Tetris Could Help Treat PTSD

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

Tetris Could Help Treat PTSD

Heard about this on the Beeb this morning on my way to work and looked it up when I got home, there are dozens of media outlets reporting on this and a goggle search brings up plenty of links. WD syndrome has elements of PTSD and the one facet I was most interested in is the 'intrusive thoughts'. I have long been a believer of using computer games in wd to manage the awfulness of days and I credit my playing of Spider solitaire, Jumbline and online jigsaw puzzles with my relatively rapid healing away from acute wd syndrome and preventing my demise. I played them from the moment I woke up till I lay down to try to sleep and in the middle of the night if I had to. There is something about giving the mind something to busy itself with that hinders its ability to drive you completely mad while in the thick of wd. As I listened to the British researcher being interviewed on her studies she mentioned Tetris as being kind of unique in that it involves several different brain activities such as imagining objects in space and rotating them and the 'thinking ahead' that Tetris demands and I could actually feel how that kind of thinking takes one out of present difficulties and into a different sort of consciousness.

 

I had one of the original Tetris carts for the NES and I was completely hooked on it for months oh so many long years ago. Nothing quite like playing it with a controller, the computer keyboard just does not give you the speed and agility and finesse you need to build up a whole screen of lines minus the far column and then waiting for the 4 straight blocks to turn up and then scoring big time as you eliminate 4 lines at a time, bam bam bam. Slam 'em down and score!

 

Ah, the days of frittering away my life doing absolutely nothing. Things sure came around full circle and then some. I only had to wear a teepee splint on my right thumb for a mere month to heal the nasty case of 'trigger thumb' that game gave me.

 

For your pleasure, an online Tetris game.

[InvisibleUnless]

i thought it was already commonly accepted that tetris can help just about anything.  its like pizza.

 

i favored tetris myself, above many of the other games of the time.  it was a bit disappointing that the gameboy version of tetris plus had a max score of 999,999 with a max lines of 999, though---and that it didnt categorize maxed scores hierarchically by line number as well...  you could max your points out with only 1/3 of your lines full and knock down your 999 line scores just by playing and still succeeding pointwise.

 

lots of interesting video game research, though, as they observe patterns of usefulness in autistic kids, anxiety patients, individuals who suffered traumatic brain damage, etc.

 

i feel like video games can serve a similar function to dreaming---you can process, learn, reorganize information, make connections, and create more healthy ways of handling situations, all on a metaphorical level and while enjoying the more literal experience and challenge/recreation.  right now i cant do much in the way of audio or video activities because my brain starts to fry much more quickly than before...probably overuse of particular neural pathways; im in greater need of novelty at this point in my recovery.