How Years of Gaming Weakens Brain's Ability to Problem Solve | Executive Dysfunction

really like to talk to dr k about executive dysfunction and how to conquer it as it has been the most crippling effect caused by my mental illness and has essentially made life progress progress near impossible in many respects and yet this is a topic that seems to go often untalked about in any sort of detail especially in any sort of solutionary respect i've even struggled to get my therapist to talk about it with me perhaps that is because i have also found that those who don't deal with this issue have an especially difficult time understanding it as well it is hard for them to grasp the idea of feeling like you are literally unable to force yourself to take an action and i get it because i deal with it every day and i still find it hard to understand how it can be this way i too often wonder why can't i just do it like everybody else from my point of view it is a bad enough having to battle my mind but it is torturous not being able to hardly ever just get myself to do some sort of work or even a fun hobby to help myself through it on top of that and it is very hard for me to find purpose in myself or work on other parts of my life and mental health as well when i can't actually manage to hardly get myself to do simple or even fun tasks let alone those more important purposeful ones so basically it feels like i'm constantly stuck in a solitary prison and given nothing to do other than sit and look out through the bars to see all the things that i enjoy and want need to take part in but can't okay this is a great question so the first question is what is executive dysfunction we have a part of our brain called the frontal lobes which plan and execute tasks okay so what this means is that the example that we're going to use to explain executive dysfunction is i have a three-year-old and i have a five-year-old if i tell my five-year-old to clean up the room she can do it if i tell my three-year-old to clean up the room she's gonna feel like she just can't do it right so then what i have to do is i have to tell my three-year-old okay let's put the books away and the three-year-old can do that i can tell let's put the toys away but she can do that let's put the stuffed animals away she can do that she can put the ipad away she can put the controller away she can put her bowl away but she needs me to structure those tasks together to take like to reach an abstract goal okay so executive function is the ability to plan and execute tasks so if i think about something like finding a job that requires a lot of executive function right so it requires me to think about okay like what are the steps involved and execute on those tasks so the first thing to understand about executive function is that it improves with age and your executive function kind of uh you know reaches its full potential it's somewhere between the age ages of 30 and 32 and this has to do with frontal lobe development so the first issue for this person is depending on how old you are things may get better for you as you get older i'm not saying that it's sufficient now like you can't really bank on that right like you can't like if you're a high school student with poor executive function you can't wait until you're 30 to do high school so that's the first thing just to reassure you guys that you will get better at this over time until the age of 30 to 32. the second thing that i found is that executive function tends to get negatively impacted by playing video games i know it sounds kind of weird but if you spend a lot of time playing video games what video games essentially do is like do the executive function for you okay i know it sounds weird but like think about this so i've been playing genji impact recently right so like i don't have the the game sort of tells me what i need to do like if you play world of warcraft or genji impact or whatever i don't have to plan out i mean sort of people do in genshin impact but you know if you play a particular video game the game tells you okay the next step you need to do is this the next step you need to do is this the next step you need to do is this like if i if i take ff7 for example like ff7 doesn't start off in the first 10 minutes and say hey beat sephiroth and then you have to construct how to get from where you are to like beat sephiroth at the end sure you know he's the bad guy and you know he's the end goal but gideo video games give you the steps okay so the problem that people with executive function have or dysfunction have is that they don't they're not their brains are not able to plan out and execute each step of the task so if we think about like you know planning and execution what someone with a good executive function can do is like plan out the steps they understand that okay if i need to clean my room these are the six things that need to happen so what people with executive function experience is paralysis around goals so what that means is like they know like the three-year-old theoretically knows what a clean room looks like and if i ask her like what in the room looks dirty she can tell me that so what's really frustrating about people with executive dysfunction is that they're they have insight into um their dysfunction but what's incredibly frustrating about this is that despite the insight it doesn't actually change your brain and allow your brain to actually do it so