Depression and go

[Buri]

Greetings,
interesting someone mentioned the suicide rate in Japan. It is the highest in so called industrialized nations. The current figure is more than 30 people a day and increasing as economic and social collapse slowly rears it's ugly head.
Why link this with Go though?
Relative to Korea and China much fewer people play Go and a majority of them are old.
Should one speculate that the young ones are topping themselves....
Puzzled
Buri

[tchan001]

Relative to Korea and China ...

Japan has been on a downtrend or at least a plateau after a downtrend in economic terms for many years. They are still trying to recover from a tsunami disaster which turned into a nuclear disaster.

Meanwhile Korea and China are performing relatively well economically when compared with Japan.

[daal]

I've seen a few people talking about it. What I wonder is how it affects your play/interest/thoughts about the game.

I get pessimistic about my play, when I look over my games all I can see are the errors. I lose at least a stone in ability I think, though this could be me being negative again? I get anxious about playing and "looking bad" even though really at my level this will happen regardless! Oh and I play very little and I think I'd completely lose interest in the game for a while if I didn't fight this.


I'm curious because I'm nosey but also I believe in fighting stigma by being open about this kind of stuff, not that communities like these are very prejudiced against it or anything. Also, how do you tackle the effect depression has on your game and your life in general? Do you continue to chip away at the game be it through tsumego or whatever or do you put it aside until you feel better again? I'm also curious about general slumps people have, not just clinical depression! I'm also obviously talking about mild depressions here/lead ups to more serious depressions rather than more serious hospitilisation levels of depression where just eating is going to be a challenge never mind playing go!

Go messes with your mind. It challenges you both mentally and psychologically. There are plenty of opportunities to perceive failure. The question (which I know you didn't explicitly ask), "Does go cause depression?" is similar to: "Do video games cause violence?" My answer is: No, but if that bad tendency already exists in someone's personality, then the game has the potential to nurture that tendency.

Awareness of that potential is probably the first step in squelching it, and I appreciate that you've brought up the subject.

For me, it's been a constant struggle to not feel bad about myself when I lose, and I've put in quite a bit of thought into how to reduce the sting of defeat. It's fairly easy to convince oneself that it's irrational, silly and a waste of time and energy to feel bad about losing or to feel embarrassed about playing poorly, but it's quite another thing to really not feel bad or embarrassed.

Of course, there's also the other side of the medal. Winning feels good and few of us are all too keen on getting rid of that feeling, yet logically it seems rather difficult to eliminate the one out losing the other.

I don't have any quick and easy answer, and I've tried a number of tricks to get me through a slump, mostly by focusing on one problem - be it rank angst, fast play, poor handling of an invasion or whatnot - and waiting for a new problem to supplant it. What has helped me most to keep my emotional state on the radar and avoid getting depressed is having talked about the problem both here and with friends. It's also helped to nurture some other interests, particularly physical ones.

[Boidhre]

The question (which I know you didn't explicitly ask), "Does go cause depression?" is similar to: "Do video games cause violence?" My answer is: No, but if that bad tendency already exists in someone's personality, then the game has the potential to nurture that tendency.

I wasn't implicitly asking it either.

I agree with your answer though, go might trigger a depression in someone but it certainly isn't a causal factor. It's not a trigger for me though, not yet anyway. I don't think I care deeply enough yet about my win/loss ratio. I was happy enough with my progress in go before I hit this latest depression etc. Now maybe if I hit a hard ceiling or plateau it'll start affecting me but then what you talk about, especially with regard to the other hobbies and talking it over with other people, will come into play.

[mogosoup]

I'm not too sure about playing go causing depression. But NOT playing go definitely causes me depression

[shapenaji]

...
I feel like depression disproportionally effects gaming communities. It's not a pleasant topic, but given a number of suicides in the community ...

Got any figures to substantiate this? I wasn't aware of this at all.

Personally, I feel that the number of people who kill themselves is lower than it ought to be.

No, like I said, this is a hypothesis, it doesn't require facts & figures

And I'll say again, I don't believe that go causes depression.

However, I see go and other similar games being attractive to people who are having difficulty interacting with the world around them. It's an abstraction, losses are okay. Failure is temporary.

I would suspect, for example, that people who are depressed are more likely to play go (Which they can do from indoors), than they are to play volleyball.

I generated the hypothesis from this idea that there is a selection bias toward abstract activities which allow people to avoid social interaction.

Again, that does not imply that people who play go are depressed. Rather that go will have a greater pull for people who are depressed.

