Table of contentsLiterature reviewVideo games and flowsPractices adopted/testedReflectionVideo games have been part of my life since I was young. Some of my fondest memories from my childhood are of my father and I spending time together as I forced him to play The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for me for what must have been the fifth time. I'm 22 now and Ocarina of Time remains my favorite video game because of the nostalgia it brings me. Although I've never been the best at video games, I cherish the time I spent with friends and family playing them, as well as the people I met through our shared passion. Since video games are a very important aspect of my life and I spend a lot of time playing them, I began to wonder if there was a way to benefit from my hobby, if I would able to pay attention while playing it. This article will look at the effects of mindful video gaming on the body, the different mindful video games on the market, and my own experience with mindful video gaming. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the Original EssayLiterature ReviewThe first video game debuted in 1958, when physicist William Higinbotham created a very similar tennis game Pong called Tennis for Two. (Tretkoff, 2008). Since then, video games have grown exponentially, improving both gameplay mechanics and graphics. However, video games aren't always just platformers or shooters; Developers have recently taken on the video game market to bring a new set of benefits, such as giving your brain a mental workout. In addition to this, researchers analyzed both the positive and negative effects of video gaming and their effects. surprising relationship with mindfulness. In a world where, according to a 2013 study, more than 1.2 billion people play video games, it's no wonder that game developers are looking to find ways to de-stress consumers and researchers found surprising results on mindfulness and video games (State of the Web, 2013). Although research on mindfulness and video games is a fairly recent phenomenon, many studies have shown how video games can help people achieve mindfulness. Positive Effects of Video Games and MindfulnessIn recent years, there has been a lot of talk about how video games are linked to aggression and that a number of violent crimes result from exposure to video games violent games such as Grand Theft Auto. Many believe that being exposed to this fictional violence desensitizes many to acts of violence such as murder and bloodshed. Although there is some data suggesting a correlation between playing video games and aggression, particularly among those who are already aggressive, correlation does not equate to causation (Anderson & Dill, 2000). It is ignorant to suggest that everyone who plays video games is aggressive. This blind dismissal ignores many of the positive mental health effects of video games, many of which are similar to those of mindfulness. Lucid dreaming is the phenomenon of becoming aware that you are dreaming within a dream. Mindfulness/meditation (Stumbrys, Erlacher, & Malinowski, 2015) and video gaming (Gackenbach, 2006) were positively correlated with a higher frequency of lucid dreams, a potential indicator of developing consciousness. Playing video games and practicing mindfulness have been linked to increasedimproved mood and reduced stress. According to a 2009 study, electroencephalic changes during gaming were consistent with improved mood and decreased stress levels reported by participants (Russoniello, O'Brien, & Parks, 2009). Similar effects have been observed when participating in mindfulness meditation (Wright, Day, & Howells, 2009). Video Games and FlowVideo games have been positively correlated with the experience of flow (Sherry, 2004). According to its author Csikszentmihalyi, flow is described as the balanced balance between skill and difficulty used to describe the state of consciousness experienced by athletes when they feel a calm and conscious immersion in their sport (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). These are also characteristics of mindfulness (Marks, 2008). Video games are related to athletics in that both require a lot of focus and practice. Like anything, these two activities can be improved with practice, until the player can do them almost effortlessly, in a calm and collected manner. Since many people abandon games in which they cannot develop flow, it is believed that many modern game developers create their game with this in mind. (Csikszentmihalyi, Abuhamdeh and Nakamura, 2005). In 2011, Gackenbach and Bown conducted a study in which they sought to examine video game players' mindfulness and the associated factors of immersion and presence through five questionnaires. The researchers hypothesized that hardcore gamers would report being more attentive than those who didn't play video games as often. Those who were considered hardcore gamers based on their frequency, number of games, and duration of play were found to score higher on the immersion/absorption and presence scales. They also found that only certain types of mindfulness are associated with video gaming; the Mindfulness During Gaming Scale found a positive correlation, while their broader Mindfulness Scale only found a positive correlation between hardcore gamers and nonjudgmental gaming (Gackenbach & Brown , 2011). Practices Adopted/Tested To choose how I wanted to explore the mindfulness effect with video games, I chose to adopt two types of practices: one in