How To Treat Your DOTA Addiction
Although more people are being made aware of video game addiction as a serious condition, those who suffer from it sometimes struggle to find the help and useful advice they need. So, here are the most effective treatment methods for overcoming an addiction to Dota.
Detoxing from Dota
When we say detoxing from Dota we mean taking a break from Dota and all video game-related content for an extended period. We usually recommend 90 days as this is the right amount of time to allow our brains to recover from the chemical imbalances excessive gaming has caused.
Also taking a break from video games is usually what the addict needs to get some perspective on life without video games. It’s very likely that someone addicted to Dota has forgotten what life was like without it. People who complete a detox and discover other pleasures in life outside of gaming often don’t want to return as they have other interests and don’t want to ruin the progress they have made.
Members of our gaming addiction program that complete the detox explain that they feel a reduction in their addictive symptoms by 3 weeks in. Users that complete our course of video game addiction treatment report that they have improvements in many areas of their life such as relationships, motivation, physical health, general mood and energy.
So we strongly urge that you cut out Dota and all other video games for a 90 day period to help get your life back on track.
Finding Alternative Activities
Obviously cutting out the video game responsible for your addiction is easier said than done. But there are a few things that we can do in order to make it easier. The main option we recommend for anyone cutting out video games is to find alternative activities to gaming. When a person cuts out video games that they would likely play for 8 hours on the trot it’s clear that they will be left with a lot of free time.
Often when the individual spends their free time doing nothing it leads to boredom, frustration and ultimately relapse back to playing video games. In order to avoid this, we recommend that you find a different activity for each type of stimulation that gaming offers.
As we mentioned earlier, that would be measurable growth, social interaction and relaxation.
Activities for Measurable Growth – Try taking up things like coding, musical instruments or your favourite sport. These offer great opportunities to see similar growth the way we like to see improvements in video games.
Social Interaction – Activities like joining a dance class, martial arts gym or team sports provide a social setting to meet and connect with other people who are like-minded. Cutting out video games can also mean cutting out a lot of friends you only knew through gaming so this can help us to build new valuable relationships outside of gaming.
Relaxing Activities – Gaming is certainly low energy and easily accessible which is why it makes such a great relaxation activity. However, some great alternatives are things like reading, drawing, or even cooking a simple dish.
Substituting these activities for the different times we feel like playing video games can help prevent us from relapsing back into playing video games again.
CBT For Gaming Addiction
CBT stands for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and it is one of the most effective methods of treating video game addiction. The primary focus of CBT is to change the negative thoughts that lead to us playing video games into healthier alternatives.
This is primarily done through various meditations, exercises and thought experiments that help us to reduce the impact of our addictive urges. These exercises can be carried out during in-person therapy, using guided audio lessons or on your own when you get really good at them.
CBT is extremely effective in treating many other mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety and OCD. The techniques included help to generally increase the quality of life of many of its users, so its applications are far-reaching.
So, here is one exercise we can do to get us started. This exercise is called Self-Affirming Statements and they are used to counteract negative thoughts.
We recommend that you use a pen and paper or even keep a journal if you like to be more organised. Every time that we begin to feel overwhelmed or plagued by negative thoughts we should pick up our journal and write down a self-affirmation that counteracts the negative thoughts we are having, one at a time.
More often than not our negative thoughts are inaccurate, unrealistic or plain and simply wrong. So this activity should help us to change them to more positive modes of thinking. For instance, if you begin to feel thoughts like “I am worthless, I have no accomplishments” We need to write down statements such as “I am a person with worth and potential” By writing these affirmations down we help to remember and solidify their place in our mind.
So whenever you begin to feel any negative thoughts or cravings creeping in be sure to give this a try!
If you feel like you’ve been playing too much Dota or any other video game. The Mindful Gamer is always here to help with your goals to quit or cut down.