you like the three-year-old can understand what a clean room looks like can understand that her room is dirty but that abstract level understanding is not the same as the frontal lobes being able to chunk down that task so really what executive function is is the ability to take one task and like chunk it into pieces right so when i plan and execute like here's find a job or clean a room and it's it's being able like this process is what's messed up with executive dysfunction okay and understanding it insight into it is not the same it's the ability to like think through what what to do so another example is like you know sometimes we'll have like let's say like you're having you're hosting a party so people who have like people who are event planners have really good executive dis uh function so like they like plan out this big task let's throw a wedding this has to get done this has to get done this has to get done this has to get done so they're very good like very organized so the problem with executive dysfunction is that we aren't able to like figure out how to chunk up a task and execute on it and it feels incredibly paralyzing because our brain is literally not able to do this so if we think about how you know how do you start on a task that's too big you can't so this is why people feel paralyzed because if the task is too big you literally cannot do it like i can't like if i were to tell you you know win a nobel prize like how do you even start with that like that's crazy like you may be able to theoretically map out what needs to be done but you can't actually break it apart into like it's subsequent pieces and actually execute on it so then the question is what to do about executive function about executive dysfunction actually and this is where there are a couple of things to recognize so when people um have paralysis and executive dysfunction there are a couple of different components so when you're paralyzed towards a behavior there are three things that i'd like to talk about the first is operationalize so what this means is like there's actually a formal process that you can get trained in to do this so this is what we call operationalizing problems um in in gamer terminology so like back when we did a lot of work with gamers i know we still do a lot of work with gamers but i used to do a lot of work specifically around video game addiction and what i would teach people is how to change an open-ended problem so this is something like win nobel prize or find a job into a close-ended problem so what that means is to essentially go through the process of converting an abstract thing into like a discrete quest goal so like forget about the quest chain we're gonna like because we can't map out the quest chain so or actually what we're gonna do is we're gonna take a goal and we're gonna map it on to what we call a quest chain and then the quest chain will have discrete pieces so this is called operationalizing problems which gamers are bad at the really interesting thing is that gamers are actually better than the average population at this piece so if you give a gamer a very discreet task and you give them an end goal and you give them all the pieces they will actually outperform regular people when it comes to doing that task so this is a real scenario okay i was taking a class at harvard business school and in the in the class at harvard business school we were given a case and we were told to solve this problem about how to optimize flow through a urology clinic literally i was swamped at the time so i logged onto discord and i was like hey do you guys want to help me with this and i just uploaded this harvard business school case to group of my degenerate gamer friends and the next day they like came up with like four or five solutions i went into class two days later i had the solutions for my gamer buddies and they're like how what do you do and i was like hey this is what i'm going to do and the professor is like that's brilliant no understanding of medicine no understanding of mba stuff no understanding of any of that crap if you give them a close-ended task and give them the parameters gamers are good at this gamers are bad at this so if you have a problem with executive dysfunction the first thing that you need to do is learn how to turn this into this so that's called operationalizing problems there's a there's a actually an exercise that we share in dr k's guide so we talk a lot about this in dr k's guide but i'll share the exercise with you now so this is what i tell people who have um executive dysfunction like as a therapist what i'll say is pretend you are paralyzed from the the neck down and pretend you have a servant who will do exactly what you tell them to do what would you how would you tell them to like accomplish this task so in the terms of like finding a job it's like you're paralyzed you like literally have to tell them go to my computer log in open a web browser do a google search for jobs available in you know washington dc what do you see there okay then do this then do this then do this and what i find with with people who have executive dysfunction is that when you really like work them through that process they will actually be able to like execute on tasks so the first thing is operationalizing problems second problem with executive dysfunction is frustration and emotions a lot of people with executive dysfunction also have adhd or the other