Level up your real life: 6 health tips every gamer needs to know

Gaming has its benefits

Dr Joanne Donoghue, New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine, Old Westbury, USA says some aspects of gaming can be good for you.

"There's definitely a plus side," says the Director of Clinical Research, who has led several studies on professional gamers' health. "Some action video games have been shown to improve reaction time and may help with multitasking. And unlike gamers from earlier eras, modern players sitting with their headphones and microphones are 'live' and interacting with a lot of people at one time. So there is a social component."

Dr Jason Nagata, an associate professor of paediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, USA has studied the effects of screen time, including video games, on children and teenagers.

He explains that digital media is not inherently good or bad - there are some downsides, but also some benefits.

Understanding the issues

The health concerns linked to gaming are both broad and specific - for starters, there are only 24 hours in a day.

Nagata says: "If you're sitting on a couch playing your video game for however many hours, that's basically time that you're not outside, walking, being physically active."

Neither are you doing anything else that's good for your physical or mental health.

He adds that excessive video game time also can be associated with lack of sleep and poor nutrition, which can affect your heart health.

Donoghue's research published in 2019 in BMJ Open Sport and Exercise Medicine showed that competitive gamers, also called esports athletes, frequently report health issues¹.

Donoghue led another study, published in April in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.²

This showed men who were competitive gamers had considerably higher body fat levels and significantly less muscle mass than non-competitive gamers with the same body mass index (BMI).

Donoghue says: "When you're sedentary, and you're not putting in the hours of exercise or strength training, essentially your muscles are atrophying."

Meanwhile, players' heart rates can soar in an unhealthy stress response. Combining stress with immobility may raise your chance of developing a type of dangerous blood clot called deep vein thrombosis - which typically forms in the legs, arms or pelvis.

Prolonged sitting at a computer at least 10 hours in a 24-hour period - and at least two hours at a time without getting up - has been associated with nearly triple the likelihood of developing dangerous blood clots. This chance can rise for each hour seated without getting up.

Video games and mental health

Video games are linked to mental health as well. Nagata led a review of data collected by the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Study that looked at the effects of screen time and social media use, including video games, on more than 11,000 teenagers.³

The analysis by Nagata and his colleagues was published in the journal Current Opinion in Pediatrics in April. The ABCD study showed that greater screen time is associated with depression, anxiety and other issues.⁴

The social nature of gaming can also expose teens to issues such as cyberbullying. And while video game addiction is not an official diagnosis, Nagata said, psychologists acknowledge that some gamers can show signs of addiction, including withdrawal symptoms when not playing, loss of interest in other activities and a general loss of control related to video gaming.

Luckily, six simple steps can help prevent many gaming-related problems.

6 easy ways to stay healthy while gaming

1. Move something besides your thumbs

A little exercise can make a difference.

Donoghue and her colleagues have measured the effects of taking an hourly 6-minute walking break on a small group of competitive gamers.

In a separate study Donoghue led, published in 2021 in BMJ Open Sport and Exercise Medicine⁶, competitive players who took a walk break improved cognitive performance, with shorter planning and solution times on problem-solving tasks. Other researchers, who published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise in 2020, found that a short bout of intense exercise improved video game performance⁷.

Which all underpins Donoghue's advice to gamers - set a timer, take breaks and stay active.

"You've got to get the exercise in," he says. "You've got to move your body. The body is meant for motion, and muscles atrophy, no matter what age you're at."

2. Fuel up carefully

In research on young teenagers, more time gaming has been associated with a less nutritious diet and a higher BMI.

Nagata says: "Some of the potential reasons for that are that if you are eating while you're distracted, you're more likely to eat junk foods.

"You're also less likely to pay attention to your hunger or fullness cues, so you might eat more than you otherwise would if you were not distracted in front of screens. So avoid mixing eating and gaming."

He adds that high-caffeine energy drinks have become part of gaming culture. However, such drinks have been linked to a higher likelihood of health issues - such as heart rhythm issues and cardiac arrest.

3. Try active games

Some games do encourage motion.

Nagata says these 'exergames' can help players avoid being sedentary.

He explains: "Some of those associations that we see related to weight gain and poor eating are probably not the case when you're exergaming or moving around a little bit more."

4. Turn off screens before bed

According to Nagata, when people play video games at night right before bedtime, that can take away from the time they have to sleep.

In a 2024 survey by the Pew Research Center, 41% of teens said video games had harmed their quality of sleep⁹. A study published in March in Frontiers in Psychiatry found that among Norwegian college students, an hour of screen time before bed was associated with a loss of 24 minutes of sleep¹⁰.

5. Monitor and get buy-in

Parents need to be aware that some games just aren't suitable for kids.

Donoghue says: "I don't think they realise how interactive they are and how toxic they can become. Parents should pay attention to ratings, which can help keep inappropriate games away from children."

Nagata advises that it's important to get buy-in from children on restrictions - but pick your battles wisely. For him, the most important health-related limits would be limiting games at meals and bedtime.

He adds that parents can start by modelling good behaviour. Parents' own media use is a big predictor of video game time in kids.

He says: "If you are going to make rules about household screen use, it's important that you follow them and act as a good example for your kids."

6. Have fun, but check yourself

Video games are about entertainment, leisure and recreation.

"If they are fun for you, and it's not displacing other things, then it's fine to play them in moderation," says Nagata.

But every so often, he advises you ask yourself how you're feeling.

"If your reply is, "Oh, wow, the last hour has passed – I don't know what happened, and I kind of feel tired and cranky," then it might be time to also ask, "What else could I be doing?" Maybe go outside. Maybe take a walk or meet up with some friends in person."

He concludes by saying that games are supposed to bring you joy.

"If your answers indicate otherwise," he warns. "Then those are reasons to think, "OK, maybe I should stop this or do something differently tomorrow.""

This article is published with kind permission of the American Heart Association, which has been striving to save and improve lives for more than 100 years.

Further reading

1. DiFrancisco-Donoghue et al: Managing the health of the eSport athlete: an integrated health management model

2. DiFrancisco-Donoghue et al: Where Muscle Matters: How Regional Differences, Pain, and Gender Define Gamer Health

3. ABCD study

4. Naga et al: What we know about screen time and social media in early adolescence: a review of findings from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study

5. DiFrancisco-Donoghue et al: Reducing thrombotic risks in video gamers: investigating the benefits of walking and compression sleeves on blood hemodynamics

6. DiFrancisco-Donoghue et al: Breaking up prolonged sitting with a 6 min walk improves executive function in women and men esports players: a randomised trial

7. De Las Heras at al: Exercise Improves Video Game Performance: A Win–Win Situation

8. Healthy Eating Research: Healthy Beverage Consumption in School-Age Children and Adolescents

9. Pew Research Center: Teens and Video Games Today

10. Gunnhild Johnsen Hjetland et al: How and when screens are used: comparing different screen activities and sleep in Norwegian university students

11. Claire McCarthy: Unhealthy Video Gaming: What Parents Can Do to Prevent It