A Healthy Dose of DOOM

Believe It Or Not:

[IMAGE] Video games like: DOOM, QUAKE, HERETIC, and HEXEN, actually boost your immune system.

We living today are privileged to bear witness to the renaissance of the video game. With the proliferation of high-powered home computers, and Playstations and Nintendo 64s available for under $200, this is a utopian age of wonderment for jockeys of the joystick. Our Pong-playing ancestors could never have envisioned the polygon-based, texture-mapped, light-sourced cyberspace extravaganzas we now take for granted. Even the crappiest game of today, transported fifteen years in the past, would be worshipped like unto a divine offering from above.

All Images Are From QUAKE

[IMAGE] There remains only one obstacle before electronic entertainment truly reaches the Age of Enlightenment, and that's the backwards notion that video games are somehow bad for you. "They're too violent, they warp your brain, they make you fat and lazy, yadda yadda yadda." Those who spew these misguided slanders frequently attack DOOM, a magnificent game in which players portray a heavily-armed space marine who must slaughter hellspawn hordes by obliterating them into bloody gobbets. They say it's a twisted sociopathic endeavor with no redeeming value whatsoever.

Well, guess again, BUBBA!

A study at the University of Westminster in England has demonstrated what many of us knew all along: playing DOOM is good for you! Psychology professor Phil Evans announced that a vigorous round of DOOM or other similarly intense video games can temporarily boost the body's immune system and increase its resistance to infection.

[IMAGE] This benefit stems from the amount of stress the game imposes on its players. The body responds to the potentially threatening situation by increasing the levels of non-specific Immunoglobulin A antibodies. Other short-term stressful activities can have the same physiological effect, including public speaking, moving to a new home, and working to meet deadlines. This finding is in contrast to the long-standing scientific belief that long-term stress leads to a diminished immune system.

[IMAGE] "It shows that because of evolutionary reasons we are well adapted to short-term psychological challenges, provided we feel we are in control of it, but long-term stress can affect our health," Evans said.

DOOM is one of the most immersive video games ever created, and one of the few that can actually scare the bejeezus out of you -- but since you know it's just a game, the stress it gives you is the good, healthy kind. The only catch is, the benefits of DOOM immunity are brief. Evans measured the antibodies in subjects' saliva and found that the boosted levels only lasted for about half an hour after playing. Temporarily increased antibodies have also been measured in air traffic controllers, but the day-after-day stress of their job still poses an overall threat to their immunity. DOOM is the safer way to pump up your resistance to disease -- and it's a lot more fun, too.

[IMAGE] "Our research shows that the stress of playing computer games is not bad for you, as we previously thought," Evans said, "but it's also not good for your health. It means our bodies can cope well with the stresses of playing computer games but within an hour of the stress the immune system will return to its normal state."

If we understand Evans correctly, the only problem with DOOM as a medical treatment is it wears off when you stop playing it. Isn't the solution obvious?

Don't stop playing!

Plenty of rest, lots of liquids, and DOOM during every waking minute. Regular DOOM breaks at work during the cold and flu season -- doctor's orders. Get your prescriptions filled by downloading the latest game levels from the Internet.

Fighting off infections while fighting off bloodthirsty hell-demons... man,