Health benefits for playing games

Health benefits for playing games

Introduction

The nervous system can change its structure and function over a lifetime, by reacting to environmental diversity, a concept known as brain plasticity. Hand-eye coordination refers to the ability to do activities that need concurrent use of eyes and hands. Any alteration occurring in the motor or visual systems significantly affects hand-eye coordination. Poor hand-eye coordination can hurt many activities, like learning problems or developmental challenges. Stroke and accidents are among the most common causes of physical and mental disability. However, given early, intensive, and repetitive rehabilitation games, then recovery is possible to these people.  Game-based rehabilitation games encourage individuals to continue with exercises as opposed to the monotonous activity of mundane nature. This essay will precisely focus on the health benefits, including memory improvements and hand-eye coordination improvements to those people who have suffered a medical ailment like accident or stroke by playing three different games.

The first game

Reaction offers multiple health benefits to the individual. First, it leads to an increase in hand-eye coordination, which is a reduction in reaction time. Improved hand-eye coordination is highly beneficial in many professionals that need manual labor. For instance, the reduced reaction time is useful in braking while driving. Anyone who has ever driven directly to a cross animal can attest that the last 50 milliseconds can make a difference between hit or miss.

This game may also change the brain. This is because when one is playing the game, there is a certain amount of dopamine realized when the subject is trying to press the light so first. Dopamine is among the different chemicals of the brain, known as neurotransmitters (Makin, 2016). It allows for the modulation of information passed from the brain region to another. This chemical is of particular interest since it is known to play a big part in human behaviors like addiction, pleasure, and learning. For example, for one to be addicted to a particular drug, then the brain releases more amount of dopamine increasing pleasure. To ascertain whether this game increases the amount of dopamine produced, the level of satisfaction of the player goes up. Dopamine is known to control the learning and reward system. The implications of dopamine production are not well known. However, dopamine production is essential in brain modification, according to work done in rats. The same study carried out to rats showed that it plays a significant role in the neural organization and thus learning.

Second game

The first benefit the player gets is the enhancement of their visual attention (the number of objects that can be attended to). For instance, a driver who trained in this game has a high ability to monitor many objects at once in a wide visual field area. Through improved visual attention, the patient learns to select some objects and further exams while leaving others unnoticed. The patient will be able only to pick the lights most important to the game and still notice the next possible light within a short duration. Either, the most critical part and benefit is what is attended to and not what is just seen.

The game leads to improved concentration because the individual will be faced with challenging tasks of getting a correct sequence each time the number grows. The person also does this over an extended period of time, and they need constant visual information, visual processing, mental rotation, cognitive flexibility, sensitivity to contrast, and minimal information processing time.

It leads to increased memory. One’s cognitive ability develops through bottom-up and top-down processes. The bottom-up method involves using data input like remembering features about the light and perceiving the next possible pattern (Kaczmarek et al. 2017). The top-down processes include the knowledge and skills learned previously to impact memory, perception, and the making of the decision. The patient has to solve challenges involved with the identification of the right sequence to utilize their cognitive skills in overcoming challenges and obstacles. The continuous practice and enhancement of one’s cognitive skills can enhance language, executive function, memory, and attention.

3rd game

The first health effect on patients playing crack code game is improved working memory. The patient will have an enhanced spatial working memory and visual capacity. Besides, there are improvements in short term memory skills associated with brain training.

Accidents may affect brain functions like the executive process enhanced by the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Also, the prefrontal cortex works with the hippocampus to carry out working memory tasks as well as organization and contextualization of incoming information (Kretchmar, 2018). The crack code game can assist the player in regaining their executive functions of the brain in addition to improved working memory. Executive function includes working memory and selective attention. Through this game, one can be able to focus on the task at hand (the game) while suppressing the distracting information. This function has a close relationship with working memory. This is because the brain will learn to filter unwanted information leading to improved working memory as well as information maintenance.

Conclusion

In conclusion, crack the code game, memory game, and reaction games play a pivotal role in our culture today. The current research shows that these games are likely to alter the brain and eye-hand coordination a help individuals after an accident or even stroke. These health results are attained by the patients after continuous and consistent training.

References

Kaczmarek, L. D., Misiak, M., Behnke, M., Dziekan, M., & Guzik, P. (2017). The Pikachu effect: Social and health gaming motivations lead to more significant benefits of Pokémon GO use. Computers in Human Behavior, 75, 356-363.

Kretchmar, R. S. (2018). Human Evolution, Movement, and Intelligence: Why Playing Games Counts as Smart. Quest, 70(1), 1-11.

Makin, S. (2016). Memory games. Nature, 531(7592), S10.