#33: Tetris and Trauma

If you enjoy puzzle games, and particularly if you were playing video or computer games 20 or 30 years ago, there’s a good chance that at some point you have played Tetris, a game originally invented by a Soviet software engineer in 1985.

But did you know that it could help with PTSD? Researchers at Oxford and elsewhere have done some studies that show that after traumatic events, playing Tetris may help prevent PTSD development because focusing on the game disrupts the process of memory consolidation; this can keep the memories of the event from becoming intrusive and haunting the person later.