How to enjoy video games healthily

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

To avoid serious problems, follow six simple rules.

1. Take care of your eyes

It is harmful to look at any screen for a long time. Eyes tense and wet less because you blink less often. This is fraught with headaches, dry eyes and other unpleasant consequences.

Fortunately, avoiding long-term vision problems is easy. American scientists have created the American Optometric Association rule 20-20-20: every 20 minutes you need to look at objects at a distance of at least 20 feet (6 meters) for 20 seconds.

In order not to forget about rest for the eyes, you can set the timer yourself or use special applications. For example, 20 twenty 20 for Android and Eye Care 20 20 20 for iOS.

2. Sit correctly

Few sofas and chairs help maintain posture. But this must be done, otherwise the body weight begins to distribute incorrectly along the spine, a stoop appears. It threatens Correct posture - a guarantee of human health with serious back problems, impaired blood circulation in the body, malfunction of internal organs, and increased fatigue.

The best way to maintain your posture is to buy furniture that will support your back. For example, a dedicated gaming chair. They are not cheap (as a rule, at least 10,000 rubles), but health is more expensive.

3. Get up periodically

Scientists equate What are the risks of sitting too much? long sitting still to smoking and obesity according to the degree of danger to health. Office workers and avid gamers have high blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and fat on their sides.

It is easy to counteract these effects. Get up at least once an hour for 10 minutes to walk around the apartment, go to the store, take out the trash - in general, move around. An hour of moderate physical activity per day can offset the negative effects of long periods of sitting.

4. Exercise

It is believed that video games and sports are incompatible, but this is not the case. Esports athletes play 8-12 hours a day and still devote time to the importance of exercise training for esports athletes to keep themselves in proper physical shape.

Almost every person needs physical activity, regardless of the type of activity and hobby. It is not necessary to press hundreds of kilograms from the chest and scatter tractor tires. To keep your muscles toned, just go for a run at least once a week and do 10-15 push-ups and squats every day.

Exercise affects not only physical health but also psychological Exercise for Mental Health. Mood improves, stress levels decrease, and more energy appears.

You can combine physical activity and your favorite hobby. For example, going outside with Pokemon GO running on your smartphone to collect and grow Pokemon while running. Another option is to buy Kinect for Xbox One, HTC Vive for PC, or PSVR for PlayStation 4. These platforms have great games that require a lot of movement: Beat Saber, Kinect Sports Rivals, Just Dance, Gorn, and more.

5. Don't forget to eat and drink

Games can be incredibly addicting: it's easy to spend several hours in a row, forgetting about all the needs of the body. But you need to distract from the gameplay at least once an hour and check if you have a feeling of hunger and thirst. Irregular eating provokes Nutrition problems of the modern student, chronic diseases of the digestive system.

Drinking water is best. You should refuse coffee, soda, energy or alcoholic drinks: they, on the contrary, cause thirst. And hunger should be satisfied with full-fledged dishes of vegetables, fruits or meat, rather than sandwiches or chips.

6. Go to bed on time

It's also easy to forget about rest in the thick of things. Sometimes gamers sacrifice a few hours of sleep for gaming and go to bed well after midnight.

This is not worth doing. By preferring games to sleep, you deny your body and brain a proper rest. This can lead to a decrease in energy and deteriorate modern ideas about stress and the protective role of sleep and resistance to stress.

What's more, it's best to stop playing about an hour before bedtime. Studies show The Effect of Presleep Video-Game Playing on Adolescent Sleep that people who play before bed tend to fall asleep longer. Video games stimulate the brain with gameplay and vivid moving pictures, while a monitor or TV screen enhances the effect with exposure to blue light.