Chess & Anxiety Disorder

ethn
ethn
Aug 25, 2017 · 1 min read

Recently I started playing chess, mainly online. It was quite addictive, you can keep playing game after game. There are millions of players. Every win gives that extra Dopamine surge which makes you to play another game. Every loss, makes you get a fix by winning again. So the cycle escalated, until I started loosing sleep…

I also have propensity for Generalized Anxiety Disorder and OCD. What I did realize is that when I started playing Chess, both of these sky rocketed by 10X. The neural networks which are active during OCD/GAD (anticipating what may go wrong, constantly worrying for the next possible anxious moment) are possibly re-strengthened while Chess. The same anxiety processing neural networks are used and strengthened while playing Chess. “What will be the next move of the opponent”, “What can go wrong”, “Oh, Did I make a wrong move just now” etc.,

I finally quit Chess and mainly online Chess for good. My mental calmness increased. Some people say playing chess makes them calm. But I think it depends on your genetic predisposition. What kind of neural networks have you inherited? Are you predisposed towards anxiety?

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