I have quit ranked/competitive gaming and do only casual gaming whenever I get some interest. Honestly I was happy that I’ve quit gaming as a whole because it was a real addiction. Countless number of times I have uninstalled games only to get so tempted that I would download them again despite them taking 1hr to install.
From that kind of situation to come to this situation where I only play whenever I want to, is a great progress I felt I have made. I have got lots of time on me as expected, but I don’t spend it wisely and infact in more “brain-off” fashion eg scrolling, chatting on discord, youtube etc.
Now I feel whenever I come across anything that needs my brain to be spent upon, I feel so reluctant to do high brain activity. I feel there’s lot more difficulty concentrating and being patient with my task.
Is this because I have quit gaming? (sounds crazy I know) that my brain has become rather less active than usual?
I recently come across a random study on surgeons that game a bit during the week are doing better at their job than the ones who don’t game. Not sure how of it is true but I sure have come across concepts like gaming keeps your brain active and make you perform.
Take this entire assumption as a grain of salt because I haven’t done any huge experiments nor do I have any conclusive evidence but a small hunch that I just came across. I just wanted to know your experiences after you quit gaming.
Doing something woth your brain leeps it working better, just like how physical exercise works. If you traded gaming for doing nothing, that would make the occasional time you do something feel like a lot of work.
It is also possible that you have some level of depression or your brain adjusted to all the stimulation and other things aren’t triggering the same feeling. It could lots of things.
The first step to try any of those for things is to find an activity that is mentally stimulating in some way. Not like a full dive into calculus, but maybe learning something new like a different hobby or maybe games that aren’t as engaging for long periods of time. I would recommend games with a short completion time and no grinding or rewards if that is what you found to be addicting.
Note: I didn’t stop computer gaming but I did drop another time consuming hobby and it took some adjustment to find something else.
There are a lot of sports that require you to learn how to use your body differently, or to quickly evaluate something. In counterstrike you need to learn spray patterns, in tennis you need to learn ball physics. In LoL you need to learn the timing of your abilities, in dancing you need to learn the timing of your moves.