way around so people with adhd have trouble like with executive function okay so this is the really interesting thing is that i find that when you're paralyzed towards behavior there's like a practical component to it but there's also this component of like feeling so damn dumb and feeling so damn incompetent and frustrated with yourself that it actually negatively impacts your behavior because if we think about like what promotes behavior right so like it's not frustration and negative emotion it's like inspiration and confidence so what people with executive dysfunction literally have to do in order to improve their dysfunction is digest these emotions so we'll do therapy around this because any time you're thinking about taking a behavior right like so if i have an idea and then i want to take an action what goes in here what is this composed of it's composed of operationalizing and then there's going to be like there's going to be good emotions and there's going to be bad emotions right so there's like a war between my good emotions and my bad emotions in terms of whether i take the action or not if i think i'm going to fail if like you know if i think i'm good at it like if i feel confident then i'll take the action so that those are a couple of pieces that go into it okay so we're paralyzed towards the behavior we have to learn how to operationalize we have to learn how to like deal with our negative emotions and frustration i think generally speaking i just do two things with them so we tend to get to processing their negative emotions and then we operationalize problems and we use that exercise and that tends to be actually like the way that you deal with executive dysfunction and the third thing to to remember is that over time you will actually improve okay yeah so people are talking about meditation absolutely so you can also do meditation right so the uh it's that's good thank you chat see chad is learning so if we talk about strengthening your frontal lobes meditation actually strength strengthens your mpfc your medial prefrontal cortex which is going to be like a big part of what we want to talk about when it comes to operationalizing problems i think another thing that we want to talk a little bit about is you have to be careful about the thoughts that keep you from starting so this is also like another cognitive skill that you can learn so anytime someone has this is related to the emotions but like if you think about problems with operationalizing like this is where the what-ifs happen right we were talking about the what-ifs earlier what if you know so a lot of thoughts that keep you from starting this kind of has to do a little bit with like procrastination so sometimes like you know perfection can actually keep you paralyzed as well like you want to do it perfect you don't want to like get a b so you're not even gonna try for until you're sure you can get an a you're not even gonna you'd rather have an f than a 10 or 90 chance for an a right you want a 100 chance of an a or an f so this is where there are particular like psychological complexes or cognitive things which you can actually work on these are almost like some scars so we talk about a couple of these in dr k's guides i'll try to you know map more stuff out but when it comes to solving executive dysfunction it gets better with time you have to learn how to operationalize which you can practically do deal with the negative emotions that keep you from acting you can absolutely meditate and then the fourth thing is that you know there are particular thoughts there are particular other challenges that arise which have specific solutions to them questions about executive function does it degrade after the age of 32 not really is it different from motivational issues no so so here's the problem there's no sanskrit word for motivation so motivation i think is one of the worst words in the english language because it lumps together all of these disparate processes under like one term it's like and so the problem like if you look at like solutions to motivation like if you do a google search for like solutions to motivation you will find a million websites with a bunch of people who will sell you their product for like how to get more motivated and we're guilty of that too the problem is like if they're all these solutions to motivation like why isn't everyone super motivated none of them work why don't they work because it's a problem of misdiagnosis motivational problems could be adhd it could be executive dysfunction it could be trauma it could be like a lack of clarity of goal it could be that you're not motivated because it's something you should do instead of something that you care about there are all kinds of like nuances to motivation it's actually a a bunch of different neuroscientific psychological and spiritual problems and the way that i help motivate people is because like i don't call it motivation it's like what's your actual problem so you could look at someone with executive dysfunction you could say this problem has a problem this person has a problem with motivation but they're absolutely they can't act when they want to act right that's what motivation is but if you look at it like their actual problem is not a lack of motivation that's a symptom their problem is is executive dysfunction and so in that way a lack of motivation has a differential diagnosis that includes a lot of different things you

