The Joys of Aging

[EOJ]

I will turn 44 soon and in recent years I have been finding it harder and harder to play with an arcade joystick. If I play "hardcore for score" I tend to get tension headaches (through the muscles in my neck, apparently) that can last for days or even weeks, and sore muscles in my wrists, hands, and chest. Probably the early stages of arthritis. I don't (yet) have these issues when I play with a pad (thank goodness), other than getting sore hands if I play for more than a few hours in a day, so I think I'll eventually just play with a pad.

This is one of the main reasons why I recently sold off all my CAVE PCBs...

[_rm_]

I will turn 44 soon and in recent years I have been finding it harder and harder to play with an arcade joystick. If I play "hardcore for score" I tend to get tension headaches (through the muscles in my neck, apparently) that can last for days or even weeks, and sore muscles in my wrists, hands, and chest. Probably the early stages of arthritis. I don't (yet) have these issues when I play with a pad (thank goodness), other than getting sore hands if I play for more than a few hours in a day, so I think I'll eventually just play with a pad.

This is one of the main reasons why I recently sold off all my CAVE PCBs...

Sad to hear. Just hope you can keep enjoying (not important how) these awesome games.

Cheers

[EOJ]

I still play my CAVE faves (on consoles) when the mood strikes. 

[slateman]

At 47, my near eyesight is getting bad.  I generally stopped playing all handhelds, but since introducing reading glasses, I've found shmups on the Switch are actually quite enjoyable.  I'm in some ways doing better than I have in many years.  Not sure how my reactions will be compared to my heyday of DOJ (PS2 era, 2003-2005), but I cannot wait to find out. 

[EOJ]

Topic split (from the DOJ thread) in case anyone else wants to discuss the "joys of aging". 

[CIB]

41 here, had the headaches and neck stifness permanently until ten years ago when I decided that it was about time for me to exercise and stretch every single day (I HATE exercise, trully from the bottom of my heart).
Fortunately, it worked pretty well since I don't have those anymore (well maybe a couple days a year)

Only major problem I'm facing now is my ears... deteriorates pretty fast T_T

[EOJ]

I almost never get tension headaches or muscle aches unless I play STGs quite a lot on a joystick (no other games give me this problem, but I don't play any other genre of games with a joystick). I'm in good shape (BMI is 22.5 ), eat well, and exercise regularly. No problems with my hearing or eyesight yet.

[MARIA123]

Its sad how age can affect us on inumerous ways! I'm 42 now, cannot stand 2 hours of gameplay without my back start to acke. I like to think that once we had our time, to start playing without worry how many hours it takes. This toll comes with age, responsibility, family, bills, bad bosses and stuff. Our life had gaind such amplitude and with it more stuff to do and take care of.  I am very gratefull for have lived this golden days of playing, specially when it comes to shooting games. Of course i still playing but not much as i like, because this stuff forementioned. My kids love when i'm at home playing my silly "spaceship games" as they call it. They play another things too, this make me very close to then. 

[Sandinista]

Yeah , things get tougher around the mid forties , but im still here , in my 60's ,
Enjoying the games !

[brentsg]

I'll pop in at a whopping age of 54.

My age is one of the reasons that I don't play much.  I have compression in my neck that'll need surgery someday, so the muscles in the back of my neck start to spasm if I'm not careful during the day.  When I play things like Fromsoft games, I'll play at my desk is a crazy expensive chair with my monitor on an arm that allows a neutral position.  Naturally, playing PCBs in my cabs isn't conducive to this. 

It sucks for sure!  I'll need to get a list of my PCBs and kits together and get over the hump of letting some or all of them go.

[bitkid]

40 here. No tension headaches from playing shmups or playing on a stick but I did start getting tension headaches from activities like raking the yard, vacuuming or anything where I'm maneuvering a long pole to do some kind of manual labor. Very annoying and limits the amount of time I can do a particular chore before taking a break.

[SuperPang]

Is your wife a member here?

[NOSgaluda]

I'm the youngster in this thread it seems, with my 38 years on this earth, but I just wanted to say that I'm kind of scared of losing my abilities to age since I just recently started to really improve (most of my 1CC:s have been done during the last 3 years). My hearing is appropriate for my age and my eyesight is, with glasses, completely fine - but it's all a matter of time... 

[EOJ]

I'm the youngster in this thread it seems, with my 38 years on this earth, but I just wanted to say that I'm kind of scared of losing my abilities to age since I just recently started to really improve (most of my 1CC:s have been done during the last 3 years). My hearing is appropriate for my age and my eyesight is, with glasses, completely fine - but it's all a matter of time... 

I got most of my best scores between the ages 38-43.  Everything comes to an end eventually in this life. Enjoy these games while you can, then move on to other interests when your body can't handle it anymore (or just enjoy the games more casually, if possible). Everyone is different in this regard, you might be playing until you're 65 with no problems, who knows.

[SH4R4KU]

Thank goodness for the last post!

I'm doing better than ever but wish I played more STG 20 years ago. Now I'm 40 and though I got into the scene at 30 only just got my cabs and only played DOJ in my own home with M2s port.

We can't stop the passage of time (indeed it's necessary in order to play a game), so enjoy and acknowledge as much as possible