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You’re dropped into the middle of nowhere with just the clothes on your back and a working knowledge of the surroundings. For the average person it’s a daunting task to survive but for someone that also deals with any form of anxiety the difficulty is doubled.
Thankfully Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition is just a game but that doesn’t mean that your playing experience can’t be tweaked to make it a bit more rewarding for relieving whatever stresses you’re dealing with, anxiety or not.
I present,
How To Play Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition With Anxiety (or any other daily stress you may have).
Now I know what you’re thinking, “Come on, you walk through the forest, punch a few trees, and hide inside at night. There’s no way to make it less stressful.”
To that I say…..
Minecraft's music makes even the 'Beek tear up.
Number 1. Change the music:
There’s nothing inherently wrong with the music but there’s not much right with it either. While the melodies are slow paced they have a “sitting in the waiting room” feeling to them. What are the most popular places for waiting rooms? Doctors and dentists. So the music in the game is actively putting you in an atmosphere of two of the most stressful situations you can face. Some melodies that aren’t of a waiting room variety have a moody sadness going on in them. I think these are songs that would be used in a movie where the father dies and the son takes his tools and builds a sailboat with them and takes it out on the water to spread his father’s ashes over the water. It’s just hollow and sad sounding and not at all the kind of music you want to hear when trying to destress.
What do I suggest instead?
A lot of Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition is methodical and slow paced so I would skip anything uptempo, instead I would offer a suggestion to not use any music at all and instead use some stand up comedy. Playing some Louis C.K. or Patton Oswalt quietly on the background wouldn’t detract from any noises in the game but also some humor to it all. If you don’t have any stand up to listen to how about your favorite podcast?
If you insist on music maybe I could suggest PanicGamer.com’s artist of the month Chainsaw’s album Chainsaw? It’s mellow and fits the mood nicely.
The most important thing isn’t what music you choose, it’s that you use music other then what’s provided.
Number 2. One shovel is good, 4 are better:
Tools are a necessity if you want jobs done quickly and the fact that they wear out makes them even more valuable. Digging through a mountain becomes a chore when halfway through your only pick breaks and you’re left with either a long trek back to your house to make another or punch your way through the rest of the mountain (which sounds awesome and is totally doable, just it takes an hour)
The fix?
Make sure before you go on any sort of trip that you have the needed components to make a workbench, torch, sword, and tools. Not all the tools either, no one is going to care if you have a set of rock, iron, and gold tools. Take whatever you have the most of and leave with it. This way when your tools wear down you can make whatever you need to replace them. What do you do when your inventory becomes too much? That leads me to…
Number 3. Satellites are important:
Backtracking tires man, dog, or cat
There’s a reason that every large company has offices all over the place, it makes life easier by making their company closer to who they’re doing business with. Use the same method of thinking for Minecraft. Instead of traveling miles from your home to get to the next area make a few houses along the way that are fully decked out, we’re not talking a pool house here. Set up these houses with everything you need so that when you span your globe it’s a quick jump from house to house rather then a revisiting of the incredible journey.
Have any other suggestions for making Minecraft a stress free experience? Post your suggestions below.
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