Overwatch is a mind game, requiring a high level of acuity. Since your mind and body are connected, if your body isn't healthy, your mind will not be healthy and vice versa. This will cause you to not play up to your potential due to you not being healthy in one area or the other. This article will discuss why your mind and body must both be taken care of in order to succeed in Overwatch.

Physical Health:

Firstly, this article discusses how to take better care of your physical body and what can happen if you don't. If you are like most competitive Overwatch players such as myself, you probably game for long hours a day, but you should try to take short breaks. It only takes a few moments about every 15-30 minutes to stand up, get out of your chair and move around in order to avoid stagnation of the muscles and other body strains. It is not difficult, all you have to do is stand up, walk around, take a stretch break, and maybe do some jumping jacks. You don't have to start intensive exercise or anything like that in order to escape injury. Just be consistent, doing this every 4 hours will not be as effective as doing it every 15 minutes. Adverse effects of sitting too long without taking breaks include: damage to your posture, pressure on your spine which can cause back problems, sciatic nerve damage, muscle atrophy causing you to walk more stiffly, and a host of other physical problems. Human bodies were not created to sit in a chair for hours at a time, but if you put in minimal effort, you can prevent potential physical damage. You can't get to grandmaster if you have problems with your back, so you should take breaks often.

Eyesight:

Another very important part of your physical health that you must protect is your eyesight. Obviously, your eyes are needed for almost everything in your daily life, including Overwatch. That said, you should want to protect them as best you can. Just as before, protecting your eyes is very simple. One way is to just look away from your monitor, or go outside and give your eyes a break from all the strain that your monitor puts on them. Things such as: blue light, LED backlight, and the simple fact of focusing on a monitor 1-2 feet in front of you can be harmful to your eyesight if you don't give your eyes short breaks. When you take breaks, try to look at something in the distance so you can relax the focusing muscle in your eye and reduce fatigue. Interestingly, there are exercises you can do with your eyes as well! Whenever you are taking a break, blink 10 times as if you were falling sleep and it will help you rewet your eyes, or something more basic is to just sit at a fair distance from your monitor to reduce eyestrain. If you prefer not to do any exercises, then there is still a way to prevent eye damage. You could get some gaming glasses, which reduce eye strain, block the blue light that you receive from your monitor screen, and can protect your vision. All of these are great ways to keep your eyes safe.

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Wrist:

Wrist injuries also tend to be very common in pro gamers and regular players. The cause of this seems to be from holding your hand at an odd angle on your keyboard and the constant clicking of your index finger on the mouse while moving it around speedily with your thumb. This causes tension, swelling, and agitation in your wrist. Once again, you can easily prevent damage just by taking breaks and doing simple exercises. When you are waiting to find a competitive match, take the chance to stretch out your wrists or massage them. Also, if you have free time waiting for a game, you should flex and extend your fingers. If you want to stretch your wrist just grab your fingers with your other hand, and pull them back and forward softly for about 30 seconds each. Another exercise that you can do is similar to this, except when your arms are extended, spin your hand in circles, which will stretch your wrists. Lastly, you can also stretch your wrist by shaking your hands as if they were wet, and this makes your wrists feel refreshed.

Sitting in a chair and staring at a screen for hours will adversely affect your health if you don’t take precautions. Your eyes, muscles, and nerves will be affected, which in turn will also affect your Overwatch gameplay. You won't be able to concentrate, or play as good as you usually do, and you will become frustrated. It is important to take care of your physical health not only to prevent damage to your body, but also so that you can succeed in Overwatch.

Mental Health:

Now that you know why keeping your body physically healthy is important, what about your mind?Playing Overwatch or any competitive sport, can be extremely stressful. So just like you take breaks to help your body, you must take breaks to help your mind as well. You need to give your body and brain rest so they can cool down and rejuvenate. It is always a smart idea to take a break after a very intense or frustrating game. If you get extremely upset after playing a frustrating Overwatch match, go take a break. Try to go do something else that you enjoy for 15 minutes such as: have a snack, get some fresh air, read a book, listen to music, anything that will relax your mind and release your anger in a positive way A lot of people take competitive Overwatch very seriously, and if you are one of them, you need to let your mind rest by taking constant breaks.

Once again, all of this can only benefit you. If you are super tilted from a game but keep on playing, you are just going to get more angry and you will eventually hit rock bottom. Not only will it affect your gameplay, but it will also affect your mental health. Stress can do a lot of damage to your body and mind. It can make you more prone to having random angry outbursts, and that explains why some people can be so toxic. Overall, it causes you to be more irritable and angry, and that is not healthy for your mind and improving in Overwatch. Remember, only you can control your anger. If you start feeling angry, just remind yourself that Overwatch is not just an esport, it is also a game that is supposed to be fun whether you win or lose.

Positivity:

Lastly, another thing that could help your mental health and Overwatch gameplay is positivity. Having a positive attitude is an essential characteristic for improving in Overwatch. It will also prevent you from becoming angry or stressed. If your team or teammate makes a mistake, don’t blame them for it, instead you should constructively point out it out to them, but then tell them not to worry about it and focus on winning together. This can increase the overall happiness of the team and will help you and your team play better. But if something happens like your Reinhardt accidentally let his shield down and D.Va's ult kill you, and you bash him the entire game for it, it will only decrease the chances of your team winning and will make the team's mood gloomy. No one likes a toxic player.

If you just finish a competitive game where you got steam-rolled, try to find the positive things in it. Maybe you can learn a thing or two from the other team by thinking back and understanding what they did better, and what you could have done differently, rather than flaming your team. If you adopt this attitude, you will see how much happier you and your team will be, and how much smoother your games go.

Hopefully, this article will encourage you to stay healthy and improve your mental acuity. Remember, playing Overwatch can be tons of fun, but your health comes first and you must preserve it as best as you can because if your health is affected, it will also affect you in Overwatch. You can't play Overwatch if you have a hurt wrist, injured back or horrible vision. In short, always exercise, take breaks, and be positive in order to stay healthy and improve your Overwatch skills.