Can playing the computer game “Tetris” reduce the build-up of flashbacks for trauma? A proposal from cognitive science. Marc Palaus, Elena M.Goldsmith, Jeffrey, (1994, May), This Is Your Brain on Tetris, Wired, Neural Basis of Video Gaming: A Systematic Review Reference Link: Video games can change your brain You need to quit owning anything that you don't want to become a part of you. The more she acts on those healthy impulses, the easier they are to do. Rather than sinking into a chair and eating whatever's at hand, she's following a schedule of healthy meals. Instead of getting sympathy for her latest medical condition, friends are thanking her for the savings she's giving them. Then she shared the impressive finds with her friends online. She compared the prices and matched the best deals up with manufacturer's coupons. So she started going through the weekly ads from the local supermarkets. It turns out she likes getting a good deal. So I asked her to look for a productive habit that she could share with her online friends. My friend was constantly getting validation on social media for being sick. She started meeting someone to exercise with three days a week. We put together pre-planned meals and got rid of the junk food that she doesn't have the willpower to avoid. So I helped her build a schedule that takes some of the destructive decisions away from her. I explained that we start each day with a limited amount of willpower. She gets an emotional high five that slowly rewires her brain to keep looking for the good stuff. Every time she wrote something down, I asked her to set the alarm for 60 seconds and relive those good things that happened.Īs she writes things down, it's sending a signal to her brain that what she experienced was important. Instead of looking for things that kept her a victim, she needed to learn how to identify available opportunities. She now needed to see the world as a place that could be good to her. ![]() Over 20 years, she had trained her brain to see the world as a place that made her sick. ![]() Something as simple as no red lights going to the grocery store, someone saying hi to her in the neighborhood or her dog being extra affectionate. I told her to make a note of something good that happened since the alarm last rang. During the day, it goes off once every three hours. I asked my friend to set the alarm on her watch. Instead of focusing on the negative, she must be taught to see the positive and act on those better impulses. She has to strip away that protective layer of sickness she's surrounded herself with. The trick now is to change what she owns. Over time, being sick became a skill she mastered. Her brain began rewiring itself to become more efficient at being an ill victim. Every day she practiced doing the things that got her attention. She took ownership of the identity of a sick person. My friend craved those feelings of love and sympathy people gave her when she first got sick. An engineer may obsess about making everything more efficient. A lawyer may become overly critical because they were trained to point out flaws in arguments. When someone devotes a significant amount of time or attention to an activity, it begins to change how they think and act. ![]() It's called the Tetris effect or Tetris syndrome. They imagine brightly colored blocks filling in skylines, grocery store shelves or anything they're staring at on the horizon. They think about how random objects would fit together. Researchers found that when people play the game for hours, they start to see the tetrominoes in real life. The object of the game is to move differently shaped pieces or tetrominoes into complete lines. Sickness was an excuse to use when things didn't work out the way she wanted. She did it for so long that it became an essential part of her personality. My friend had become a master at being sick. She stopped taking the pills, binged on harmful foods, and quit doing what her doctors said would eliminate much of the problem. Whenever treatments provided a breakthrough, she did something to sabotage the results. ![]() Today, 20 years later, my friend's core identity is based around being that sick person. But the decade she spent struggling with her illness became her defining characteristic. The diagnosis was sudden and debilitating. I have a friend that became very ill when she was in her 40s. The way you present yourself can end up influencing who and what you are. You can play the game Tetris online here:īe careful what you own.
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