hard to stop from unaliving themselves.
Note: If you ever experience these thoughts, do not shut yourself out. Seek help immediately from either friends and family, professional therapist, or the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or the equivalent in your country
Poor Emotional Regulation
Emotional Regulation refers to the ability to be in control of your emotional state and how you respond to your emotions. Even though you might not always be in control of your emotions, you have to be in control on how you react to them. Studies show that excessive gaming can dull your ability to control your emotions and your reactions.
Citations
*Adair, C. (n.d.). The Negative Effects of Video Games - 12 Symptoms. Retrieved from https://gamequitters.com/negative-effects-of-video-games/