which I incorporate mindfulness into the video games I usually play, and the other where I test video games specifically designed to practice mindfulness. I chose these two approaches based on the existing literature on video games. As I looked through the literature, I discovered that there were two basic categories that I could also easily incorporate into my daily lifestyle. To incorporate mindfulness into the video games I already play, I chose to listen to my body to intermittently take breaks and regulate my emotions. To test video games designed for mindfulness, I downloaded the Flora and Pause app and used it to combat procrastination. I chose to incorporate mindfulness into the games I already play because I thought it was the most applicable type of research I could. conduct on myself. By incorporating mindfulness into games I already knew I enjoyed, I felt like I could apply the techniques to almost any game I played. These were more general techniques applicable to a wide range of video game genres and people. For this particular practice, I chose to incorporate mindfulness techniques into the gameOverwatch. Overwatch is a game created by Blizzard Entertainment in 2016. It is an online first-person shooter in which two six-person teams consisting of a variety of characters with different skills are pitted against each other. others. I chose to use Overwatch for this practice because it's the game I've been playing most recently and it's also similar to other types of video games I play. With this, it's not uncommon for me to play in two-hour intervals without a break – which isn't the healthiest practice. Plus, it's a game that I can easily become frustrated with, whether because of a particularly long losing streak or because of comments from other players online. For this practice, I incorporated two mindfulness methods. First, I decided to take a break after each match. Each match lasts six to 20 minutes, with a long interval between each match. This was the perfect opportunity for me to get up from my chair and stretch rather than continuing to sit, as noted in Boice's "Write In Mindful Ways" (Boice, 1994). Between each game, I would get up, stretch, and walk around my apartment for a bit until the notification for the next game appeared on my screen. Second, I limited my overall play time to much shorter increments of around thirty minutes at a time. Rather than playing the game straight for two hours, I set a timer for thirty minutes and stopped playing when the timer went off. This idea is also taken from Boice's article, drawing on his discussion of how you can be more productive if you simply do something a little bit every day rather than binge on it (Boice, 1994). Even though this study was not related to writing like Boice's article was, I felt like the idea was still very applicable; I hypothesized that I would feel less stressed and possibly win more matches if I didn't binge play. I incorporated these methods for two weeks, playing Overwatch almost every day after classes. I used the first week as a reference, in which I did not incorporate any of the above methods. For the sake of research, I limited myself to one hour of consecutive play. I played the game as usual, without stretching between matches or taking any breaks. I recorded my data on a spreadsheet on my phone where I recorded how I felt after each match and whether I won or lost the game. I also recorded in more detail how I felt at the end of each daily section and any particular thoughts I had about that session. During the second week, I incorporated the tactics above. I still played for about an hour each day, but I divided my playing time into two 30-minute intervals: one after school and one in the evening. I also chose to get up and stretch after each game. Like the first week, I recorded my mood and win rate after each game and session on my phone. Over the course of each week, I managed to do about four rounds per day. There were some limitations with this first practice. Firstly, it wasn't always easy trying to qualitatively record how I felt after each match and session. Although I could record where I felt tension with a body scan, I could only use a limited number of words to describe myself (stressed, tense, relieved, happy, etc.), even when I wrote small paragraphs. Because of this, I may not have been able to fully explore my feelings. Second, I didn't always have enough time between matchesto stretch and record how I felt. For this reason, some of my reports were shorter than others. This would be more avoidable in offline video games that have a pause feature. The second practice I adopted was analyzing video games designed specifically for mindfulness. I chose to incorporate this because I wanted to see how entertaining and well-designed these video games could be, and see if they had a bright future or not. If mindfulness could be successfully integrated into video games, then many more people could be exposed to the idea of ​​mindfulness and focus on their bodies and the present. The two games I tried were Flora and Pause. I looked at three factors when playing these games: the appearance, the mechanics, and whether or not they successfully incorporated mindfulness. Flora is a free mobile game similar to Forest; the player starts a timer to start growing a tree. If the timer is stopped too early to play on your phone, the tree dies. The aim of the game is to create a beautiful forest by incorporating both virtual and real incentives (your money going towards planting a real tree). I played this game on and off for about two weeks whenever I had to do homework. For each mission, I set the timer for fifteen minutes, then put my phone aside. I chose to work in fifteen minute intervals because of the advice in Boice's "Write In Mindful Ways" to be more productive by writing in small increments (Boice, 1994). I kept mental notes about my experience with the game. Pause is a mobile game that costs $3 in the Apple Store. Players are tasked with moving their finger across the screen very slowly. As long as the player can keep up with the slow pace, the colorful blob on their fingertip continues to grow. It's a very simple game, but it gets more difficult as you want to speed up your movements. The game seeks to get its players to slow down and breathe, to move with their natural bodies. I played this game once a day for a week and made mental notes about my experience. Although I did not perceive many limitations with this part of the study, I did note that my opinions may be biased. As an experienced player, my opinions on the game might have been very different from those of the more casual audience these games were aimed at. With this in mind, it was difficult to be objective. To analyze my results with the video game I played regularly, I looked through the notes I took each day and compared the baseline week to the experimental week. As far as the number of matches I won and lost each week. For the baseline week in which I did not integrate mindfulness practices, I won 11 matches and lost 17. For the second week in which I integrated the practices, I won 13 matches and lost 14. As for how I felt after each match and each session, I noticed that I overwhelmingly reported feeling more tired at the end of the hour-long sessions of the first week than during the thirty-minute sessions of the second week. On the contrary, during the second week, I tended to say that I was looking forward to my next session or that I felt satisfied with myself. I didn't report feeling overwhelmingly positive emotions such as happiness or elation over the two weeks, but the emotions tended to lean toward whether or not I felt more satisfied. For the reports after each match, I found that I tended to be more and more tired after each match,using more intense vocabulary as the recordings progress. I also reported increasing feelings of tightness in my shoulders and lower back after doing a body scan as I played, although this didn't occur as much over the course of the second week when I took longer breaks and stretched. To analyze the two mindfulness video games that I played, I will report retrospectively on three factors: what the game was like, the design, and how well it incorporated mindfulness. For the Flora game, I found that I really enjoyed it. It was a very simple game, but one that you should only rely on when you need to be attentive to certain aspects of your life to avoid procrastination. The game was very visually appealing, incorporating simple but elegant designs and interfaces. I liked that the more you played the game, the bigger your trees became and the more variety of plants you got. When it comes to the game design, the developers set out with a very simple goal and managed to achieve it. The menus are very explicit about where you can start the game the moment you download it. The fact that you could offer real money to plant a tree as an incentive was a nice touch. Finally, I think the game did a good job incorporating mindfulness. It takes a lot of work, forcing you to decide whether playing with your phone is more important than growing your forest. By having the forest of living and dead trees in front of you, you can really see how much you're procrastinating in a visually interesting way. I found that seeing all the dead trees in my yard was a good intrinsic motivation to focus on my homework instead of my phone. Pause was similar to Flora in that they both work from very simple concepts. I found that over time the uniqueness of this game faded and I didn't enjoy it as much. The look of the game was beautiful, relying on a simple display and constantly changing shades of blue as you grew the drop on your fingertips. The movement and growth of the drop was very smooth and visually attractive. As for the game design, the game started with a small tutorial to get you started before you head out on your own. It was an interesting concept that was executed well. Finally, it is obvious that this game was designed with mindfulness in mind. I noticed that my breathing slowed a bit when I moved my finger with my drop, because I was afraid that breathing too erratically would ruin my movements. It made me aware of my breathing as well as my heart rate and how they affect my fingers. A statistics page helps you keep track of how often you stop for breaks and how your movements change as you go.ReflectionI enjoyed this little research project. Not only has this allowed me to better understand some of my personal habits as a gamer, but it has also allowed me to practice beneficial tactics to allow me to be more attentive when playing video games. Part of me always feels a little guilty when I play games for long periods of time, in that I believe that I can always spend my time better or that sitting for that long is bad for me. By building more breaks into my play time and reducing the amount of time I play at a time, I can reduce some of the guilt I feel. Before this study, I had.