Early morning gaming changed my life

Hello my friends.

There's nothing like early morning

gaming.

There's something about beating the

sunrise.

Whether it's

reading, whether it's working out or

gaming, it feels right. It's like the

first victory of the day. It's like the

world hasn't woken up yet and you have

all this peace in the world to

experience whatever you want and no

one's going to interrupt you. No one's

going to do anything, especially those

of us who

Some people have families. Some people

are required to work

crazy hours and

you know, being able to wake up early is

not something everyone can do.

But if you can, maybe you know what I'm

talking about. If you aren't already,

I got to tell you it's special. I

personally have always been an early

morning riser.

I find that when I wake up at like 5:00,

anytime that's before the sunrise,

whenever the season is, I feel better. I

feel like I'm ready for the day in a

whole new way. I feel like I've

set myself up for success because I've

done everything I need to do to get

prepared for the day. And what feels

even better, as hard as it is, is

continuing that on weekends. I think

that sometimes in our lives, we need to

play games at night because that's the

only time we have available and that's

when it feels best. Same thing with

mornings. Sometimes in our life, morning

is going to be the time that works. Need

to wake up before everyone. Need to wake

up before your job. Whatever it is,

sometimes mornings work, too. It's all

about finding which season you're in as

a person, I think. That's kind of what

I've learned about myself. Everything

comes in cycles, right?

And the same is true of gaming and our

attention spans and all of that stuff.

I find it fascinating and I will never

stop talking about how gaming

teaches me more about myself all the

time.

Whether it's frustration that I

experience in hard games and

>> [music]

>> realizing why that feels like an ego

attack.

Whether it's puzzle solving and how it

tests my knowledge and my ability to pay

attention and piece things together. Or

whether it's an open-world game where it

tests my curiosity.

There's so many elements to these games

that I love and that I enjoy and that

I'll

never stop enjoying, I don't think. Just

to further this example,

picture those games that have dynamic

day and night cycles. Those are almost

always my favorite type of games. Those

games, what I found is my favorite time

of day in those games is when the sun is

rising. You know, I can't help but

picture Breath of the Wild as one of my

favorites. But when the sun rises, it's

so cool to think of where you are in

relation to the sun.

It feels like you're being reminded that

a new day is starting and it's exciting.

Even Majora's Mask back in the day,

again to keep it to Zelda, the sun

rising meant something. It generally

means safety. It means if it's not quite

there, it means it's on the way. And

there's something just so special about

seeing that sunrise, seeing that

experience. And that same is so true of

this real life. We as humans are clearly

drawn to the sun rising and setting.

There's something different though with

the sunset versus the sunrise. The

sunrise to me speaks more of potential

for the day.

It's an exciting aspect. It gets me

hyped up.

When we're talking about the sunset,

it's closure.

The opposite of potential. It's the sign

that things are coming to an end.

And as beautiful as it is, there's

always that moment after the sun has set

where it's kind of like I'm left in

mental shock. Like, "Whoa, that's it.

Okay. The sun is gone now." There is one

thing that I've noticed with early

morning gaming

and it's that I can't play for too long.

At night, I can. I can play for a few

hours, but with early morning gaming, it

has to be

an hour or less for me

because otherwise, it does take up too

much of my morning. I'm not being

prepared for the day. It's more of just

something that

after I drink my coffee, after I work

out, after I record a video, you know,

something like that, then I'll play it

for, you know, half an hour or an hour.

And what's nice about these games, these

modern games these days, is they have so

many checkpoints, so many abilities to

save

that you can play for just half an hour

and that feels really good, honestly.

I am always a big fan of stopping

something

before I want to.

And this isn't some weird masochistic

thing. This is more about

preserving that experience.

Preserving that dopamine. It's

again, managing my expectations for

things and

realizing that if I stop when I want to,

I'm going to want to do it again instead

of stopping when I've totally depleted

my interest in it.

Playing for 4 hours,

there you go. I might not want to play

again.

So, it's all about the balance. You

know, everyone has to find what works

for them, but I've found that drinking

one of these, a cup of coffee,

really

it it

it perfectly matches up with playing a

game in a really special, fun way.

I really think that, like I said in my

last video, too, going outside before

the game and going for a walk, kind of

centering and letting yourself wake up

and process what's happening, maybe

seeing the distant rays of sunlight in

the background,

that's special.

That's a really special thing.

And I think that it gets my mind ready

to play a game.

It balances out the natural guilt I'll

feel cuz I know I should be getting

ready for the day

with anything else and that's

that's just

it's a good feeling.

One thing I'll even do in the

summertime, I I don't really talk much

about handheld gaming.

So, I have a Switch, too. And one thing

I'll do is just when it's nice out, of

course,

bring that thing out on the porch and

just read.

I mean, play.

Or read.

I'll play it before the sun rises, you

know, volume down, maybe some headphones

in,

and just kind of relax and play the game

and it's a really cool thing. I remember

doing that with DK Bonanza. I don't

know, there's something that feels so

human about it.

It feels like we're Whenever I wake up

early, I'm touching on something that my

distant ancestors used to do, [music]

you know?

I can easily take this too far, but it's

just a feeling and one of those feelings

that's hard to describe. There's

something very natural about seeing the

sunrise

to me that I feel connected to in some

way.

And it gets me ready to enjoy anything

that I want to enjoy.

I bet some people who are night owls