As the world unravels and learns more about esports, more similarities between traditional sports begin to trend and become relevant throughout competitive gaming. Performance, health, and training are powerful and informative sectors that both industries share among competitiveness.
Esports health and performance is a vital topic to understand when working around athletes or becoming a professional gamer. Identical to sports, esports athletes rely heavily on their bodies and brains to perform exceptionally at all times. This factor alone explains how crucial it is to understand what makes esports health special.
What Is Esports and Gaming Health?
As esports becomes even more popular, collegiate and young individuals looking to play professionally emerge. With this explosive industry showing potential as the current and future hit of entertainment and proactivity, learning about the defining pillars such as esports and gaming health is essential.
Source: ESL | Adela Sznajder
Esports and gaming health is the fundamental notion that because someone is sitting down, playing games on end, it doesn't mean they can ignore the crucial practices, dietary needs and health-related issues. If left neglected, individuals who continuously and unnoticeably perform self-destructive behavior towards their bodies might suffer more significant problems later.
Esports and Gaming Health Nutriment Brands Emerge, Replacing Traditional Options
Throughout the years, licensed doctors, specialists and professionals have entered the competitive side of esports with one goal in mind, preventing performance-related problems and honing both mental and physical states to their peak. One popular trend thriving with esports is how new brands targeting esports and gaming health are emerging.
Source: CTRL Meal Replacement | Instagram
Some newly-founded nutriment brands such as GFuel, Mountain Dew's Game Fuel, CTRL and NutriGMR have been taking drinks and food to the next level for esports athletes over the past few years. GFuel, NutriGMR and Game Fuel all advertise esports beverages that boost performance, keeping the body going and the mind flowing. CTRL is a meal-replacement brand that features tons of options for professionals to choose from that pack massive nutritional benefits.
Overall, these are only a few of the various uprising brands that provide nutritious alternatives for drinks and beverages. Additionally, all these companies produce healthier options for esports athletes and gamers to perform better than drinking or eating chips, soda etc.
Esports and Gaming Health: Why It’s Important To Keep Your Body In Shape
Foremost, esports and gaming health is a huge priority for anyone playing games casually or professionally. Like sports, esports and gaming require attention to detail, with various aspects of the activities requiring massive amounts of focus, thinking, and even movement to perform well.
When playing tennis, soccer, or even basketball, players will do warmups and exercises, eat healthily, and get good rest. These same factors apply to esports and casual gaming. Especially since players will be sitting for hours on end most of the time, creating stagnancy and overtime health issues that will take effect as years go on. Ultimately, it's vital to see esports the same way most would see sports and create and develop good routines, follow short or long exercises in between, before and after games.
Improper Esports Health Regimens Lead To Early Retirement and Various Physical Injuries
Source: ESL
Esports blows the marginal retirement average by a long shot across athletes than traditional sports. Regularly, sports athletes would retire by their mid-30s. But, for
esports, the industry would see most individuals putting up their careers by their mid-20s. Answering the central gap question is quite simple – esports athletes train longer, focus harder and corrode their bodies faster.
Most people would think that sitting on a chair for hours on end playing games wouldn't be a difficult thing to do at all. Esports players have it worse compared to soccer athletes, who only have hourly training sessions, meal times, and a shower/hot sauna right after a day. Research provided by Intel covers the generalization of how rigorous and painstakingly tricky it is for esports athletes to maintain their gameplay standards and continue their high-end performance.
Esports athletes, especially the top-tiered players, must play for roughly 6-8 hours a day. Each athlete receives breaks and meal sessions in between, but it's almost mandatory to play this long to keep their performance at its peak. Additionally, these players need to stay fit and eat healthily. Every decision they make playing competitively requires them to make split-second decisions, plans and strategies that involve heavy-brain thinking skills. So to keep an athlete's performance up, they need to keep their body in tune too, as they laboriously rely on their brain, eyes and hand coordination to perform near-superhuman feats.
Despite these factors being augmented for casual to amateur esports levels, it's still crucial to understand, centralize and learn from as younger individuals venture into esports and gaming.
Important Esports and Gaming Health Practices for Athletes
Esports health specialist and current Director of Performance at Evil Geniuses, Dr. Lindsey Migliore, speaks further about esports health in an Esports Bar interview. She explains how significantly and massively affecting specific things that almost every player might do when playing games can impact an esports athlete's career.
From hand-to-eye coordination to sitting for too long to even positioning your wrists and hand abnormally, most gamers' everyday tendencies can drastically change a player's performance. These are all real issues that professional and amateur players will encounter as they progressively perform improperly and incorrectly, further hindering their potential and leading to near retirement or performance/health issues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2hifegvHkQ&ab_channel=GamerDoc
There are tons of exercises, regimens, and healthy dietary routines that athletes continuously follow, which can be applied to the casual gameplay of amateur players and professionals. From wrist exercises to mental health short meditations and even adjusting your sleep pattern to encompass good rest and developing a meal plan, it goes on. These things are fundamental factors any gamer needs to take into mind.
For more tips, advice and guides on managing esports and gaming health, Dr. Lindsey Migliore's YouTube channel hosts informative and redefining videos about different things players can do to keep their bodies on track when gaming.
Ultimately, the similarities are uncanny between both industries. For esports athletes or upcoming ones looking to integrate or even upgrade their gaming to alleviate stress or train their brain optimally, it's vital that playing should be taken in moderation and treated identically to sports. Subsequently, playing correctly and staying healthy is as important in esports when gaming both casually and professionally. As always, it's all about finding the balance, developing your skills and staying proactive in an individual's venture towards staying healthy, mindful and productive with one step towards the proper progression a day.
Jay Hunter is a freelance writer, editor, interviewer and aspiring developer passionate about gaming and esports. In his spare time, you'll find him losing LP in League of Legends or watching hours of esports on end.