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Doug's 30 days without gaming journal?


Notusingrealname

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Written at the beginning of day 1 (0?): 
   While putting things away, closing out league of legends app and steam potentially (and hopefully) for the last time in a while, i look at my gamecube controller and think " this boy gave me so much...". Yeah i used to enjoy competitive gaming a lot a couple years back, which made me go very high as being a hype smash player and hanging out with friends for the 1st time in my life in college ( before college i was 100% focused on getting into a good uni, and now i currently study medicine at a solid public university in my country, video games being the only other thing i did alongside working out), to , eventually, the guy who is constantly angry about league of legends ranked mode and being stuck in diamond, gaming being such a big part of my identity i was know as an one trick pony for my favourite character. There we go. For some reason not caring about stuff such as my account's skins and rank feels surprisingly liberating right now. I noticed i found it a bit easier to focus while studying for today's assignments, and finished early... Which means i now have extra time to not study for the rest of the day, which is one of the more dangerous parts of trying such a challenge as the 30 days of no gaming. 1st thing i think about is the objective : i want to evaluate the impacts not playing video games for the time period will have on my general mental health. I had already stopped doing things such as playing competitively for a while now and already saw some massive improvements in that regard.

Now, the biggest struggle will probably be on boredom. I already have studying as something to grow in and acheive mastery and measurable progress, but the place where i live lacks many options for resting activities ( since i already read a lot and often in a very mentally engaging way) or social activities ( pandemic and all... yea). right now i'm just sitting here writing this entry and sorting out things such as my diet, what assignments will i do later in the day and tomorrow, and so far i already have a bit of an urge that only seemed not to be present while studying. A couple things i could try would be reading some non academic material and books , maybe pick up an ukulele or guitar lying around home and try to play it, or go look for some podcasts and all that. I already work out regularly between muay thay and gym over the course of the week so i don't need to invest any extra time on physical activities. I travel a bit more than the average person, and managed to find a source of personal income that allows me to practice my work skills. I have little idea on what to at the moment as i would normally be playing league of legends now that i finished studying  for the time period of the day and am ready for today's classes.   
This is the 1st entry and it's kind of an introductory one for me, i'll  start trying to write in an adequate format in my next entries

Edited by Notusingrealname
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Day 1:
 Wow i actually went for a whole day without playing video games in a non travel day. Managed to revise and nailed class today ( we have those active learning style things i think are called Problem Based Learning in my university), did my training and with the time i'd usually play games in i managed to read 2 chapters of a book i found at home about psychology. For some reason i felt very energized , but the problem is when i'm done with those things and this is where i am currently putting off my desire to game by writing this paragraph. I also realized a lot of people didn't even notice i had any problems because even when i was gaming a lot i managed to have a minimum amount of organization, as the hardest thing was stopping playing after a play session, not doing my assignments.

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Day 2:
 I'm really not sure if i actually needed to stop playing video games, so far the only thing that i managed to spend my free time with was reading which is another thing i already liked to do, just didn't do enough because i was busy gameing . I managed to keep my exercise habits up and decided to start buying fresh veggies for my salad instead of having those bags with them already cut for me , which , to be honest, just gave me more work. I actually had a lot of fun playing games, but i think my problem and the reason i was getting frustrated was i was hanging out with people i had little to do with, as, other than games,I was aways very focused on college. Currently not sure if i should try to radically stop gaming ( but still on the no gaming challenge thus far) or if i should just try to hang out with other people. People in my class don't really like me because a year ago i was having an omega depressive crysis which means that, while i could keep up in class just fine because i aways trained my discipline to  study, i kinda spent almost the entire 1st year of college without really talking to anyone there and being that one guy. God i'm so bored i'm almost giving up trying to not game, i read an entire book yesterday and now i need something else to relief me while i'm not studying. A lot of the time i used to spend on the games is now being spent on basically nothing, i study the same amount i aways did, just it feels a bit easier to get started ( which is actually a big plus for me ngl), and now i don't know what do. 

As a side note, when i was starting to do the whole work out/ diet thing i did a 30 days without junk food thing with a nutritionist's help and it was absolutely the best thing i could have done for myself, as now i can manage to only eat those things once in a while, and i also know that the 1st 3ish days of such a change are by far the hardest to overcome, maybe i should go find a new book as i actually love reading.

Edited by Notusingrealname
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1 hour ago, Notusingrealname said:

buying fresh veggies for my salad instead of having those bags with them already cut for me , which , to be honest, just gave me more work

This is why I instapot pressure cook boil all my veggies and barely cut them. Like rip out those lettuce leaves with your bare hands and snap those carrots in two.

1 hour ago, Notusingrealname said:

bored

We spent a lot of time gaming in the past instead of living and boredom is one of the ways we pay for it. Now that games are gone its up to you to live with yourself or distract yourslef with something else.

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1 hour ago, Bird By Bird said:

This is why I instapot pressure cook boil all my veggies and barely cut them. Like rip out those lettuce leaves with your bare hands and snap those carrots in two.

We spent a lot of time gaming in the past instead of living and boredom is one of the ways we pay for it. Now that games are gone its up to you to live with yourself or distract yourslef with something else.

My favorite way of having my vegetables such as carrots is by cutting and then steaming them. I suppose it's just a good habit for me to have to buy them fresh and then do that kind of prepwork on them as it is one of the little things that can build up to me not doing a lazy. Problem about my boredom is that i don't NEED to do anything, so i often end up just having random thoughts when i'm done reading stuff, looking at the ceiling and all that stuff, which honestly feels even less healthy than playing some video games, which only had the side effect of me being coerced by my friends into ruining my sleep schedule and forcing me to be more organized with my time. I think not playing has actually been making me procrastinate a bit more than usual, but i generally feel better and i'm not sure if it's because of the games or because i just didn't identify with my friends anymore and needed some change. In that regard i feel like i just have different priorities and ambitions in a sense so when i used to hang out with them i'd mostly just stay chill while i listened to people talking all about themselves ( being the single guy in such a group  feels like shit).

 

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day 3:
Sadly, i ended up relapsing. I did an assignment where i had to make some maps on elderly health stuff in advance but then i realized it's sunday, my least favorite day of the week. Since i already studied AND revized i realized how i would have to spend the rest of the day after resting off a bit just staring at the goddamn ceiling and just gave up for the day :/. those 2 initial days of no gaming made me think a lot, thought and i realized video games weren't having that much of a negative impact on me, it is me messing up my scheduling and sleep habits  that's causing me to feel constantly exhausted and stressed. What i need to do is more about having clear goals for each specific day (eg: the maps i did today) and only allow myself to play games when i accomplish those. I do have a few hobbies and also picked up origami some time ago to help distract kids at some of my relative's  places and stuff, as just being useful in whathever way i can has aways been something i valued.

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