Hungry, but already filled your daily allotment of Tim Bits? Whip out your phone and play a round or two of Tetris; it just might solve those food cravings.
In a study published in Appetite, researchers found that Tetris reduced both the severity and frequency of cravings, whilst merely waiting to play the game did not. Study participants were given the game and told to note when they had a food craving, note the severity of the craving, and then try to play the game. One group was given working games, the other was given games designed to stall at the load screen. The group that successfully got to play the game whenever they were hit with a food craving saw a twenty-four per cent reduction in the strength and frequency of food cravings, whilst the load screen group did not.
Of course, this could simply mean that waiting forever at a load screen exacerbates your hunger (which, given our love for Fallout: New Vegas, we’d have to agree with), so perhaps a better study would have cut the load screen nonsense. Still, if you’re struggling with food cravings when you’d rather not, it can’t hurt to fire up Tetris and give it a shot.
