With so many people taking opioids for mental health reasons, here is a possible alternative solution that is more natural, much cheaper, and doesn’t require taking drugs. I’m a firm believer in not just video games, but other forms of art being good for mental health, whether that’s reading a good book, or watching a good movie or TV show, or listening to music, or learning how to play an instrument. It’s not surprising at all that a game like Super Mario Odyssey, a game oozing joy out of its every pore, could have a positive effect on someone’s mental health who’s dealing with depression. It would be more surprising if it had no effect.
Results showed that the percentage of participants with high levels of depressive symptoms decreased the most in the “Super Mario Odyssey” group. Their number almost halved. The decreases in the other two groups were smaller and insufficient to exclude the possibility that they were due to random variations in answers instead of treatment effects.
“Results indicate that after six weeks of training the 3D video gaming group [the ‘Super Mario Odyssey’ group] showed a significant decrease in the proportion of participants with clinically significant levels of depressive symptoms by self-report and a higher mean training motivation when compared with the active control group,” the study authors concluded.
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