EDIT: And let me add that I believe this is culture-specific. I do not think this hypothesis applies to countries, like Japan, where the game is played by a different demographic.

I think it applies to countries like the US, where clubs fostering interaction are less common.

[nyuubi]

I suffered from Depression and took meds. I've since overcome it, but I have to be careful to not fall into a depression again. If I start to feel it coming on I take a long long walk with my dog and think positive thoughts. Exercise helps. I should mention that meds can be effective but I don't like relying on them so I quit them and I'm managing fine.

You just have to be careful. If the depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in your brain, meditation and lots of exercise can be an alternative to simply taking meds. Also, the meds fuck your brain up a bit so you become worse at Go.

[Boidhre]

...
I feel like depression disproportionally effects gaming communities. It's not a pleasant topic, but given a number of suicides in the community ...

Got any figures to substantiate this? I wasn't aware of this at all.

Personally, I feel that the number of people who kill themselves is lower than it ought to be.

No, like I said, this is a hypothesis, it doesn't require facts & figures

And I'll say again, I don't believe that go causes depression.

However, I see go and other similar games being attractive to people who are having difficulty interacting with the world around them. It's an abstraction, losses are okay. Failure is temporary.

I would suspect, for example, that people who are depressed are more likely to play go (Which they can do from indoors), than they are to play volleyball.

I generated the hypothesis from this idea that there is a selection bias toward abstract activities which allow people to avoid social interaction.

Again, that does not imply that people who play go are depressed. Rather that go will have a greater pull for people who are depressed.

EDIT: And let me add that I believe this is culture-specific. I do not think this hypothesis applies to countries, like Japan, where the game is played by a different demographic.

I think it applies to countries like the US, where clubs fostering interaction are less common.

But as a counter point as someone who suffers from depression and plays go, one of the things I love about the game is the social interaction that surrounds it. Anecdotal but if I wanted to avoid human contact I'd go back to playing Civilisation obsessively or something.

[Rémi]

I've seen a few people talking about it. What I wonder is how it affects your play/interest/thoughts about the game.

I get pessimistic about my play, when I look over my games all I can see are the errors. I lose at least a stone in ability I think, though this could be me being negative again? I get anxious about playing and "looking bad" even though really at my level this will happen regardless! Oh and I play very little and I think I'd completely lose interest in the game for a while if I didn't fight this.


I'm curious because I'm nosey but also I believe in fighting stigma by being open about this kind of stuff, not that communities like these are very prejudiced against it or anything. Also, how do you tackle the effect depression has on your game and your life in general? Do you continue to chip away at the game be it through tsumego or whatever or do you put it aside until you feel better again? I'm also curious about general slumps people have, not just clinical depression! I'm also obviously talking about mild depressions here/lead ups to more serious depressions rather than more serious hospitilisation levels of depression where just eating is going to be a challenge never mind playing go!

If you are interested in the psychology of competitors, I recommend Alice Miller's "The Drama of the Gifted Child":
http://www.amazon.com/The-Drama-Gifted- ... 0465016901

Here is a quote from a review that may be relevant:

Gifted children are often the products of emotional abuse by a narcissistic parent. However, if the child's great need for admiration is not met, for his/her looks, intelligence or achievements, he/she falls into severe depression. Miller says one can only be free from depression "when self-esteem is based on the authenticity of one's own feelings and not on the possession of certain qualities."

Rémi

[shyin]

Kind of off-topic, but I've always wondered if there aren't any hikikomori who play all day and become high-dan players eventually.

As for me, go has helped me a lot during a time of despair. I was very apathetic to everything around me, and felt no sense of purpose, no reason to try anything. Go started to fascinate me, and it game me a simple goal: to get better. Still working on it.

[Bonobo]

Very interesting topic, thank you!

I have to admit that I’ve only read the opening post and I currently don’t have the time to read all comments but will do later.

Clinical Depression—I’ve been in therapy with this diagnosis for over two years now (and I’m thankful that I still can carry on since health insurance pays for it!), and my long unemployment after I had to quit my last job for health reasons really didn’t make my situation better.

My “condition” has greatly improved since I began playing Go intensively in last August, after a hiatus of almost twenty years. Even better, now I’m beginning a Go Workshop in the local school (voluntary work, I don’t get paid for it), and this really gives me a boost in energy and joy of life. There’s nothing better than positive feedback for taking back my life in my own hands.

Also, I have a nebulous feeling that I’m making “psycho-social” progress simultaneously to my progress in Go … transferring wisdoms of Go proverbs into Real Life, etc., which is really thrilling.

