Tetris is a magical game. Not only can it wipe out bad memories, but a new study in the journal Appetite found that it can even help stop food cravings.
The study set up two groups of participants: one who played Tetris and the other who waited for a computer program to load that never finished loading (been there, my friends). Afterwards, both subjects were asked to rate their cravings with the Tetris players reporting 24 percent weaker cravings.
The reason for the lower cravings, said Skorka-Brown and her colleagues, is that Tetris is a fast-moving visual game that requires attention to shapes and positions. That distracts the part of the brain that produces imagery of the thing you crave and therefore makes it harder to crave. It's an aspect of the game that anyone can test.
Next time you play Tetris, try to visualize a friend's face," said Andrade. It's not easy to do without your game suffering.
So the next time you're bored and just itching for a brownie, try playing a quick game like Tetris to try and stave them off. Read more about the study at the link below, or read the full study here.
Playing Tetris Stops Food Cravings | Discovery News
Image by Connor Lawless.