Strengthening Your Marriage with Halo: Part 3

Reason 3: It keeps your husband off of drugs

As a pastor, I’ve seen my share of couples come in to my office for counseling when their marriage is swirling in the bottom of the toilet like that last chunk that just won’t quite go down. My job is to get out the plunger and rubber gloves and pull their marriage out of the crapper. One of the worst marriage difficulties I saw was when one was on drugs. Drugs are obviously horrible. They lead to abuse, neglect and pretty much stupidity in all imaginable forms.

When playing video games it is widely held that endorphins are released into the brain. One reason why women don’t understand why men want to play video games is because women don’t have the amount of endorphins released that men do. Men are more visually stimulated hence a larger reaction.

These endorphins are a powerful drug, but it is a natural drug occurring in the brain and is healthy for men, where as illegal drugs (i.e. meth, cocaine, heroine) are not healthy.

This healthy, natural drug that is released in men’s brains can be channeled in many useful ways. If you ask your husband to hang out with you and your mother instead of watching football, or playing Halo, he will be trained to bring natural relief from hanging out with your mother according to this article which says “Just thinking that a medicine will relieve pain is enough to prompt the brain to release its own natural painkillers, and soothe painful sensations…” So if it is a painful situation to spend time with your mother in law, video games can alleviate that pain.

Wikipedia states “they [endorphins] resemble the opiates in their abilities to produce analgesia and a sense of well being” It also makes the statement that “Research has also shown that video game playing can release endorphins.”

Drugs are often turned to as a form of escape. The person using is trying to avoid thinking about some painful situation and turn to a harmful substance to accomplish this. However, because video games can naturally release opiates (a natural version of heroine) one can conclude that playing Halo puts a man in a better state of well being and replaces any need to offset pain with illegal drugs like heroine.

Of course all things in moderation. Women, click this link to have some ammunition to convince your husband it's time to quit for the night. Men, click the same link to have a goal to shoot for. You might even say to yourelf, "I know I can play 60 hours without dying. I'm going to set the record."