Esports, just like any other sports, poses a risk to the health of its players. Conventional sports players tend to suffer physical injuries in various body parts like hand, leg, wrist or back. It is understandable as sports players often flex their muscles and push themselves past their limits.
However, Esports players compete in another different way where they don’t have to break a sweat in a marathon contest or any track and field event. Esports athletes seem to deal more with intellectual matters where players have to strain every nerve to outsmart the opponent.
With that, Esports players seem to suffer more mental problems than sports players. Let’s see what are the most common problems Esports athletes have to deal with and what are the best ways to handle them
1) Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and wrist injuries
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is a serious hand and arm condition that affect your performance. It causes pain, numbness, and tingling in the hand and arm. It happens mostly due to the harmful habit of using your hand too much in a repetitive fashion.
Spending too much time clicking your mouse or keyboard can cause the condition. Sometimes, you need to wind down and your hand get some rest and recover from tiring exercises. It should be once after an hour when you can sit up and take some minutes off gaming.
Wrist injuries can be a serious problem for FPS players in games like PUBG or CS:GO. It happened to many CS:GO pros like Olof "olofmeister" Kajbjer, Ladislav 'GuardiaN' Kovács and seriously affected their career. Some players tend to ignore early symptoms of wrist injuries until it harms their performance significantly. Wrist injuries should not be taken too lightly. If you feel any sign of wrist injuries, come to a doctor for advice and fix it before it is too late.
2) Lung and breathing problems
These are often due to the bad habit of playing games in a closed area. Gamers tend to enjoy their favorite games in their private corner to avoid distraction and disturbing others. However, little do they know a closed area seriously harm their health especially the human respiratory system.
Moreover, Esports players tend to take instant food as they are handy and quick to serve. The bad news is that instant food often lacks vital nutrient to nurture the body. Also, the bad body posture when playing games can contribute to a bad habit, even swayback - a condition in which the spine curves significantly inward at the lower back.
Esports players should consider good ventilation in their playing ground to make sure the environment they are playing in can provide enough oxygen. Also, to lead a healthy life and ensure the best performance, Esports athletes should also take regular exercises to enhance their physical as well as mental strength.
3) Performance-enhancing drugs
This is yet another serious problem with Sports as a whole. As you are competing against others and when money is involved, many people may take extreme measures to win. That is both legally and morally unacceptable for sports athletes.
For the sportsmanship, we should stay away from illegal drugs and lead a healthy life. A victory only means something when we strive our best to claim it, not playing fault or with the help of drugs. That is the ultimate goal of sports as a whole, to promote the competition and the effort all the competitors have put into it.
4) Mental fatigue and motivation issue
In a world where Esports is striving to get accepted as regular sports, it may sometimes be quite a pain for Esports players to receive criticism from society. As in regions where Esports has yet to leave its mark, people often falsely label Esports as merely playing video games.
Moreover, young Esports players may have an even harder time to make an income out of their career. Without much success, some Esports athletes may at times doubt their choice of career and lose motivation. As such, following the path of an Esports player requires a tremendous amount of patience and dedication.
One more aspect to it is the long hours of practice Esports athletes often spend. Esports can be even more intense than regular sports where players can spend up to 12-16 hours a day to practice. It may burn out a lot of physical and mental energy and exhaust Esports players before they even knew it.
The answer to the problem is to balance their life. Esports players need to balance between practice and relax. They should spend some time to wind down between training sessions and get enough rest. Also, encouragement and cheering from the family could be a good source of motivation for everyone.
5) Insufficient nutrition and fitness
As well as strong mental health, physical fitness is elemental to the good performance of Esports players. As mentioned above, Esports players tend to neglect their nutrition supplement and settle for instant food. Moreover, after spending too much time training, they often lack time for regular exercises.
This could be fixed easily by a more healthy lifestyle. Distribute your time well to balance between training and resting to ensure you have enough time to catch a breath. Also, try to cook and eat more vegetable and consume less instant food. The fiber in vegetables is really good and beneficial to your health.
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