Reduce Traumatic Stress by playing Tetris?
Research has just been conducted on post traumatic stress disorders that involves playing video games. Living through a traumatic event often leads to problems that can last long after the event has taken place, and severely impacts one’s life.
A group of researchers believed that video games could be the solution, and created an experiment to test that theory. They thought, if a video game could be used to distract a person in the period of time following the traumatic event, the game would disrupt the way the brain forms memories of the event, lessening the impact of the trauma.
The study was conducted on forty healthy subjects. They played a film that included graphic depictions of injuries, and half were then taken to a room an instructed to play Tetris. The other group did nothing. The researchers then recorded the number of flashbacks the subjects reported over the following week.
The results were conclusive as the group who had played Tetris had fewer flashbacks and disruptive memories of the event. It is also possible that any engrossing mentally-taxing game can help lessen the impact of a trauma after it happens.
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