Playing Video Games Can Positively Impact Your Health

While most people might not believe this, playing video games can actually be beneficial to you (in moderation of course, so try to limit gameplay to an hour at a time). Whether they are physical, mental, social, or emotional benefits, you might start to notice them the more you pay attention during your gameplay.

Depending on the type of games you play, you can improve different aspects of your life. For example, if you are playing Just Dance on the WII, there is a greater chance of you moving around more and getting your heart rate up. Games like these give you the opportunity to have fun with your friends and exercise without it seeming like you are putting in a lot of extra effort. This will allow you to also improve on your social skills and build stronger relationships with friends and family.

Other benefits can be your hand-eye coordination skills, focus, lowered stress, and improved multitasking skills. These are all skills that you can engage within your regular video games you might already have at home, but playing games like Sudoku will have the most cognitive benefits. This game might not be the most stimulating one, but it keeps your brain active and will have more long-term benefits.

Playing different games can help you lower stress by taking your mind off of the situation and being able to dive into something distracting. This is a great coping mechanism since you can easily have games on your phone and since it’s more portable, you will have to opportunity to de-stress anytime you might need to.

Even though there are benefits to moderate gaming, you still need to be aware of how much you play. It can be easy to get distracted and spend hours on end playing a game, but this can lead to many issues including your grades dropping. If you see this starting to happen, it’s your sign to take a break from the games and focus more on your homework. A good rule you can set for yourself is to not start a game until all your homework is done. This will make sure you stay on top of your grades and still have the time to play your favorite games.

Here are some more benefits of gaming:

12 Surprising Health Benefits of Playing Video Games (positivehealthwellness.com)

This article was developed by Sarah Dietrich, an Illinois State University student working as an Intern for the Always Unstoppable Campaign.

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