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It seems that the retro gaming world is experiencing a major revival right now. Lots of people are investing in consoles like the Steam Deck or the Retroid to relive parts of their childhood and it’s easy to see why people are doing this right now, especially in the ensuing years since COVID. We live in a world with so much exposure to terrible news and insight into how supposedly fantastic other people’s lives are and yours aren’t, and it’s all certainly hard to swallow. This is why retro lifestyles, not just in terms of gaming but living in the past a little, can be exactly what the doctor ordered in the modern day. Let’s show you why.

Improved Mental Health and Cognitive Function

You might not think that living in the past actually has any positive effects on your brain. People can easily tell us that we’re stuck in the past, but when we are playing older games, whether it’s something simple like online chess or we harken back to the mid-’80s and play the original Super Mario Bros, it can reduce stress and anxiety. 

Retro games are not built like they are now because there were only a handful of controls. While the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive started to bring in some more complex controls with the six-button control pad in 1993, if you go back before this everything had to be simple, and you compare that to games now where there’s at least eight different combinations of buttons that can make things overly stimulating, that actually the right type of retro video gaming can improve our mental health because we’re not feeling overwhelmed by choice but it also gives us a greater focus. 

Simple graphics and slightly fiddly gameplay might have frustrated you as a child, but it commands your attention far more and this can only have positive effects on your mental health and focus.

The Benefits of Nostalgia

You can certainly think about the past and how simpler things were. This feeling of nostalgia can creep in every few years or so when we notice life gets more complicated. Nostalgia, especially in terms of retro practices, can provide a whole heap of benefits. Engaging with retro culture can provide a connection to the past. Look at something like vintage electronics; they provide a more authentic and immersive experience in comparison to potentially cold and sterile technology. When you had something that everybody was raving about but you struggled with, you had to work hard to engage with something, especially if you didn’t like it at first. 

We now live in an age where everything is pretty disposable. If you don’t like something you can easily get rid of it and not reap the benefits of repeated efforts. The analog nature of many retro technologies like vinyl can offer a more authentic experience for this reason. This is possibly why vinyl has never been more popular because we’re all in some way looking to escape what’s going on right now. Nostalgia is something that actually can be good for your health. It can result in increased optimism, self-esteem, and feelings of youthfulness but most importantly nostalgia can act as a psychological buffer during stressful and uncertain times. Lots of people think music and gaming were better when they were younger and for those, obviously, it’s easy to see why. 

Games on the Commodore 64 or 8-bit consoles were simpler and this means you end up thinking about a simpler time but it’s not just about the games themselves, it’s about your connection to the culture when you were of that age. It’s very likely you were under the age of 10 or in your teenage years when everything felt fresh and exciting. Nostalgia is actually a fantastic tool and, yes, there can be negative effects to excessive nostalgia, however, when we feel like things become too much, we need to give ourselves the opportunity to escape into our shell, which is why nostalgia becomes an invaluable tool.

It Slows Us Down

There are some people who prefer to live in the past and actually living some form of retro life whether it’s through gaming or watching movies from your childhood can actually involve a slower pace approach to life. This can help to reduce stress and more importantly increase appreciation for the present moment. Concentrating on the present is a key part of something like mindfulness and if you find yourself playing old video games and see time whizz by, it’s actually because you are slowing down and increasing that “flow state.” 

A retro aesthetic and lifestyle can be a form of rejection of the norm, especially with the constant pressure of modern technology and consumerism and of course, it’s something that has always been in place. Ultimately, every generation wants to harken back to simpler times and this retro life is a very specific statement that we are not going to play the game of modern living. Living a retro lifestyle in the modern world provides a number of benefits in terms of your self-expression, and while we can all experience the benefits of living in the past every so often we’ve got to be selective in what we should incorporate into our lives. 

Momentum is always going to be there and we will always keep going forward, but if you find yourself stuck in a certain frame of mind that acts as a form of self-preservation this can have negative effects in the long run. You may love playing older games or listening to music from your youth as a way to unwind after a tough day, but you shouldn’t use this as an excuse to not keep advancing. Lots of people hate the fact that they’re getting older and if you are someone who’s constantly trying to turn back the clock in some way, living a life that has a little bit of nostalgia can give you a sense of fortitude to deal with the present. 

Living a retro life in the modern world is absolutely very beneficial, but you’ve got to pick and choose which aspects will serve you well in the long run. Is it the music? Gaming? Fashion? As soon as you figure out the things that make you feel better about yourself, embrace them in your life.