Official News page 9

REAL LIFE NEWS: SEE, I TOLD YOU TETRIS WAS GOOD FOR ME...

by Hazed

Once upon a time I was obsessed by the game Tetris. I played it all the time. I dreamed about little colored blocks falling from the sky. It practically took over my life. Well, the bits of my life when I wasn't playing Fed!

Eventually I grew out of it and found new things to obsess over. But recently I found a version of the game that runs in an Excel spreadsheet. At last, some good use for a spreadsheet! It reminded me all over again how much I used to enjoy playing Tetris.

Now researchers say that playing Tetris can help reduce the effects of traumatic stress. Volunteers were exposed to distressing images, and some of them were given the game to play 30 minutes later. The game players had fewer "flashbacks", and scientists think this may be because playing the game helped to disrupt the laying down of memories.

It certainly sounds plausible! You can read more about this experiment and the conclusions that can be drawn from it in this BBC News story.

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