Don’t be a noob when it comes to gaming health

Whether you’re a Call of Duty noob or a top 500 Challenger in League of Legends, prioritizing your health while gaming is easier than placing first at Royal Raceway. Experts at Baylor College of Medicine offer advice and strategies on how to preserve your posture, hands and eyes during your next gaming session.

Posture

“Neck and back pain along with wrist and thumb strain can be a result of bad posture and overuse,” said Melanie McNeal, certified physical therapist in the Joseph Barnhart Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Baylor. “Avoiding bad posture can be simple.”

Start by choosing the right seating for your session. Typically, a chair provides better support than a soft sofa. Sit in a sturdy chair or on a sturdy couch that positions your hips a little higher than your knees. This will put your back in an optimal position for avoiding strain. Sitting with your back to the back of the chair, rather than leaning forward, will also help decrease lower back pain. Sitting with your ears in alignment with your shoulders will keep your neck in the correct position and decrease the chance of neck pain. Breaks are also vital for keeping the pain away.

“Every hour at least you should get up and walk around for a few minutes. Every two hours, do some stretches and/or exercises to move your body and get your circulation going again,” McNeal said.

Hands

“Nerve entrapment due to excessive compression of the nerve at the wrist (carpal tunnel) or elbow (cubital tunnel) are common the longer you play at one time,” McNeal said. “If you are holding the controller with your wrist cocked up or extended for prolonged periods, this can cause compression of the nerve in the wrist and lead to numbness, tingling and/or pain, typically in the thumb, index, middle and ring fingers.”

McNeal also says sitting with the tip of your elbow resting on a chair or desk can compress the ulnar nerve, causing similar symptoms in your fourth and fifth fingers. If you start getting symptoms such as pain, tingling or numbness that doesn’t immediately go away upon repositioning, stop immediately. Breaks will help minimize potential hand issues as well.

McNeal reviewed Gamer Warmup exercises created by E-Sports Healthcare and said they were great for finger and wrist mobility and strength.

Eyes

“Eye strain is one of the biggest risks gamers face,” said Dr. Masih Ahmed, assistant professor of ophthalmology at Baylor. “Eye strain is essentially eye fatigue because of overwork of the muscles of the eye.”

Eye strain is caused when the eye is focused at one length for an extended period of time and the muscles controlling the focusing of the lens aren’t able to relax. Playing video games can affect this because of prolonged focus on the screen at one distance. This also can worsen dry eye because people tend to blink less when they are focused on a task like video games or TV. Repeated eye strain can cause headaches, blurred vision or irritated eyes. Prolonged exposure to blue light given off by video games can also lead to detrimental effects on circadian rhythms, which cause disruptions in sleep patterns.

Ahmed suggests avoiding eye strain by taking frequent breaks to look away from the screen and giving your eyes a rest period. Sit a comfortable distance away from your screen and use the 20-20-20 rule: every 20 minutes, look at an object 20 feet away for 20 seconds. Artificial tears are also helpful for relieving dry eyes.

Ahmed also reviewed Gamer Warmup exercises created by E-Sports Healthcare and said that these exercises are well-known to train your muscles to track better and focus on near objects more efficiently, but do not improve vision or refractive error.

By Aaron Nieto