Kill Cravings by Letting Video Games Hijack Your Visual Cortex

Jane McGonigal: If you have a craving — it could be for junk food; it may be for a cigarette — there’s a really effective way to diminish it using games. Multiple studies have shown that playing a game like Tetris or Candy Crush Saga can actually, within three minutes, reduce your craving by 25 to 50 percent in our latest study. And here’s how it works. When you have a craving, you’re really imagining the thing that you’re craving. It’s vivid in your mind’s eye. You’re picturing it what it’ll feel like when you eat it or when you get what you want. The more vividly you imagine it in your mind’s eye, the stronger the craving. Well if you play a video game that really preoccupies the visual processing center of your brain, then your brain can’t picture the thing you’re craving. So if you pick a game that has very intense visuals, but kind of visuals that when you walk away from the game and close your eyes you’ll still see the puzzle pieces falling or you’ll be having flashbacks to the candy color pieces swapping, that’s the kind of game that has been shown in studies to effectively reduce cravings and even though, you know, 25 to 50 percent craving — it doesn’t take it away completely. But studies have shown that that is enough to help you really make a smarter choice. It gives your willpower a fighting chance just to get that little bit of reduction.