Stress Relief

Stress and one method of stress relief.

By Brad Hoepfner 

In architecture school and life in general we are plagued by different forms of stress. These stressors can range from relationship issues to project due dates and each person will take in these stressors in a different way than everyone else. If any of you know me in general, I always try to be relaxed and enjoy life despite the harsh reality architecture school. During undergrad here at SIU my girlfriend would become stressed out for me because I was always so relaxed.

Controlling stress levels is definitely a challenge when it comes to the individual. The purpose of this blog entry is to tell you and show you one big way that I relieve stress. My secret is videogames, they have become a unique way for me to let out built-up emotions and vent my rage. Over the past 15 years I have heard only the negatives that arise from video games. From children imitating violent actions to suicidal actions, appear on the news sources over and over again. When in reality most of these statistics cannot be pinned down to videogames alone. On the other hand, videogames can really test your hand-eye coordination, your reaction times, use of peripheral vision, teamwork, leadership, and communication skills. To me, all of these skills should be extremely important to us as students and professionals.

There are of course many types of videogames. They range from first person shooting games to professional sport games and they are becoming extraordinarily realistic. Personally, I have focused most of my videogame interests on shooting games and role playing games and playing these types of games online with millions of other players around the world. Playing these types give me goals to complete, other players to defeat, and matches to win. Also, in these game types, they try to create magnificent scenery and architectural forms that could be easily be used as precedent studies in architectural research. So not only do I get to figuratively shoot people I keep my mind thinking, quickly moving, and analyzing everything around me. These and other reasons let my mind relax and dump some of the stresses of real life.

Videogames have created a new type of sporting network as well, called Esports. Over the past 7 years these esports have become extremely popular globally. League of Legends and other games similar to it host live gaming events with large prize pools of over $5 million per year and this number will continue to grow in upcoming years. The live gaming events have skyrocketed in viewers and consistently have more viewers than most major league baseball games. This gives kids and adults a chance to succeed, in life, where in the past could have never been possible.

So overall, videogames have become a huge part of our current culture and will continue to grow and expand. I use them as a break from the difficult world of architecture school. I would love to expand on any one of these topics mentioned in this post because there is really a lot more to videogames than meets the eye. So if you get a chance this semester, sit down with some friends and turn on the Xbox for a few hours and see what they may offer you. The image attached could be one example of how games may have influenced design in architecture school and may even become realistic in the near future.