Emerging from Lockdown 102: Banishing the brain fog

Here’s what has happened over the last year. To your brain.

One, you have been starved of stimulus. To a greater or lesser degree. You’ve had less dopamine, less oxytocin, less social interaction. Less sunlight, less exercise, less of every neuro-transmitter that helps regulate mood and happiness.

Two, you have mainlined cortisol. Our brains produce cortisol as part of our fight flight response. Great when the danger is that sabertooth tiger ready to pounce as we hunted mammoth across the great land bridge that joined Prehistoric Britain to Europe. Less good when Hy Brasil has long since sunk below the waves and our enemy is a virus we cannot see or hear.

This has been our lot for a year – punctuated by occasional bouts of soon to be dashed hope.

Cortisol activates your blood sugar. It turns your glucose stores into ready to run muscle meals. And then it tells you to eat the fuck out of any sugar you might have lying around, just in case.

What do you think of when you think of people living under persistent threat of death? People in a warzone. People in the trenches, survivors of disasters and abuse. And your body has been living on it, atrophying the other parts – swapping out the brain stuff you aren’t using like an organic computer might. Dump the social skills and the small talk routines. You are in solitary now.

Do you know how long you can survive in isolation? Well, because as a species we frequently torture and imprison each other, this is something we know. Anything more than two weeks of solitary confinement is considered psychological torture under the Mandela doctrines. After that, there is a danger of lasting psychological damage.

Mental illness.

Of course, if you were a child, or already suffered from mental illness, any amount of isolation is considered a torture. And you had over a year of it. So, the chances are you are one of the 50% of people suffering from poor mental health. It used to be one in four. Now its one in two. Chances are that’s you.

What are the signifiers? well, brain fog is one. Over eating? Under eating? anxiety? disrupted sleep patterns. The problem with mental health is that causes can be effects and vice versa. Have you noticed a change in somebody’s behaviour during this pandemic? Well, yes. We all have. Because it is all of us.

First the bad news. There was virtually no mental health support anywhere before the pandemic. We were all pretty shit at identifying when folks needed help, and then we were even shitter – as a society – at getting them it. It’s not actually OK to not be OK. Is this who I am now? No. No its not. Most folks with depression don’t reach out for help. We call it a spiral for a reason. It traps you in its ever decreasing circle and its down down to goblin town. Depression is solipsistic, it locks you in to that spiral.

“Just reach out – somebody is always listening!” That’s what we tell ourselves. Tell each other. So long as we don’t tell everyone to ‘man up’ we’ll all be fixed. So long as we can all express our emotions. Well, depressives are like Vulcans. And we are often too busy internalising that negative shit while we spiral to spend time messaging folks about our problems.

I get it – that’s a whole load of fucking bad news. But here’s the good. Playing games is good.

Games are intellectual, not emotional. A lot of the people I know can play games even when they are spiralling. We can roll dice and move counters around a table. The emotion aspect is what happens when we play a game. We are getting that oxytocin hit from company, that dopamine hit from actually doing a thing, that serotonin hit if we have to head to a store to do it, and maybe some endorphins.

Games are a ladder out of the pit of isolation. A lifebelt in the black cold sea of loneliness. They are ephemeral and pointless and stupid. But that means they are everything that humans need. Once you throw in some snacks. Maybe a drink.

Games are a hug in a box, the promise of happier times and good company and the sweet, sweet joy of winning. As we take our first steps out of lockdown, every game store in the world is under threat. Amazon likes you in a box, isolated and alone.

When I was at Travelling Man we noticed that people who played games regularly bought less – they could touch base with their hobby by doing, rather than just by consuming. Little wonder that Jeff Bezos wants brick and mortar retail dead.

Now, people will tell you that you can socialise without games. there are hundreds of bright bars and pubs where you can binge drink to your hearts content. But alcohol is rarely a great cure for depression, and your anxiety may well spike in a busy, noisy, aggressively social space.

And again, that’s where games come in.

They are an excuse in a box, a reason to hang out with friends, something we can all talk about without the baggage. Something we can do to forget our lives and our troubles, if only for a few hours. But that’s enough, to reconnect. To make the memories that remind us in the dark days ahead, that we love and are loved. There is a hug in every box and happiness waiting in every foil booster.

And this?

This is why we fight. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. In all of us. Every game store. Every game. Every gamer.