Health and Wellness in Esports: What You Should Know

Competitive esports are on the rise worldwide as gamers compete for prizes and pride. The gamers who play at the highest level are athletes in their own sense, having honed their skills and strategies through years of time and effort. Like sports athletes, competitive video game players can experience pain and health issues caused by their love for the games they play. We’ll explore the most common problems and their solutions below.

Eye Care

Eye strain is a common problem among esports players and can take several forms. You could overwork your eye muscles, which provide the precise movements you need to look in the right spot, leading to pain and strain. Looking at a screen consistently also leads to blinking less, which can lead to visual disturbances and dry eyes.

The exercises needed to maintain healthy eyes while gaming are simple and can be done during or after a game. Experts suggest you try to take a break every 20 minutes or so and look at something 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds with a method known as the 20-20-20 rule. In addition, you should try to blink 20 times during this exercise, as blinking lubricates your eyes. 

You’ve likely also heard of blue light glasses. These glasses help reduce eye strain by blocking harmful light from bombarding your eyes. Constant blue light harms you in several ways by confusing your body into being wakeful at the wrong hours. Using blue light glasses will help you get to sleep easier and protect your eyes.

Wrists and Hands

Competitive esports have a measurement called actions per minute, which indicates how quickly you interact with a game using your keyboard and mouse. Gamers emphasize this number, especially in strategy and shooting games, because more actions enable them to build and deploy faster than their opponents. Achieving more actions per minute, like tapping specific keys or clicking your mouse buttons, requires significant and repetitive use of the muscles in your fingers, elbows, and hands.

Between the many actions they perform and poor posture, more gamers than ever are reporting pain. Thankfully, stretching before you start a game and taking frequent breaks will help prevent discomfort. Many exercises are available online to reduce muscle tension while performing at a high level.

Esports Diets

Gamers who compete at the highest levels are athletes! Playing games and competing against the best requires serious mental focus and physical stamina, especially if you intend to play all day. The diet for an esports competitor should be similar to the health routine for anyone else and include a balanced portion of carbohydrates, protein, and water. This suggestion also means that while consuming sugary foods and caffeine remains common among gamers, you should be mindful of eating the foods that give your body the best performance. Drinking excessively caffeinated drinks regularly leads to heart and sleep problems, which will hinder your gaming abilities in the long run.

Preparing simple, nutritious meals will go a long way toward maintaining your esports skills. Like many of our suggestions, making changes to food and drink habits involves small adjustments that add up to positive results, which you will notice over time.

Posture, Movement, and Your Back

The challenge of offering advice on how to sit while playing games comes from acknowledging that we all have different bodies. Finding the correct sitting position and arm angles for your body varies from person to person and will require adjustments.

Gamers and tech enthusiasts often focus on finding a comfortable chair with great support. While a good chair can prevent back and arm issues, your mouse and keyboard significantly impact your body, too. A vertical mouse and ergonomic keyboard help you maintain good posture and reduce slouching and overuse of specific muscles. The most critical factor in your use of gaming equipment is simple adaptability to your body. Split keyboards, angled mice, and chairs offer the adjustments you need, though they don’t paint the whole wellness picture.

You also need to include regular movement in your gaming routine. Instead of staying locked in a specific position for too long, move around in your chair a little to engage different muscles. 

Move Your Body

We suggested making small movements so your body doesn’t stay locked in one position, but even more important than small movements are larger ones. Even if you feel healthy, you’ll find it very helpful to get up and move around on your feet for a while, like taking a walk or going for a short run. Running and walking help enhance mental clarity and let you disconnect for a few minutes, giving your brain a rest that will help you feel refreshed.

Standing desks offer a great option for using your leg, core, and arm muscles to maintain balance throughout the day, though they don’t offer a substitute for the consistent movement your body needs.

Conclusion

Our suggestions apply to everyone, not just competitive gamers. Any activity involving screens, like watching YouTube, catching up on TikTok feeds, and finding good deals online from resources like BonusFinder, requires you to pay attention to your body and know when break time has come. Taking breaks and understanding your limits will help you lead to better performance in gaming and the rest of your life.