My favorite game.. nay, just favorite.. thing, in the whole world, has now been proven to help ease the possibility of a person receiving post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) flashbacks. Tetris.

When people get into accidents so horrible that they relive these moments later in life. You have people who went to war and seen graphic acts in front of them, a tragic car accident, even a bad acid trip can cause PTSD.

Doctors have found that the six hours coming directly after said events are the most important, as that is when the memories of the incident are being put into your memory. What the use of Tetris does, is interfere with those moments. As Ed Young explains:

Tetris, it seems, makes an ideal choice for that. To position its rotating blocks, players need good “visuospatial skills” – they need to see, focus on, and act upon the positions of different objects, all at high speed. These are the same sort of mental abilities that provide the foundations for flashback images.

A test was done with 40 subjects, showing them graphic things, even a drowning (*shivers*). Later, half the subjects played Tetris while the other half waited. The subjects were then given tests on how much they remembered from the video, where the Tetris players remembered less than half of what was shown.

What does this all mean? Well, don’t be surprised if you are passed a controller while in the hospital after a big accident, just try and play as best you can. And, don’t bug me if you see me carrying my Gameboy and Tetris with me at all times, I’m just prepared for the worst at all times (or at least now I have that excuse).

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