When it comes to mastering the art of video games, practice makes perfect. However, no matter how much you love gaming, it's unhealthy to spend all of your free time sitting in front of the television. Luckily, there are a few alternative ways that you can maximize the basic skills that you use when gaming without becoming a couch potato.
Vision Therapy
Vision therapy involves a multitude of training procedures that improve your visual acuity. If you're a video game aficionado, you're probably quite familiar with the process of upgrading your gaming character's stats to make them stronger and more capable. Vision therapy is like a real-life method of upgrading your own stats — it can improve your eyes' ability to focus, track small targets, and quickly process changes in your visual field. Obviously, all of those benefits can give you an advantage over your gaming opponents, regardless of what genre of game you're playing.
Vision therapy isn't just for people with poor eyesight. Even if you have perfect 20-20 eyesight, vision therapy can drastically improve your visual performance. It has been proven to improve patients' binocular coordination, and also reduces stress-related visual problems such as eye strain and poor focus. Increased binocular coordination will improve your depth perception and make your aim more accurate when gaming. Reducing eye strain and increasing your ability to focus will help you play games for long periods of times without getting burned out.
Visit a reputable optometrist to find out more and see if vision therapy is right for you. Your optometrist will analyze your visual acuity and prescribe a series of training exercises that will maximize the performance of your eyes and make you the best gamer possible.
Take up a Sport
Just like video games, sports require an extreme amount of hand-eye coordination, muscle memory, and endurance. Improving those skills by playing a sport will translate into an improvement in your gaming abilities. It doesn't matter which sport you choose — you can find local sports leagues in virtually every American city that will gladly welcome newcomers.
Additionally, the physical exercise you'll receive from playing a sport is beneficial to your overall mental and physical health. Research has shown that it's extremely unhealthy to sit for excessive periods of time. Periodically trading in your console controller for a baseball bat or tennis racket will help offset the amount of time you spend sitting in front of the television and decrease the risk of future health issues arising from your gaming hobby.
Learn an Instrument
The art of video games and playing musical instruments use many of the same skills. Both arts require precise hand-eye coordination, advanced muscle memory, and an extreme amount of patience. Learning a musical instrument can help you perfect all of those skills and give you the edge you need to beat your opponents while gaming.
Learning a musical instrument has been proven to improve practitioners' coordination. Additionally, it has been proven to improve practitioners' memories and organizational abilities. No matter what genre of games you play, all of those skills can be invaluable when it comes to having an edge over your gaming opponents. Increased coordination will make you more accurate in your gaming, while increased organization and memory skills will help you learn complex maps and inventory systems better than your opponents.
There are numerous ways to become a better gamer without spending all of your free time sitting in front of your television. Undergoing vision therapy, taking up a sport, and learning an instrument will not only maximize your gaming abilities, they'll also offer a multitude of mental health benefits in your everyday life.
