--- title: Video Games Like Tetris Help Dieters By Reducing Hunger and Cravings description: Scientists find that video games like Tetris help distract test subjects from feeling hungry. canonical: https://time.com/14021/playing-tetris-will-make-you-forget-youre-hungry/ author: Kyle Chayka article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-03-06T16:23:44.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:07:32.175Z og:title: Playing Tetris Will Make You Forget You’re Hungry og:description: Video games replace the brain's wishful craving for food and cigarettes. og:url: https://time.com/14021/playing-tetris-will-make-you-forget-youre-hungry/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt39a95b1f580b8f5a/69868433cd804dd5d2cc99ac/166940675_2a265dc8d5_z.jpg?branch=production&width=640&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 640 og:image:height: 360 og:image:alt: 166940675_2a265dc8d5_z og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Playing Tetris Will Make You Forget You’re Hungry twitter:description: Video games replace the brain's wishful craving for food and cigarettes. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt39a95b1f580b8f5a/69868433cd804dd5d2cc99ac/166940675_2a265dc8d5_z.jpg?branch=production&width=640&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Playing Tetris Will Make You Forget You’re Hungry > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. by [Kyle Chayka](https://time.com/author/kyle-chayka/) ## Kyle Chayka Mar 6, 2014 4:23 PM UTC  andromache / Flickr by [Kyle Chayka](https://time.com/author/kyle-chayka/) ## Kyle Chayka Mar 6, 2014 4:23 PM UTC Pull out your old Gameboys! The next great fad diet is here, and it’s Tetris. In a new study, scientists found that playing just three minutes of the block-stacking game can [reduce cravings](http://www.spring.org.uk/2014/03/3-minutes-of-tetris-reduces-cravings-for-drink-cigarettes-and-food.php?utm%5Fsource=feedburner&utm%5Fmedium=feed&utm%5Fcampaign=Feed%3A+PsychologyBlog+%28PsyBlog%29) for things like food, alcohol, and cigarettes. In the experiment, 119 test subjects were told to [rate the strength](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666314000828) of any cravings they were having, measuring its “strength, vividness and intrusiveness.” Then, the subjects were asked to play a game of Tetris, but for some of the group, the game purposefully didn’t load. The others played the game, then everyone was asked to rate their cravings again. “Participants who had played Tetris had significantly lower craving and less vivid craving imagery,” a 24 percent reduction, the experiment found. Scientists argue that the game blocks cravings because it replaces the brain’s daydream imagery of burgers and frosty beers with relentlessly falling blocks—“by playing _Tetris_, just in short bursts, you are preventing your brain creating those enticing images and without them the craving fades,” Plymouth University’s Professor Jackie Andrade told [PsyBlog](http://www.spring.org.uk/2014/03/3-minutes-of-tetris-reduces-cravings-for-drink-cigarettes-and-food.php?utm%5Fsource=feedburner&utm%5Fmedium=feed&utm%5Fcampaign=Feed%3A+PsychologyBlog+%28PsyBlog%29). As anyone who has played Halo or Angry Birds knows well, video games are great distractions. Other studies have found that games can actually work as [pain reducers](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3052404/) by focusing patients’ attention on something other than how much they’re hurting. Unfortunately, the Tetris study did not determine if those cravings would return while playing a snack-filled game like Candy Crush. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/14021/playing-tetris-will-make-you-forget-youre-hungry/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/14021/playing-tetris-will-make-you-forget-youre-hungry/"},"headline":"Playing Tetris Will Make You Forget You’re Hungry","datePublished":"2014-03-06T16:23:44.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:07:32.175Z","description":"Video games replace the brain's wishful craving for food and cigarettes.","url":"https://time.com/14021/playing-tetris-will-make-you-forget-youre-hungry/","keywords":["Newsfeed","diet","Food","Video Games","health"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt39a95b1f580b8f5a/69868433cd804dd5d2cc99ac/166940675_2a265dc8d5_z.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Kyle Chayka","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/kyle-chayka/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt39a95b1f580b8f5a/69868433cd804dd5d2cc99ac/166940675_2a265dc8d5_z.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"166940675_2a265dc8d5_z","caption":"","creditText":"andromache / Flickr","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/14021/playing-tetris-will-make-you-forget-youre-hungry/","name":"Playing Tetris Will Make You Forget You’re Hungry"}}]}] ```