If you have come this far to this page and have paid heed to the heading. Pat your back for acknowledging your gaming addiction. Recognizing itself is a significant leap in the right direction. Especially when a massive chunk of the population does not consider it to be an “addiction.” The word addiction from its face value indeed rings a bell about straight-up negative habits like alcohol, drugs, or gambling. World Health Organisation in the year 2018 evaluated long hours of gaming and its adverse effect on our health (both physical and psychological). In its scientific study, the WHO classified long hours of regular gaming as “gaming disorder” and “a serious addiction.” Let’s know more about it and find out how we can get over gaming addiction.
What are the common symptoms of gaming addiction
Before we say or do anything, one crucial step is to identify if we or someone we care about, is a gaming addict. Following are some symptoms you should look out for:
- Spending way too much time playing games: If you notice that you are playing for long hours and have the inclination to spend all of your free time playing video games or doing game-related things.
- Neglects primary responsibilities: This is no brainer. It is quite reasonable to take a vacation from work. But if you happen to call in sick from work or school regularly just to play video games, it is a bad sign.
- Neglects Family: Know that there is no video game more important than family. If you are unable to give time to your kids or parents because of gaming or your spouse feels lonely, it is a bad sign.
- Health issues come up: People who play games for long hours generally do not get adequate sleep, have severe mood swings. It can potentially affect body posture and can invite copious physical as well as psychological ailments. Around the world, there are a lot of deaths reported while playing video games.
- Spends way too much money on games instead of necessities: It is evident when a person spends his or her resources on buying new video games instead of other needs like paying for food or rent, it is a bad sign of gaming addiction.
Know the impact of your addiction on your environment
- Family: Relationship with family members suffer the most. Sometimes, despite being close to them, you do not give them the acknowledgment they deserve. They feel ignored.
- Friends: Your friends feel neglected and ignored. They eventually leave after a point in time.
- Work/ School: Your performance starts to take a downfall both in work as well as school. You are jeopardizing your prospects in life. In many cases, getting fired or suspension from school is also possible.
- Physical and Mental health: Video games can severely take a toll on both your physical health (Increase in weight, change of body posture, fatigue, etc.) as well as mental health (depression, anxiety, withdrawal, etc.)
- Finances: Since gaming can severely affect your career and can potentially lead to loss of income. It can cascade down to losing one’s own house and not being able to buy your food.
What does one do?
1. Take out time for yourself
Introspect your decisions in life. Look at things in retrospect and ask yourself questions. Questions like; friends or loved ones that you would not have lost for video games, the job you could not get due to your addiction, or your kid’s school events you did not attend because you were busy playing. Answer these questions, realize where exactly you went wrong, and try to make them right.
Determine the root cause of your addiction, evaluate your past decisions in life, which you think could cause addiction. Once you identify issues, you can possibly address those (maybe with professional’s help)
2. Moderate Time
Unlike other addictions, giving up video games take a lot of time. Putting a strict ban on playing is likely to prove not just futile but counter-productive. It creates a vast space within you, which can cause you to fall back into the addiction and further push you down the spiral. The aim here is to know the amount of time you should ideally cut.
Fix the number of hours to play per day. Take a note of it, paste it on your fridge with a magnet, put it on social media, do anything but adhere to the moderated time. Once you touch the set limit for the day, immediately abandon the game. Keep bringing down the set limit slowly and gradually.
3. Include your family
This is a tricky one. There are a lot of video games that you can play along with your family members. This enables your family members to intervene at the right time before you are trapped in the vicious circle. Anyway, it is always good to involve your family in your hobby. The catch here is that it is essential that you acquaint your children with moderation or if it takes limit their game time.
4. Find new hobbies
Find something new which has no intersection with video games. Pick up hobbies like gardening, cooking, etc. Start a collection of some sort. Involve your loved once. A new hobby can help you engrossed in other activities, and build a new community of people who follow similar interests.
5. Seek professional help
A lot of people do not think of gaming addiction to be something that should be taken up to a psychologist. To some, it could sound ridiculous or maybe shameful. It is rather advantageous to determine the underlying cause of your addiction. Many times we ourself, are not able to acknowledge deep-seated thoughts that create a ripple in our lives. You may also talk to your general physician about it.
