By: Jeremy Blye

 

https://bmjopensem.bmj.com/content/7/3/e001118#article-bottom

 

In the past week or so I have been given the opportunity to take a look at an academic paper that was written on the effects of sedentary sessions that come with gaming. This research paper was written by Joanne DiFrancisco-Donoghue, Seth E Jenny, Peter C Douris, Sophia Ahmad, Kyle Yuen, Tamzid Hassan, Hillary Gan, Kenney Abraham, and Amber Sousa. They all were looking at “the effect of prolonged sitting on executive function and performance in competitive esports players” due to this being unknown (Donoghue & co.) Wow, that was a mouthful. Basically what this paper goes over is how bad sitting for long periods of time can be.

 

I know a lot of you will not go out of your way to read this, but I find the information that was provided to be extremely valuable considering the fact that I am sitting around all day if I am on my computer. I even have a hip injury that is partly related to how I had been sitting at my computer. I never realized how important it is to work on posture and have some form of mobility while gaming, but now I do. Let’s get into the knitty gritty of the information provided.

 

In this study, there were 12 men and 9 women with an average of 20.76 years of age. These are demographics that fit within the people that fill our community. It honestly is a fantastic sample group to choose from. Obviously because of COVID this could not be done in-person so it was completed remotely. Let’s take a quick look into what exactly the researchers were looking at and what they were testing:

 

• Ultimate goal of seeing how adding some form of mobility would affect gamer’s performance and health
• One group played roughly 2 hours of an FPS title and had 0 breaks during gameplay
• One group played roughly 2 hours of the same FPS title and had a 6 minute walking break
• One group played roughly 2 hours of the same FPS title and had a 6 minute resting break (flat on the ground with their eyes open)

 

As far as the specific information for each participant, I do not find there is the need to highlight it. If you are interested into knowing the ethnicities, weight, and other facts such as this please refer to the link at the top of the blog. Refer to Table 1 for this information.

 

Figure 2 which uses a diagram to explain the situation above:

 

After the read of all of this, I felt it to be so important since the results pertain to myself. It applies to virtually all gamers and all competitive Esports players. We are all sitting around for sometimes hours on end and without many breaks. By actually becoming injured, I was able to further this realization with the data that was provided before my eyes. This is a moment where this is something my mother would tell me to work on and I would not listen to her because she’s my mother.

 

Let’s take a look into a “normal” gaming session. Let’s say that the title that is being played is CSGO. In a regular competitive game, it could take anywhere around 45ish minutes. If you were to play a whole series in competition this could last up to 3 games in many rounds. This could be up to 2 hours and 15 minutes (give or take). This study represents exactly how that “normal” gaming session would go. I know from experience that not a lot of people take breaks during gaming. Once you’re in that zone, you will not leave it. Even if you are in that zone, a question that is posed is how healthy is it to just sit for over 2 hours? Well, the simple answer is no. Here’s why:

 

• Performance Wise:
  • Gamers who took no breaks at all ended up performing the worst out of all of the comparison groups. This is because one is running themselves to exhaustion by playing competitively for hours on end.
  • Gamers who had a break played better, but the group who walked played the best. This is because during the walk it allows the body and mind to stay mobile. Not only this, the walking is the most healthy for a mental break for the game.
  • Again, I could go into further detail about the study, but I would like the researchers to have a little bit of spotlight with their findings since it is quite interesting.
• Health Wise:
  • The gamers who had no breaks at all tended to be exhausted in all areas of life. Based on the scale of exercise intensity, the researchers were able to see that the gamers with no break were more exhausted.
  • The reader (YOU) can probably figure out this one. The ones with the breaks felt that both types of breaks helped with their gaming performance. The walking group said that the “active walking break positively helped their gaming performance” (Donoghue & co.).

 

Why should you, the reader, care?

 

Honestly, you do not have to. I will sound like a broken record player at one point, but self-care in gaming is so important. If you do not upkeep yourself, you will deteriorate. Even though this is not a traditional sport, gaming still can affect one physically and mentally. This study shows within a relative small amount of gaming how much one can be affected. Just by taking breaks within a gaming session, it can impact how you play and how you feel. Again, the researchers go into much more detail in how this works, but I felt it needed to be highlighted. I also do not want to make this blog 2000 words and into my own little research paper. If there is anything you can get from this read is that you should take care of yourself and sometimes prioritize yourself…even if you do not want to.

 

Be sure to stay tuned for what we have in the future here at DePaul Esports! Tryouts are right around the corner…dates to be coming within the next 4-5 days at the latest. Not only this, we have the Esports Center reopening on August 23rd!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! That will be an exciting time! As you all know, we have more working in the background, but until then, I will see you all in the next one!