Should You Quit Games Cold Turkey?

One of the most popular questions I get is about whether you should quit playing video games cold turkey or whether you should just slowly reduce your time?

Find out what I think here:

So in my experience I quit playing games cold turkey and was successful for over 11 months before I relapsed, and ended up playing 16 hours a day for five months straight before I quit cold turkey once again for good.

The reason cold turkey worked so well for me was because I knew I wanted to move on from games, so continuing to play or reduce my time was merely a way for me to procrastinate what I really wanted to do.

If this is the case for you, sometimes you just need to step up and rip the bandaid off. Games for me were a crutch so it wasn’t going to benefit me at all to continue playing them when I already knew what I really wanted to do.

Since I knew I wanted to quit and move on, it made the most sense for me to give myself the best shot possible to be successful, and I took this notion of setting myself up for success seriously.

I chose new activities, I scheduled your day and I stayed out of the house as much as possible.

Now I know that’s not the case for everybody, so here’s what I recommend:

1. If you are someone who wants to quit, then you need to recognize that what you’re really debating isn’t whether you should quit cold turkey or not, and instead you’re debating whether you’re ready to commit to moving forward in your life.

In my experience, the moment you’re ready is the moment you just say fuck it and go for it. There’s no real way around it.

2. If you are someone who doesn’t want to quit but wants to reduce your time, I think it’s valuable to go through the 90 day game quitters detox, where you take 90 days off games and then re-evaluate whether you want to play again or not.

The reason for this is because games cause structural changes to your brain, and by giving yourself the 90 day detox you allow your brain the time it needs to re-calibrate and for your “gaming fog” to lessen.

Now that your gaming fog has lessened you will have more clarity to make the decision you genuinely want to make.

The other benefit of doing the 90 day detox is that it gives you a chance to experience what life looks like without games, which is something you may or may not have experienced in a long time (if ever.)

During this time you will learn a lot more about yourself and your relationship to gaming. Plus, if you can’t go 90 days without games you probably shouldn’t be playing anyways.

So those are some things to think about, hope that helps!