Getting Cozy with Gaming

Posted on February 20, 2026

Whenever I’m craving an escape, nothing quite pulls me away from reality like a good computer game. Maybe it gets some stiff competition from a good book, but few books can leave me dead to the world for the next several hours the way a session of gaming on my laptop can. The phenomenon of hyperfocus consistently eludes me when I need it most. Yet when a game has my attention, I am locked in, and almost nothing is pulling me out.

The main allure gaming holds for me is probably just the opportunity to quiet my brain for a while. Normally, my brain is like a bustling roadway, my thoughts zooming in one direction or another, the danger of a mental car crash never fully absent. They don’t call them racing thoughts for nothing.

But when a game is commanding 100% of my attention, there’s no room for anything else in my head. It’s nice, a kind of focused peace even meditation rarely gets me to. In fact, sometimes I could almost call it a meditative experience (if the whole point wasn’t distraction, that is). Even if the game itself isn’t what you would call relaxing, just getting the chance to tune out all the worries crowding around my head makes it a welcome break.

Still, there’s more to it for me than that. Games offer a sense of structure that I rarely get in my life. Many games have a solid gameplay loop, a structured routine where I almost always know what I need to do next. Even better, they offer a sense of steady progress and mastery. Learning how something works and using that knowledge to steadily improve really scratches a particular itch in my brain. I enjoy strategizing and planning out what I’ll do next. There isn’t the stress of real-life consequences for failure. Especially since I tend to go for games that offer a low-stress environment where mistakes aren’t heavily penalized. I especially like games that let you go at your own pace. Lately, I’ve been attracted to what have been dubbed “cozy” games for the relatively stress-free experiences they offer.

The “cozy” game label is an admittedly non-specific one. This was never clearer to me than when I tried to ask friends for cozy game recommendations recently. For many, it seems almost like an aesthetic label instead of a genre. A game needs to only look “cozy” (usually featuring pastels and cutesy graphics), regardless of what the experience of playing it is like. Others have some very unusual picks for their cozy game experience, thinking of it as a familiar game you keep coming back to. Much like a well-worn pair of jeans.

For me, a cozy game feels cozy to play. Almost comforting, in a way. It offers entertainment, but no stressful challenges. Not even in that way some stress can be fun when it’s in a game. It’s a game where I don’t really have to worry about making mistakes or doing things the wrong way. Right now, swamped by grad school, such a feeling is hard for me to find. It makes those cozy games a welcome relief from the pressure of trying to get the best grade possible on my assignments and tests.

For all the praises I’ve just been singing about gaming, sometimes I worry I’ve been escaping into games too much lately. I always tell myself it’ll be only for a little bit, and then several hours have passed. Even with very structured games that have plenty of places to stop a gaming session, it can be hard for me to walk away. It’s too easy to fall into a rhythm, and too easy to lose myself in giving the game all my attention. It was one thing when I was on holiday break with nothing else to do, but it’s another thing now that I have grad school assignments already creeping up on me. Even as I hear the siren call of another gaming session, I feel afraid of losing more time to that abyss. No matter how much fun it is.

Maybe some of it is a desire to escape my responsibilities or at least have a chance to forget them for a while. Of course, forgetting something doesn’t make it go away. Pushing away what makes me anxious often leads to the problem only becoming worse. I lose time I could have spent on other hobbies because I’m trying to chase the uncomplicated, effortless enjoyment only gaming can give me.

I don’t think I should feel bad about the time I spend gaming. I much prefer it as a distraction to doom-scrolling on my phone. But I want to have a healthy balance. I want to be able to enjoy the escapism gaming offers me without letting it get in the way of other things in life. I don’t want to feel like my gaming is just a time sink, one that I’ve poured too much into. On the flip side, I also don’t want to become so afraid of wasting time on games that I push myself away from gaming entirely. I know that’s my first instinct, because it’s something I’ve done before, leading to months or even over a year without any gaming.

I’m not living the life I had as a kid anymore, where I could spend a whole summer doing almost nothing but playing Skyrim. Nor do I necessarily want to do that anymore, even if I could. I have a much bigger list of things I’d like to fill my life with than I did at 15. Even so, I can still fit gaming into my life. As long as I don’t let it obscure the important things while I’m trying to escape the things that stress me out.

The key, as with many parts of life, is probably time and task management. Unfortunately, I am terrible at both of those things. Yet, I need to start somewhere if I want to keep gaming as a hobby and a source of comfort during the high-stress periods of each grad school semester. I wish I were writing this blog post to tell you I have an answer, but unfortunately, I spent this afternoon playing Dave the Diver instead of working on either one of two papers that are due in the next couple of days. But that’s life, isn’t it? It’s a lot of muddling through conundrums you aren’t quite sure how to solve and making your way through each day regardless. I’ll get the papers done; I always do. I just need to stop using games to avoid them.