Video Games From Your Childhood Could Reduce Your Stress And Prevent Burnout

One of the cures for burnout may be found at the bottom of a dusty old box in your attic, or if you’re into retrogaming, still in your living room. A new study published on December 19 in the journal JMIR Serious Games suggests that reviving the classics of your childhood, like the old ones Super Mario Bros./Yoshi (besides being a guilty pleasure) could help you protect yourself from burn-out.

Even when we enjoy a little free time, it is not necessarily relaxing. Our modern life, although rather comfortable let’s not deny it, is saturated with overdemands, even at times when we should disconnect our brain to give it its dose of calm. Incessant notifications that overwhelm our smartphone with more or less interesting news, doomscrolling until the hour, binge-watching on Netflix, omnipresent recommendation algorithms…

Everything (or almost) distracts us from the only truly restorative thing: expecting nothing from ourselves. By reconnecting with a form of childish joy that we thought we had left behind, our old video game companions could well be formidable allies for our mental health.

Find your inner child

Burn-out is defined by Vidal as being: “ A psychological disorder resulting from chronic stress at work. It develops gradually in certain people exposed to frustrating and demotivating working conditions: faced with fatigue, a feeling of failure and difficulty concentrating. (…)”. Beyond physical fatigue, it is sometimes clinically characterized by a total loss of pleasure and detachment from others and from one’s work: one becomes cold, even indifferent. It is precisely this mechanism that retro video games could stop, by reactivating a powerful psychological lever: childlike wonder.

By plunging us back into these familiar and colorful worlds, these games certainly distract us, but they also modify our psychological state. For researchers, if Super Mario Bros. or Yoshi are so effective, it is because they offer players risk-free accomplishment.

In our daily lives, our tasks are subject to pressure: an error at work can have real (and sometimes very annoying) consequences, just as a small administrative hazard can put us in an uncomfortable position. Conversely, in the Nintendo universe, failure is never punitive. Do we fall into a hole or miss a platform? We start again instantly, and it doesn’t matter. This framework allows the brain to relax the vigilance linked to chronic stress to switch to an immersive and rewarding mode of concentration.

Study participants described these sessions as a real reset mental. By focusing on micro-objectives (jumping on a platform, swallowing an enemy, etc.), we force the brain to leave its internal ruminations related to work to concentrate on the present moment. A kind of purge of mental overloadsomehow.

THE ” digital microenvironments »: antidotes to scrolling

When we hang around aimlessly scrolling endlessly on social media, we are kept in a passive and often anxious spectator posture, where video games force us to be the driving force behind the action.

Researchers speak of “mdigital micro-environment » to describe these retro games: they are spaces with simple and predictable rules. In our daily professional life, we can often have the impression of being subjected to events (from deadlines untenable, a colleague who sticks to unbearable conversation tunnels, a toxic manager, dreary company events, etc.) passing a level allows you to regain a feeling of agency: the ability to act on one’s environment and to be an actor in one’s own actions.

This small victory, even virtual, directly counteracts one of the main symptoms of burnout: the feeling of helplessness. By overcoming an obstacle in the game, the player proves to his brain that he is capable of solving a problem and achieving a goal. This immediate satisfaction acts as a psychological recharge that passive consumption of videos or online content is incapable of providing.

« This study suggests that the path to combating burnout lies not only in traditional wellness routines, but also in regaining joy », concludes Andreas B. Eisingerich. However, the authors do not extrapolate in fpromoting the retrogaming as the only remedythis would be showing dangerous reductionism in the face of a complex pathology that often requires holistic care. However, this work has at least the merit of rehabilitate pure play as a serious psychological resourcean emotional first aid kit to take out for temporarily restore a healthier relationship to failure and error. A Proust madeleine which is, ultimately, not so unpleasant to chew !