What do you wish for? You may wish that lettuce tasted like chocolate. You may also wish that exercising and pumping iron was a fun as sitting on the couch and binge-watching episodes of Family guy. You may even wish that beer was as nutritious as a superfood green smoothie.
This is in vain I’m afraid. Want to know, however, one wish that might have come true? That video games were beneficial to your health. There is an increasing body of scientific evidence hat says that video games may just be good for you.
Take this one example. A literature review by The Journal of Preventative Medicine found that, in the studies that were surveyed, gaming improved the health of the vast majority of participants. Particular attention was given to the ability of gaming to reduce chronic pain in those who had certain conditions.
Likewise, evidence also suggests that gaming can improve your hand eye coordination, by strengthening the brain areas responsible for this. This is not just a superficial thing: playing video games can actually improve your cognitive health, in many more ways than those cited above.
I’m afraid that lettuce does not taste like chocolate, exercise is hard work and there is really ‘no gain if no pain’, and beer is not good for you! However, gaming, and this is not a value judgment but a fact proven by empirical evidence, can actually improve your cognitive health.
So, eat your salad, go to the gym, and finish with your post-workout superfood green smoothie. Then plug in and play! If you want to learn more about the health effects of gaming, take a look at the infographic below produced by Computer Planet:
What do you think?
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