Gaming break is over!

It has been almost a week since I hit day 30. I wanted to take some time to think and see how it’s affected me.

First day after the break I was so excited to play I allowed myself to do so without a time limit. I must say, it was not as exciting as I thought it would be. It was fun but I found myself wanting to move on and do something else after an hour. This has been true every time I sat down to play. I did feel a pull to sit back down later, after I’d already made the decision to quit for the day and I’m happy to say it’s much easier to say no. I think taking this break and honouring the promise I made with myself really helped me put little moments like this one in perspective. I’m glad to report I feel much more in control and while I did have to resolve some guilt when I pulled up RDR2 for the first time, it’s mostly passed now.

I think this break helped my brain understand that games will still be there when I decide to reach for them. I’m very happy I got to explore other things this month. I spent a lot of time reading, working on my portfolio and tending to professional matters. I felt free to finally tend to tasks and hobbies that unintentionally got pushed to the side.

This break also helped me understand the role quick gaming breaks have in my creative process. I tend to do the hard-on-the-brain task of creating, decompress with a game and come back to drawing/painting later. While I don’t mind it sometimes, it can be hard to control the length of these breaks, which makes the whole day feel erratic. I think this solution is a band aid for dealing with feelings of inadequacy and anxiety regarding whatever I’m currently working on. There’s also much better ways to relax than continuing to sit at the desk, feeding my brain artificial accomplishments.

I have decided to keep gaming as a weekend thing. It’s nice to have it as a hobby I can look forward to instead of a weird in between task that overstimulates my brain on the daily, impeding my ability to enjoy other things.

Thank you for reading my posts throughout the past month :) I hope you also got something out of it and I encourage you to check in with yourself like this periodically.