| Well, color me completely unsurprised. I don’t need a five-year study or a research grant to tell you we’re all seriously stressed out. Just look at the people around you, rushing everywhere they go, complaining about the smallest things, saying they have way too much to do… these aren’t “Type A personalities” or “whiners”, they’re just people, and they’re really, really stressed.
Now, a lot of these same articles and studies will say that it’s important to take steps to reduce your stress, and they give examples such as taking up a sport or hobby, treating yourself to a relaxing day at the spa or the ballpark, going on a nice vacation, or investing in a time-management course. And these are all excellent ideas. But they all take a lot of time, and time is one of the first things that a stressed-out person will tell you they don’t have.
I’m happy to say that I am one of the least-stressy people I know, even though I have an extremely busy job (over 1000 people a day write in for game and technical advice!), a long commute, and a fairly full social calendar. That’s a lot to do, but it doesn’t get to me.
Why? Because several times a day, I take 10 or 15 minutes out to just relax and play my current favorite game. It’s “me time.” And it’s fun. | |
| 15 Minutes of Game Therapy
There are a lot of reasons for stress; some of them, like job pressure and lack of time, seem to be universal. Others don’t get a lot of newspaper coverage, so everyone who has them might consider themselves uniquely afflicted. But stress is stress is stress, and games are a great way to combat it, even if only for the time you’re playing.
Here are a few of my favorite stress-relieving games, and why I think they help me.
Cubis 2 (web game)
Somewhere, deep down inside all of us, is a tiny little compulsive organizer. It might be hard to find, especially for those of us with the housekeeping skills of a particularly slovenly ferret, but that urge is in there somewhere. It wants things to be orderly. It wants to express itself, whether through a sock drawer sorted by color and length, or merely a towering cubicle divider of carefully stacked soda cans. And Cubis 2 is how that powerful little impulse gets its jollies.
There is just something so inherently gratifying about shoving a cube of exactly the right color into exactly the right place and watching half of the board collapse onto itself in cascading matches. Seriously. When your life is getting pulled every which way by a dozen people who need a dozen different things all at the same time, this is like comfort food for the left side of your brain.
Chuzzle (downloadable)
I have three words for this game: So Darn Cute. I’m showing my age a bit here, but do you remember back in the late 1970’s when the big fad was colorful little pom-poms with plastic googly eyes? Well, stack a bunch of ‘em in rows on a game board, and that’s pretty much Chuzzle. The way their little eyes follow your mouse cursor around the screen is the sort of cute guaranteed to make you smile.
Heck, even the audio is cute. When you put three or more of the little guys together, they vanish with a very satisfying pop. They also kind of cheer you on, in a squeaky little way. The gameplay is extremely simple, so really, the whole point is to shuffle fuzzy spheres around the screen and bask in the sheer cuteness of it all. On many occasions, I’ve found myself nearly zoning out with the repetitive motion of matching group after group after group of Chuzzles.
The game is definitely not rocket science. And some days, that’s exactly what you need.
Hexic (web game)
A good friend of mine once said that life would be far less stressful if we didn’t have clocks. Clocks split your time out into tiny little bits, and constantly remind you how little of it you have to deal with everything (or, if you’re waiting for something, how much of it is left before that something happens). I think she has a point, although some people have such a well-honed sense of time that they don’t even need clocks in order to worry about it.
This is one of the reasons I adore Hexic, a color-matching puzzle game by the designer of Tetris. Every time I play this game, the same thing happens: I lose track of time. Think about that for a moment. Losing track of time. For a few glorious minutes, while I’m spinning hexes around on my monitor and chasing the elusive black pearl, there are no deadlines, no appointments, no schedules, no pressure. It’s amazing how therapeutic even one or two short games can be, when your internal clock is taking a break.
Fish Tycoon (downloadable)
Now, for most people, one of the most stressful experiences possible is going to a doctor or dentist. Let’s be honest: the notion of being poked, prodded, drilled, lectured, or even just weighed can add major stress to your day. So what do you often find in the medical waiting room, aside from magazines that might have been current in 1997? A fishtank.
Fact is, fish are relaxing to watch. I’m admittedly clueless as to why this is, but there’s just something about seeing them drift silently and effortlessly around the tank that seems really calming. Hence my rather uncharacteristic choice of Fish Tycoon. There is absolutely no quick thinking involved here; no need for fast reflexes; no extensive strategic planning required. You just raise virtual fish.
This is just the sort of thing to load up for ten minutes when you’re feeling tense. That’s plenty of time to watch your fish, sprinkle in a bit of virtual food, check on the growth of any new offspring, rearrange your tank decorations, and generally chill out to the quiet sound of bubbles. Two fins up.
Mah Jong Tiles (web game)
Solitaire mah jong, in all its many digital incarnations, has been my own preferred stress cure since college. Now, this game originated in the East, so I could just cheese out here and attribute its effects to the calming harmony of the patterns and the sense of balance imparted by matching pairs of tiles, but the fact is this game soothes the soul in one very particular, completely non-mystical fashion: when you manage to clear a board, you feel smart.
Don’t underestimate the de-stressing power of a well-deserved gloat. A hundred little things might happen every day to shake your confidence in your own cerebrum: lose your keys, miss an exit, fail to figure out what’s changed about somebody, can’t quite recall the name of that song on the radio, forget to return a phone call… no wonder we’re so stressed, if our own brains won’t even cooperate. But then you play a round or two of Mah Jong Tiles.
And sure, the patterns are indeed harmoniously constructed, and the symmetry of the tiles imparts a certain feel of balance. What it all comes down to, though, is the victory whoop when those last two tiles disappear. Way to go, brain.
Of course, everyone likes different games, so your mileage may vary as to which ones give you the best break from everyday stress. But the important thing is that you do find something that calms you down or hypes your brain, helps you ignore life completely or focus better on a project, gives you a momentary rush or a chance to zone completely: whatever lowers your stress, there’s a game that will help you do it. And that’s something you really deserve! | |
