Exercises for Gamers to Improve Gaming Skill

Professional gamer players are most likely gamer lovers themselves. They enjoy the excitement and adventure while playing games. However, when they have a lot of tournaments and practice schedules, they spend a day in front of their screens. Often, many professional players retire due to health problems, for instance, thumb and wrist injuries happen to a lot of gamers. Besides physical health, the length of time in front of the screen also affects mental health.

Here are some health problems that can be caused:

1. Postural Activity and Motion Sickness
   Based on the result of research in the Journal Experimental Brain Research, Postural activity and motion sickness are some of the most common impacts on gamers.
2. Eye Health
   Too much screen time deteriorates our eye health.
3. Sleep Deprivation
   A lot of gamers of course spend so much time on screen, this leads to episodes of sleep deprivation that may result in insomnia.
4. Carpal tunnel syndrome
   Quoted from GoodDoctor, some of the symptoms of this syndrome are pain and tingling in the hands.

Some examples of health problems above can be reduced with simple exercises. Of course, as a pro player, you don’t want to have health problems that affect your game playing performance, right??

Exercises that can be done do not have to be strenuous. Doing simple stretches consistently can increase energy, mental health, and the ability to deal with stress and reduce the possibility of injury.

Some of the exercises below can bolster your physical and mental health as a gamer so that you can improve your performance when playing games.

1. Comprehensive Gamer Stretches
   According to Esports Healthcare, stretching is a very suitable exercise to reduce injury. Here are some stretches that you can do at home and anywhere:
   — Thumb and finger stretches, pull your thumb downward and backward and hold for 30 seconds for each hand.
   — Hand and wrist stretches, do it with a prayer position dan hold for 30 seconds.
   — Forearm stretches, with one hand, grip another hand above the wrist joint and pull outward, hold this position for 5–10 seconds. For more examples of stretches that you can do easily, you can visit their website.
2. Cardio Exercise
   Except for finger and wrist exercises, you can also do some cardio routines such as jump ropes, jumping jacks, burpees, squats, etc. This exercise is intended to strengthen the body’s muscles and also during exercise you release endorphins so that it increases enjoyment while playing games.

Doing exercise before playing a game can improve performance and skills, as proven by research published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. It shows that short intense cardio exercise before playing Lol improves video game performance.

So, although gamers spend a lot of time sitting in front of the screen, it must also be balanced with regular physical exercise. It is intended to maintain physical and mental health.