So much for now, need to sleep, early tomorrow morning I have four more classes to hook on the Go Workshop, all in all it’s twelve classes of age 11–17 which I’m giving some sensory overload with regard to Go, eight are already done, the Go Workshop begins on May 16, I am curious … and for me, curiosity is a good drug against depression.


Greetings,

Tom in Germany

[FluffM]

I'm so glad I stumbled on this topic! If you all will indulge me, I'd like to relate my story since Go and depression are so intertwined, in an unexpected way:

Last fall (late September, early October), I was struck with a serious depression that forced me to take a leave of absence for a full year from my grad school program. This was serious business and I was an utter mess! Sitting around, lying in bed, being depressed and unable to move or clothe or feed or bathe myself I found two and only two escapes: watching reruns of The Office and Go. I had played a little bit of Go prior to last fall but I never took it seriously. With a depressed mind, I was unable to focus enough to read a book, it wasn't engaging enough. And anything less engaging, like watching a movie, just let my mind ramble on and dig itself deeper into its hole.

So, go. I played some go and found that it was the only thing I could do to stay somewhat okay while riding out the storm of depression. It grabbed my mind and trained it on small, digestible problems in manageable chunks of, say, 40 minutes at a time. Since I was playing so damn much (on average 5-6 games a day at all hours, probably), I actually progressed pretty steadily. I started off at about 16k (since I was already familiar with the game) and at about one kyu per month I moved up to 8k. This linear, straightforward and (seemingly) dependable progress also helped me get a grip on reality in some sense.

Of course, now I play less but I need it less. I'm seeing doctors and have found a medication that seems to work. In some perverse way I miss the old depressed days of nonstop go (and faster progress!)........ no, wait, no I don't. I like having a life! But seriously folks, although Homer may disagree, go is like alcohol--the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.

[SCWillson]

I think there are two aspects of Go that could easily relate to depression.
1. People who play go entirely on the internet.
2. (For some people) Spending a huge amount of time with Go, and regretting it later.

For #1, I think this is pretty straightforward. Go is a game, and games include a social element. This social element while not impossible is difficult to replicate on the internet.

Also, I remember years ago when I visited Japan for the first time and played at a number of local Go clubs. It was difficult to play with the members of the club for any long period of time since we could not communicate.

I had a completely different experience when I returned a few years later with enough Japanese to communicate with ease. The social experience is a huge part of Go.

For #2, I can still remember a story told by an older man at our local go club. He loved Go and was at our club many times per week. He claimed that he really felt alive when he was playing and around Go players. He would often tell the same stories - one was of a time when he was supposed to pick up the president of some company at the airport and happened upon two people battling it out in the airport lobby. He quickly became caught up in the game and ended up arriving late to pick up the arriving CEO. It caused him some professional damage and often joked about how stupid the whole thing was and how he wasted so much of his life sitting in front of a board covered with black and white pieces.

Which brings us to a tangent in the conversation.
Most of us believe that time spent practicing and playing Go is time well spent.
How do you feel about the fact there are a large number of people out there who don't respect time spent on mental pursuits like Go? There is a depressingly large number of people in this world (American, European, Japanese...) who believe that Go is just a game and that time spent studying it would be better spent doing something else.

The brain is a muscle that needs to be exercised like any other. People who don't use their brains are literally letting themselves become stupider.

As to depression and Go and as someone who became almost suicidally depressed after the death of my mother in 2008 (I was under both anti-depressants and psychological counseling for a year; plus I got rid of my guns), I can only say that something like Go that I could have played to take my mind off things might have helped a lot. I love to read, but reading allows too much time for thoughts to wander. Playing Go or some similar activity with another person, even online, might have helped a lot.

[mogosoup]

But as a counter point as someone who suffers from depression and plays go, one of the things I love about the game is the social interaction that surrounds it. Anecdotal but if I wanted to avoid human contact I'd go back to playing Civilisation obsessively or something.

HaHa I wish all my classmates would stop playing that and play go instead.

[Loons]

I have some random and perhaps grim trivia.

I would have guessed go players might be less likely to be depressed, because we're disproportionately male.

Pronounced suicide rates make sense with a lot of notable go enthusiasts being aging men.

Playing badly (or such) causing depression sounds fatuous to me and probably makes me more annoyed than it should. I'd bet that being especially depressed makes you likely to eg. lose badly, not that losing badly causes the depression. I really hate fake medicine book peddlers who feed on correlation/causality confusion (amoung lies).

Losing interest in hobbies is a sign of depression.


In go? I don't recall any awesome tips. Maybe humility?
In life in general? Arrow citalopram and regular exercise.