Channel: HealthyGamerGG

Views: 363,471

Rating: 4.9149013 out of 5

Keywords: mental health, drk, dr kanojia, healthygamergg, healthy gamer gg, twitch, psychiatrist

Id: LojDvrwBcUU

Length: 16min 52sec (1012 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 01 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Playistheway]

To the best of my knowledge, there is no empirical evidence that years of gaming damages the brain's ability to problem-solve (or that it undermines executive function in any way). I feel that this video is Dr. K's opinion rather than fact.

Studies investigating video games and executive function actually show that video games can benefit executive function on multiple different subconstructs including improved decision making and problem-solving.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563214007468

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0885201418301035

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-28656-001

https://europepmc.org/article/med/26761562

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563214002672

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2006-22378-008

[u/universalengn]

I have this but it's due to severe physical pain - some of which isn't treatable yet, other parts may be treatable but no one in the Canadian/Ontario health care system cares to make it urgent, even though it has me very suicidal - so in a torture state fighting that, meanwhile if I was physically bleeding out I would get immediate/urgent attention - and so I am stuck doing so very little, as much as I can, to try to organize appointments and then to just wait. I tried organize new treatments/care in the US, even went there for 2 weeks, but MRI imaging didn't arrive and I was stuck/unable to decide to OK the $3,000 USD per MRI they wanted to do (in hindsight I realized that with US system that likely can/gets negotiated down greatly but otherwise that added stress further blocked my executive function/decision making) - and so no diagnostics or treatment options were done. I have appointment July 6th in Toronto where maybe they will do a corticosteroid injection for my right hip as a diagnostic injection, but where I don't think it will help much, and the piriformis syndrome that I believe is 1 of 2 main causes of pain (eye pain after LASIK being the primary source of sensitizing/overwhelming/disrupting my nervous system) I won't be able to find, nor will they find or expedite to find an orthopedic surgeon who actually does the relatively minor surgery to release the sciatic nerve so it's no longer being compressed; I believe it's likely too that the severity of post LASIK pain I have could in part be because of the piriformis syndrome, my body/nervous system prior to LASIK being able to handle/cope with it well enough - but then after the eye pain (corneal neuralgia) adding another source of sensitization - those sources compounding with each other leading to the severe executive dysfunction as well - along with the central sensitization and hyperalgesia (hypersensitivity to pain). All the evolving patterns and cycles as I've uncovered what I have, healed what I could with stem cell treatments, etc. point to this being the case - but maybe even with piriformis syndrome - the nerve compression - if remedied with the surgery, maybe the eye pain on its own will be substantial to cause the same level of intolerable problems - but getting that surgery is my only hope, that will be very difficult to impossible for me to organize especially with how far I have given up now - not having the energy of hope or impetus driving me to counter the dysfunction of the pain. My situation is even worse than that but I'm getting too mentally tired now, and no one will likely even read this, and if they do there's zero chance anyone will put in the effort into organizing what needs to be organized - and I guess in reality at the moment even if someone had everything lined up - found an orthopedic surgeon who has experience with/has done piriformis syndrome surgery - I probably wouldn't even be able to agree to all the steps, well, I'd need MRIs booked - so I don't have to deal with trying to arrange getting imaging transferred - and then the appointment/surgery booked say all within the same week or maybe 2 weeks, the time and city to be in. Anyway, too many steps, too much for me to even try to brainstorm through, let alone act upon.

[u/Intoxicus5]

Someone with Autism can have a lot of issues with Executive Dysfunction.

Trauma can cause Executive Dysfunction.

Various mental health and medical issues can impact Executive Function.

Why are we jumping to blaming gaming? Is there any actual research that backs up his position?

[u/Skimer1]

So I think I might have a problem with operationalizing, but how tf do I train it or learn it? I mean obviously it should be exposure to these types of problems that need to be operationalized, but such problems don't appear out of nowhere.

P.S. I don't think I agree that it's games that cause problems with problem solving, or more specifically with open ended problem solving. It's more like abuse of games(8-10 hours a day), which involve close ended problem solving, and lack of exposure to open ended problem solving, so it kinda degrades over time cause the only thing you do is playing games. Again, it's only my opinion.