(Updated with extra points Saturday 21:17 CET) 2025 was a strange year in terms of health and I approach my 50th birthday, I had accepted that my body was worn out and I came to terms with not being able to play my favourite games at my best because of age and health.  However, I discovered a few things and am currently back at a good level.  This may not last but I hope what I’m about to tell you may inspire you to keep playing, rather than retire yourself as an old relic.

If you’ve been following the streams, you might remember talk of mental frame skip, where characters and their actions would teleport like a bad rollback connection, but when I checked the playback on YouTube, everything was moving smoothly.  It was confusing and shocking, I was starting to think I was losing my marbles, or suffering from some neurological or cognitive condition.  In fact, there are a few things that gamers need to keep an eye on.

Vision

There are many reasons that could put deter older players from playing.  The first ailment was in fact a screen that was too bright which I attributed to “screen glare”. This can be alleviated by not using that old living room TV as a monitor, no matter how impressive it looks sitting on your desk. Newer operating systems include automatic brightness settings and bedtime modes that will lower the impact of those attractive bright explosions that might be doing more damage than good.  Poor light management leads to a lack of ability to focus on the screen and this is part of the ultimate requisite for good gaming.

Where is your monitor or TV?  Are you looking up or looking down at it?  How is your posture?  Are you hunched over?  Are your shoulders relaxed?  The older gamer must reflect and try to locate the pain points of gaming.   Do you need to massage anything after a session?  Why?  Identify and change what is causing the issue.  You will see most guidance advises an even level of view and monitor.

Are you playing in the dark?  Is there sufficient light in the room? Are you squinting to see?  Is there a light source causing you to wince?  If you can change this, try it!

Another factor that is hopefully more rare but can affect vision is medication, I had been using eye drops for allergies and after coincidentally taking a break I noticed a huge decrease in the effect of glare, whereas I had assumed I was just getting old.

Lowering the contrast using the useful option in KOFXV can also help with issues.  By the way, the ‘most visually comfortable to play’ stages for me in KOFXV are the beach in daytime and the metal slug stage.  The worst is the concert stage.  If you go to bed and re-experience bright flashes, this will affect your sleep, along with the trauma of losses.  Playing mobile games and watching bright screens before sleeping is not going to help, again, bedtime low light modes are recommended.

Stress

Now let’s talk about those losses or more specifically, the stress behind them, which also causes mental frame skip. The first situation is being faced on the receiving end of a mixup.  Note that we are not talking about lag and rollback, which causes real teleportations which can be seen on the stream replay (but never on the in-game one).  When a player is heavily stressed, they ability to track the movement of the characters becomes more difficult, add on top the fear of a lagging input when you’re trying to block an empty hop that could lead to a grab or crouching hit or even followed by an overhead…. This in my experience leads to gaps in cognition: the mental frame skip. The opponent jumps in, next thing I know, I’m getting combo’d where I could have sworn I blocked correctly.  Add to this exaggerated and lunging controller movements, even the body is reeling to try and and avoid the hit. Even when you see an opening to do a combo, the stress of how this could turn the tide, with the danger of lag messing it all up can cause it to fail before it’s even started.

In comparison, rehearsing a combo in practice mode, the body is moving quietly and smoothly, gracefully, and the brain is processing movement fairly well. This is not to say age is not a factor, I believe it is, but there is evidence in old musicians that speed really isn’t an issue, it’s simply a matter of experience. Physical athletes that need speed to move must retire as they cannot keep up with the younger and stronger, but the brain still knows what to do. Fighting games can be played with eyes closed, it’s a matter of knowing the timing and spacing of attack patterns. Vision-affected players have proved this. The real issue is the stress, and the stress happens because players feel they don’t know what is about to happen or they don’t have the confidence to deal with it.

What is the solution?  “Get gud” will only make the older player roll their eyes as there is a sad truth behind it, players with a busy life will find it more difficult to focus on fast games that require fast reflexes. This is why COTW looks more accessible, but in fact, it is not. People think they can play Street Fighter 6 but in fact they are just mashing buttons with opponents of a similar skill level and will stop as soon as they meet someone who really knows the mechanics of the game. In all cases, the older player needs to play more to learn the patterns and traps and flowcharts which will lead to more confidence which leads to a more relaxed state of mind. Easier said then done but the point is not to blame your brain, it’s probably better to blame your life (lol). The less stressed you are, the more smoothly you can play.

Inputs

I also would like to point out there is also stress from enjoying a game too much- when you want to win so badly or finish a combo that your belly muscles contract and you hit the inputs way harder than necessary.  You may well want to readdress your priorities here versus the damage that you could be doing to yourself.  If there’s a million dollar pot on the line, well, you definitely need to find a way to focus seriously, and this is something we’ll dive into in another article.  Again, a focused player won’t be making any of these exaggerated movements.  They are calm and collected, until they win, and then can channel their remaining energy into a pop off.

