Top 10 (Proven) Health Benefits of Video Games

Did you think all that time you spent getting incredibly frustrated with Trauma Centre on the Wii or DS was wasted? Well it turns out that surgery games could be more beneficial than you think.

For surgeons, video game play allows them to opportunity to improve their dexterity which means less mistakes in the operating room. A study conducted with laparascopic surgeons found that those who played video games to improve dexterity were 27 percent faster and made 37 percent less errors than those who don't partake in a little video game action.

So while playing a few hours on the Wii certainly doesn’t qualify you to remove your cousins appendix, you should still appreciate how games may be the difference between a successful operation and a....well a dead dude. If you have a surgeon who makes 37 percent less errors that’s a lot less dead dudes, and if you’re one of the non-dead ones, then you could say a videogame saved your life.

So next time you’ve got a choice between two surgeons to open you up and mess with your innards, check which one has the highest gamerscore first!

Games That Can Help:
Trauma Center
Heavy Rain
Cooking Mama

And speaking of shooting dudes in the face, doesn’t it feel good! Whether it’s the satisfaction of blowing guys away in Modern Warfare or dragon punching Chun Li in Streetfighter, there’s something visceral and satisfying about games. That feeling of satisfaction is exactly what we need to chase away the stress of modern life.

Whether it’s kids kicking your shins on public transport as their parents look on oblivious or waiting in line for coffee behind someone who must examine every cake in detail before ordering a grande half-fat mocha-choca-lotta-frotha-cino, modern life is inherently stressful. To get us through our worst days we need something to look forward to. When we’re in the office listening to the same dull people tell the same boring stories, we yearn for the chance to topple galactic tyrants, slay dragons as large as mountains and obliterate enemy combatants with missile launchers...and games let us do that.

A study conducted by PopCap Games found that 88% of people play video games to help alleviate stress. A moment playing one of their excellent titles like Peggle or Plants Vs Zombies will show you how effective games are at doing just that.

Games That Can Help:
Peggle
Plants Vs Zombies
Streetfighter 4

Do you remember when your parents told you not to sit so close to the TV or you would ruin your eyes? Yeah, that was rubbish. The same is true with anyone who says videogames damage your eyesight....well except maybe for those eye-exploding Nintendo 3DS things.

If you suffer from a lazy eye or have trouble driving at night, video game play may actually help you improve your eyesight. An article published in Nature Neuroscience stated that video games have been known to improve contrast sensitivity.

Ok, so it’s not like playing games will make you have super vision or anything. You won’t develop x-ray vision if you play Halo for ten thousand hours. I guess if you play games that much you probably don’t have a job and ergo can’t afford an optician...but that’s really no one’s fault but your own.

Games That Can Help:
Anything, really. Maybe a Dead or Alive game. Those always do pretty well for my eyes.

This is pretty much a catch all category for the beneficial things we can learn from games. Whether it’s learning about renaissance Italy from Assassins Creed Brotherhood or getting to know the national flags of the major footballing nations from the team select screen in FIFA, games allow us to acquire knowledge.

The best thing is that there is no limit to what games can teach us. Just as a book can be written on any subject, a game can teach us about anything too. Whether it’s what type of cars they drove on the 40’s (LA Noire), how Japanese armies mobilised for war (Shogun) or what’s the most dangerous modern automatic shotgun (Black Ops), there’s no limit to the domains of knowledge that games can cover.

It’s not just knowledge that we can acquire either. According to Professor James Gee of the University of Wisconsin, video games are an excellent choice for the cognitive development in children and adults. He explains that we get better at navigating mazes in games, we are actually getting better at the act of navigating mazes, not just better at the game.

Of course there’s hasn’t been a game developed yet to help gamers learn how to talk to girls. Whoever figures that out will be a millionaire overnight.

Games That Can Help:
Assassins Creed Brotherhood
LA Noire
FIFA
Anything really

Perhaps the most logical of all of the entries on this list, but a benefit nonetheless. It turns out that a lifetime of twitch gaming makes you more likely to react quickly in real life.

A study in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science showed that players who played video games regularly scored higher in reaction times, even when tested under circumstances not involving actual games. In other words, come the zombie apocalypse, give the shotgun to the guy who plays the most Left 4 Dead.

Games That Can Help:
Time Crisis
Counter Strike
Street Fighter 4



See more of Tom's videogame based nonsense at CalmDownTom
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