There is a fair, and long running, amount of research for that playing Tetris helps people deal with trauma, PTSD of some kind. Adding some more recent research then where it can reduce PTSD symptoms in healthcare workers (nurses) that worked with trauma COVID19 patients.
Playing something such as Tetris (it's a bit unclear if it's just Tetris or a similar style of games of which Tetris is the prime example) can induce some relaxing zen like state or a "cognitive vaccine". 20 minutes is apparently the prescribed dosage of rotational healing experience. There was the 15 minutes of talking to before playing Tetris. But clearly the healing power of Tetris at work ...
The study was carried out with healthcare workers in Sweden who worked with COVID-19 patients and were exposed to work-related trauma. It was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic between September 2020 and April 2022. A total of 164 participants were included. Participants were recruited through information at workplaces. Participation was entirely voluntary. The criterion for participation was that the person had at least two intrusive memories per week due to traumatic events that occurred at work.
https://www.uu.se/en/press/press-releases/2024/2024-09-20-ptsd-symptoms-can-be-reduced-through-treatment-including-a-video-game
https://www.psych.ox.ac.uk/news/tetris-used-to-prevent-post-traumatic-stress-symptoms
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Saturday September 28, @01:46PM (6 children)
Reading a bit more about I wonder if it's really about Tetris at all. Tetris is just the delivery platform. From what they describe it seems that using your mind to rotate pieces requires so much brain power since it's apparently very hard that it pushes out or away all the bad and stressful memories. In memory 3D rotation is very complex or something. Trying to fit the pieces before you send them.
It's a bit unclear where the bad memories are pushed to tho, is it just pushing it away temporarily to some kind of long term storage in the brain or is there some kind of brain version of /dev/null where things just gets black holed?
Question is then does it work with other distractions that require more then casual brain processing? Further study grants needed ...
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday September 28, @05:49PM (1 child)
I find that even something like mining in Minecraft can help me de-stress. Just mining like fecking crazy in a straight line.
Like that dog video: "Pushing a rock, pushing a rock, pushing a rock..."
Or watching my 'defence' men (slingers, archers, etc) killing zombies in Colony Survival. Just watching zombies die, one after the other.
That's one of the reasons i left the world of Windows: i always felt stressed working with Windows (browser crashing after opening new 'windows' (pre-tab), OS crashing, reboot reboot reboot)(plug a printer into Windows and at least half an hour later it's installed after many reboots...plug it into linux and in 15 seconds it's installed).
I booted into Linux (Red Hat 5.0-ish) and was learning and not experiencing all the problems and was having fun instead of stressing...
I think it's just doing something fun and non-stressful.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday September 28, @06:35PM
I know, or knew, a lot of people like that. A large part of their WOW playtime was just spending flying around, or riding or running or walking mining or picking flowers. They had no use for the resources. They just liked the gathering. They liked it so much that they even paid Blizzard a subscription fee every month. A sort of monotonous task that doesn't involve a lot of thinking, just doing.
(Score: 2) by bussdriver on Sunday September 29, @06:39PM (2 children)
Knowing a bit on this topic: It has to do with memory. If you repeatedly study something you burn it into your long term memory, and people do not realize everything is a memory. emotions, skills, metaphors... A traumatic event is naturally something you fixate and concentrate on a long time afterwards, which can be good to make sure you remember to not poke the bear with a stick again. It can and often does go too far. The longer they fixate and repeat it the more they condition the brain and HOW they obsess is a huge factor as to what gets trained into them. Focusing on proper coping when the event is recalled/relived is critical (repeating to police over and over trying to relive it makes things worse.)
The Tetris trick works because you are distracting the mind heavily enough that it doesn't study the bad event over and over -- so it's not learned as well. It has to be more than TV and passive distractions to counter the natural response of trauma to guide your focus back to it. Both System 1 and System 2 must be distracted.
Everything to help you study and remember can be used in reverse and this is an example of that. You can also deprive yourself of sleep near the event because long term memories dig in deeper with sleep (but again not to obsess while not sleeping-- although, most of us know late night cramming does not work long term so even obsessing will be undermined by lack of sleep.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01, @01:23AM
Sure you might need to (very) quickly get down stuff needed for investigations etc but other than that if you are really trying to reduce the odds of PTSD, then on the days of and after the event you should have the patient experience a lot of different interesting and fun stuff. "overflow the memory buffer" or something.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 03, @11:11AM
I always wondered if a trusted person and rohypnol could be used to treat PTSD. Dose the patient with enough to block memory formation, and then get them to relive it over and over while under the drug. Reliving memories involves, in computer terms, copying them out of storage to access, then rewriting them as you relive the experience. If rohypnol blocked the re-writing, it could be a way to dull the memories, instead of intensifying them
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday September 30, @07:06PM
https://www.starwars.com/video/i-am-one-with-the-force-and-the-force-is-with-me [starwars.com]
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 28, @03:25PM
> be me
> be genetically disposed to clinical depression at the onset of middle age (grandma committed suicide at that age, and mom became an alcoholic)
> find yourself working as a delivery driver at age 38, obsessing on the most efficient way to off yourself
> decide this is all crazy and quit participating in all normal activities
> play tetris for one solid year - unapologetically
> have loved ones who get you officially diagnosed and plugged into social programs for folks with such disability
> go on to work for thirty more years before retiring
> feel like this is all somehow normal
YMMV
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Username on Saturday September 28, @11:52PM (1 child)
>PTSD symptoms in healthcare workers (nurses) that worked with trauma COVID19 patients
So heart attacks are ok. People dying from cancer, no problem for nurses.
But people on respirators for covid. Oh. My. GOD. That is so traumatic. So much worse than victims of grenade attacks or car accident victims. Blood gushing from wounds from machete attacks does not even compare to someone breathing heavily.
(Score: 1) by Mozai on Sunday September 29, @06:44PM
Where did it say that heart attacks are "okay", or that nurses treating respiratory illnesses have it worse off than car accident victims?