Good warm ups will include using the in-game mechanics such as button holding and up-forwards to avoid input overlaps, especially useful for online matches.

There is also some truth to the benefit of physical exercise, and while you may have noticed some e-athletes hitting the gym, simply taking a walk or doing some stretches and repetitions can open the mind; you may even find your brain giving you ideas of how to apply a new mixup or ways to escape one.  Natural adrenaline personally gives me more ability to think creatively about the game mechanics than a coffee or energy drink, which gives me more reaction speed to respond to an attack.

Hands and wrist issues

I thought I had carpal tunnel.  Maybe I did.  I may have more serious cardiac complications (lol) which may or may not be linked but today I feel a lot better than in 2024/5, where my fingers felt swollen and stiff, and my wrists ached, and I had palpitations when lying down.  The biggest fix for this was a  complete change of the arrangement of my computer setup.  For your wrists, the number one thing in my opinion is to make sure they are straight, with optimal blood flow, meaning no more than 5 degrees bending.  People who use mousepads, breast mats, wrist mats and elevated keyboards, really need to look at this angle.  Is your wrist bent?  Is your elbow resting on something, are your hands resting or strained?  Are you elbows on the chair rests or on the table or hanging off somewhere?  Have you done any warm ups?  Have you tried a vertical mouse?  Or a hit box controller?

All of these things are factors for the older gamer to review from time to time.  Changing things around can just be fun and refreshing.  Players have told me that trying out the stick controller after a long absence gave them pain.  I warm up now before each session and it has helped tremendously.

Other aches and pains

At one point my body was so stiff I couldn’t turn my head to look down the street without feeling some grinding noises.  Sitting in front of a desk for 8 hours for work and then staying there for another 4 for leisure did not do my body any favours.  I thought the pandemic and remote working would be a blessing, it still is, but there was a trap.  The body needs to move or it will feel like it’s  atrophying.  If there’s a chance to walk and talk, I’ll take it, and it has helped.  My physical therapist already advised 40 minutes walking per day, which I can do while travelling to work, and if I’m remote working, I’ll jump on the rowing machine, even if just for 15 minutes.  Motion is lotion, as they say.

Conclusions

As I write, during the end of the year holiday respite, I can simply reflect on the fights I enjoyed the night before. Most weekends of 2025 were spent blaming lag and alcohol for inability to block during matches, and then suffering in bed with numbness in the wrists, stiff fingers and palpitations. And then there was the revelation of the eye medication. With 2026 I can say lag is still a factor, but after fixing a number of issues, what remains is the stress of work and life duties hanging over you, which will do much more damage to your play.  If you notice your body lurching around while trying to fight, or you feel like a deer in the headlights, here are some tips:

1. Warm up your body, do mild stretches and rotations involving the fingers and wrist.

2. Practice before versus mode. Successfully execute all your combos for each situation, crouching and cross up. Frame traps and safe jumps.  Refresh your muscle memory.

3. Be aware of what you consume. Alcohol can calm nerves but can lower reaction times while coffee and energy drinks can activate the brain but over stimulate, so balance this with good old water. If you have medication, check the documentation for possible side effects.

4. Is your screen too bright? How do you feel after a session? Are your arms elevated, resting or strained?  Evaluate your environment.

5. When playing a laggy match, just make a choice of action and live with it. Don’t waste time blaming lag, just focus on what you were supposed to do next.  Your muscle memory will take of the rest.

6. Compartmentalize your mental activities.  What is in the back of your head right now?  Is there a child to pick up from school? A dinner to prepare?  An exam to revise for?  All of these things need organisation and preparation.  The less stressed people are those who did so.  There may be some success in telling yourself that there’s nothing that can be done about that important thing right now, so you are allowed to make the most of this gaming time.

Some people live in situations where life is unpredictable, in this case we have to roll with the punches.  But know that, yes, this IS affecting your play, and you’re not alone.

If you ever question yourself during a match, then you need to play more. Go into practice mode and simulate the situation.  Close the gaps in your attack and create flowcharts.  Narrow decisions down to 50/50.  The keys to victory are there, but a lot of players refuse to take them. On the other hand if you have no time and are under too much pressure, then simply avoid ranked mode and play offline modes.  It’s not worth piling on more misery.

Raging comes from frustration that things didn’t turn out the way you wanted.  Stress leads to poor playing conditions.  There is still enjoyment to be had!  There is no finger snap solution but enjoyment can be increased by looking at ways to improve your health and your environment.

I hope this post helped you enjoy fighting games today, like you used to!

I think I need to go more into depth over some of these points so check back later!