Alrighty welcome back to #AskDanAnything I'm Dan Munro, Confidence Coach and founder
of Brojo Relationship Coach
And I'm going to be answering one of your questions today
Today's question comes from a guy who wants some help with video games
so this video is for guys and girls who play a lot of video games
and they're wondering whether or not it's healthy to do so
it's come up for a couple of my clients now and I want to address it
so one of them has written through to me and said
"What are your thoughts on guys playing video games
is it no different to just watching a movie or reading a book
or is it a huge waste of time because you're not accomplishing anything in the real world?
I can't decide if I should quit gaming altogether" So first off I want to say that
in terms of gaming - I'm no expert in video gaming
but to me there appears to be 3 main types of video game players
1: is professional - someone who does it for a living - they get paid to do it
so you're only a professional if you're getting paid to do it
2: casual - somebody who plays them maybe 1 or 2 hours per day on average
like a hobby, it's like hiking or watching netflix
they can take it or leave it it's just something they do when there's down-time
and there's what I call 3: someone who is bordering on addiction
they use it to escape from real life they're playing it more than a couple of hours
per day and we're going to look at that particular
type today to help you figure out whether or not that's
you I just have to stop here and remind you
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OK so how do you know when playing video games is a problem?
it's like any other addiction you look for the warning signs
OK I used to work with people in addictions quite a lot
rehabilitation, and there's some key warning signs
that are the difference between a casual user and an addict
one is your goals are neglected so you have big dreams about socializing,
about building a business about developing your health
and there is not enough time for you to do these
because of how much time you're playing video games
how much energy your video games are taking so you can see that there's a risk that you're
using video games to get away from the discomfort of working on your goals
that would be a warning sign another one would be when there's other binge-like
behaviours happening so maybe while you're playing you're that
classic guy who's got the headset, and he's got the Dorito's
packet and the chocolate, and the Mountain Dew
and you're just bingeing and when you finish playing you jump on the
porn and you binge on that - you're a Binger
you're somebody who does massive amounts of harmful pieces of behaviour for a long period
of time so if you see patterns of bingeing in your
life and computer games seems to be just another
one of those another warning sign is that it's disruptive
you're staying up really late at night and it's making you perform poorly at work
you're neglecting your friends you're neglecting going to gym and your health
and like we said not working on your goals your life would be a lot better if you weren't
spending so much time playing games and you can clearly see that
these are the warning signs of addiction a casual piece of behaviour doesn't cause
these problems and the biggest one, if you're really not
sure, is to ask yourself "can I control myself?"
are you sure that you can? one way to test this is to stop for a month
now you won't die if you don't play video games for a month, right?
and this can be a great way to prove to yourself that you're safe
but don't just stop for month have the console and the games right there
ready to play and see if you can resist
don't tell anyone you're stopping don't set up any accountability barriers
and just see if you can just get by without any feelings of withdrawal
if it really makes you uncomfortable to stop playing then we're looking at an addiction
pattern in your brain if you're a casual player the thing could
sit there collecting dust and you'd just carry on with your life
so that's how you know when it's a problem and if it's a problem
if that's what you identify it as then you've gotta treat it like a drug addiction
it essentially is if you're getting a pleasure-reward from games
if you're getting a lot of dopamine hits and adrenaline hits from the excite from the game
or from just numbing out, not feeling anything while you play for hours on end
that's essentially no different to cocaine, heroin, weed, alcohol
it's causing the same neurochemical reaction so probably the most effective way is
1: you gotta remove access so at a time of strength get rid of your console
give it away block the apps that you're using
whatever it is to make it as hard as possible for you to play games
and in that time that you usually have set aside for playing games
pack that full of healthy activities preferably social ones
there's a definite correlation between video game addicts and social isolation
video game addicts and Aspergers and other conditions that make it difficult to socialise
not impossible just difficult so if you can replace video games with socializing
or dance classes, hiking, hanging out with friends
just even going somewhere where there's people and hanging out
and try to identify what it is that you were using video games to avoid
what was video games an escape from?
that's the thing you need to go towards and deal with
if you can go towards that and deal with it video games can end up just being a casual
pleasure rather than a drug so that's my thoughts
if anything I've said about the reasons for using video games concerns you
then you've gotta listen to your brain and body
why does it concern you? if it was healthy for you, you wouldn't be
getting that concern thank you for watching
please leave your comments and thoughts below give me as much feedback as possible
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more of our hottest confidence-building tips and if you want your questions answered by
me personally email dan@brojo.co.nz if you want more support
and I'll see you for the next one Cheers!