90
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

Y'all know the cliche thing: "best way to deal with your fears is face your fears" blah blah

Does that actually work?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] eyelevel@lemmy.world 27 points 1 week ago

Playing horror games may make you more desensitized to the fear of playing horror games.

Playing horror games will probably not help too much with broader experiences like generalized or social anxiety, or any kind of specific fears or reactivity. Those would be better addressed through therapy, self-help programs, meditation, exercise, and/or maybe medication if appropriate.

If you want to look into some self-study therapy books, you could try books like "The Happiness Trap," "No Bad Parts," or "Getting Past your Past."

"The Happiness Trap" is an acceptance and commitment therapy book, which is structured around using mindfulness and acceptance skills to work with your internal experiences, instead of fighting against yourself (which typically makes us more anxious and fearful).

"No Bad Parts" is an introduction to internal family systems, which is kind of like the idea in the Inside Out movies.

"Getting Past your Past" is a self-study book based on the information processing model used in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy. This kind of approach may be more useful if some of the fear and anxiety is related to specific painful or traumatic experiences.

Also, if the anxiety or fear is about intrusive or unwanted thoughts or images, you could take a look at "The Mindfulness Workbook for OCD."

Mindfulness and meditation practice is helpful for any of us, for all kinds of topics. There's plenty of ways to build a meditation habit, such as starting with 5 minutes per day, and there are lots of videos and apps that can help. The Calm App and the Insight Timer are both free to try, however I might try the Calm App first, since they recently changed the sign-up steps for the free version of the Insight Timer.

Exercise can also be really helpful for anxiety, depression, and just general well-being. Rhythmic movement helps to regulate the nervous system, and a 20 or 30 minute walk can be a great way to burn off excess energy before starting your day or going to a big event.

If you do want to play horror games for their own sake, I really like the Resident Evil series. They're kind of medium horror/ action split. The RE2 Remake is a fantastic zombie game. RE4 remake is more action/ less horror. RE7 is more horror and some gore.

[-] OldQWERTYbastard@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Thanks for those book recommendations.

I will add that I remember Silent Hill 2 being particularly creepy a couple of decades ago. No cheap jump scares, but a steady uneasiness that was very well executed. I didn't like playing it unless my college roommate was around. Still planning to check out the remake one day.

this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2025
90 points (100.0% liked)

No Stupid Questions

43302 readers
1023 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here. This includes using AI responses and summaries.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS