(Original Link)
(Examining different ways to play games helped me both in-game and in the real world!)
Most games have you hold Shift to hold breath so I thought I’d be funny.
Title card made in paint
When I can sit at my desk and play Video Games for a few hours, I have a blast. What isn’t having a blast is my posture and breathing! It is amazing how quickly I de-evolve from a tall human to a hunched-over caveman sucking in oxygen at a rapid rate, not only were those two things deteriorating but so was my gameplay. I have my desk and chair set up properly along with my game settings accurately set for my computer, so I know this “bad posture and breathing” is a habit that I need to break.
I did a web search to see what could help me and I found these two articles on Breathing and Gaming:
Breathing is the Key to Optimal Gaming
Well it sounds easy but deep breathing WHILE playing games might be tough when the critical moments begin to emerge. So I wanted to see how this affected my gaming. During my next play session I focused on abdominal breathing and recorded some clips from my gaming that stood out to me as ‘unusual’ from my normal play.
LEAGUE OF LEGENDS:
I played two games. There was one skirmish that really stood out as something that I probably would’ve thought about after the fight. When my teammate was being attacked, instead of focusing on the enemy getting hit by the turret, I turned around to execute the support and managed to kill the dived champion before dying.
For the second game, I killed the hidden hero. Here’s how I did it: After seeing the enemy cast an AoE I stepped out of the radius but I made a mistake and stepped back into the enemy AoE and died.
Usually when I am taken out in a skirmish I will replay the moment in my head to see if perhaps there was something I could have done better, but besides running back into the AoE on the second clip there was nothing I could see that could’ve been improved.
But that’s only one type of game and I wanted to see how abdominal breathing would work in different genres of games.
HUNT: SHOWDOWN:
I hired a new hunter and solo queued with the gear the hunter came with:
- Crossbow,
- Machete
- Fuses
My goal was to focus on my breathing during play and engage some other players to see if perhaps my hand would steady and I wouldn’t panic as much during combat.
I crouched outside the bounty point and after the players banished the target I aimed at an entry point. It didn’t take long and after firing off a shot I killed a player! My heart beat faster as excitement took hold but I stayed focused on my breathing.
As I took a deep breath while approaching the players an idea took hold, use the fuses to confuse them. I have never used fuses and always thought they were a novelty item but as I threw them at entrance points I could finally understand their existence. The hissing sound they make is similar to a grenade fuse which probably stopped the second player from picking up his friend thinking I had just thrown a live grenade at his position. It also seemed to make those entrances a point of interest because when I came running in the player was not looking in my direction.
After a quick kerfuffle and the enemy accidentally setting himself on fire and jumping into the nearby creek I took aim and fired, hitting him. My heart was racing and I was trying to maintain my deep breaths but the whole situation was wild!
Maybe because I was thinking about and focusing on my deep breathing that this was all a placebo effect and the results would’ve ended the same if I hadn’t been trying this exercise but it is an interesting topic to pay more attention to.
When I was done with this ‘research’ gaming session I stood up and found that I hadn’t been AS hunched-over and my breathing wasn’t shallow so that’s a plus from me! I hope my gameplay improves as I incorporate this new method of focus.
That’s all for now.
Thank you for reading and I hope you try this exercise, Let me know if it works for you!
Happy Gaming.