We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.

So, wargaming and mental health. Big topic.

I’ve written before about this, and it’s easy enough to find the information online, but I have several severe mental illnesses, including anxiety, depression, OCD and schizophrenia. I have been sick for about thirteen years, nine of which were pure hell. But, four years ago I was put on some new medication–I call it my miracle medicine–which has completely turned my life around. If anyone is interested in knowing the particulars, I’d be happy to share.

But what I want to talk about today is about how wargaming can affect mental health. I have been a wargamer all my life, much longer than I have been mentally ill, and wargaming has gotten me through some really tough times. It has strengthened me, it has distracted me, it has given me confidence, and it has relaxed me. But it’s also given me stress, it’s allowed me to obsess, and it’s isolated me.

So let’s talk about wargaming and mental health.

The Problems Inherent in Wargaming and Mental Health

There are three big problems that I see in regards to wargaming and mental health. And in this I’m not going to talk about any specific mental illness–I’m not going to talk about the psychosis of schizophrenia–but I am going to talk about mental health that we all experience, whether we have a diagnosis or not.

I want to talk about how wargaming can isolate us, how it can get us to obsess, and how it can lead to financial stress. All of these are significant factors in our mental health, regardless of DSM-V diagnoses, and we all need to be wary of them.

Isolation and Wargaming

This hobby has the potential for being very social and welcoming, but it isn’t always going to be like that. In fact, according to most surveys (the best of which is the Great Wargaming Survey, but there have been other informal polls which back this up) the average wargamer plays the game about once a month. That’s not very much. And when you think of the amount of time that you invest in wargaming on the hobby side–the collecting and assembly and painting–that could easily equate to a twenty to one ratio of hours spent alone versus hours spent with others.

And while there are a great many people who get relaxation out of the hobby (we’ll talk about that in a minute) there is also the problem that when you are all alone, sitting in your basement or attic, painting miniatures for hours and hours, days and days at a time, you can get really isolated.

According to Harvard Medical School, studies show that social isolation can increase the chances of dementia as we age. That’s bad, but what’s more pressing is that it can affect all parts of our body–our physical health as well as our mental health.

“Isolation is also associated with elevated risks for heart attack, stroke, chronic inflammation, depression, anxiety, perceived stress, and loneliness.”

That ought to be frightening to any of us who are thinking about wargaming and mental health. We need to make sure that we take measures to end the isolation. This could include, at a basic level, being more engaged with school and work. If we have a family we live with, being more engaged with the family. But if we aren’t feeling engagement from school, work, or family, we can always go to our friendly local game store. Have you ever wondered why there are so many, well, awkward people at game stores? I think this is part of the reason: socially isolated people are coming to game stores to socialize, and they’re awkward. (This is all the more reason why we need to engage with those people and include them in our hobbying, regardless of whether we feel we need to socialize. It’s the good thing to do.)

Aside from our FLGS, we live in the digital age. We can get engaged with social groups online. Personally, this is where I get most of my wargaming socialization. There aren’t a lot of people in my real-world life who I talk about wargames with, but online, there are a ton.

Of course, one thing that needs to be talked about in reference to online wargaming and mental health is the toxicity that exists online. It’s not hard to run into online wargaming groups–be they Facebook groups, Twitter collectives, YouTube subscribers, and podcast listeners–where discussions can get into hate speech, racism, sexism, mysogeny, homophobia, fascism, and more.

I try very hard to stay away from toxic elements of the wargaming community, but they are out there. There’s a reason that Games Workshop had to put out their “Warhammer is For Everyone” statement, and other groups have made similar proclamations. But that’s not the way that the internet works–these things find you even if you’re not looking for them. Twitter recommends “For You” other wargamers who might not have the same values you do. Online commenters and trolls can turn even good and well-intentioned communities bad. It’s not enough to not be a troll yourself–you need to actively remove yourself from places where trolls exist.

The point is: isolation can be bad, but we also have to be careful of the places where we look for socialization, as they can be bad, too. This isn’t a condemnation of wargaming–I think the wargaming community is very welcome, vibrant and warm. But it’s the reality of any hobby, be it video games or art or music. Heck, the knitting community had to put out a statement against white supremacy.

Obsession and Wargaming

Now this is where I live. As mentioned, I have OCD, and I have experienced first hand very very much how obsession with wargaming can absolutely take over your life. When I was first getting sick, I would spend all my days in the basement of my house, all alone, building wargaming terrain. I was self-employed so I didn’t have a reason to come out of my basement (where my office was) and I just went down a rabbit hole of obsession. It was at that time that I built the first of what I referred to as Big Crazy Things: a 3’x3′ Egyptian temple made from foam.

But I don’t think you need to have OCD to go a little nutty and get obessesed with wargaming. It is very easy to get laser focused on a painting project and put endless hours into it, at the expense of all else.

And that’s really at the core of obsession’s problem: “at the expense of all else.” Any hobby is detrimental if it comes at the expense of all else. This can mean at the expense of your money, your family, your relationships, your marraige, your schoolwork, your job, your responsibilities. If wargaming–be it the painting or the reading or the playing–is taking over your life, then it’s probably time to take a step back.

I have an extended relative who was diagnosed with video game addiction, and I know that sounds like something fake that parents make up to frighten kids, but this relative was so incredibly addicted to video games that they neglected to sleep, to eat, to do anything, to the point where they were hospitalized and were close to death. Granted this is the extreme end of obsession–but it’s real.

I’m speaking as someone who is both OCD and runs a website dedicated to wargaming: you need to find other places to invest some of your time. Wargaming can’t be everything. If you don’t have friends and family, a job or a school or a church, do what I did when I was sick: I got a dog. Seriously, the benefits to just having a reason to go outside a couple times a day and walk around the neighborhood can be phenomenal.

Financial Stress and Wargaming

So this one is one that we all know about, but it bears repeating. I have written before about how bad that impulsive spending is for people who are neurodivergent, but I think that absolutely anyone can feel the burden of financial stress brought on by wargaming.

Look, I’m in the camp that doesn’t overly comdemn wargaming for being too expensive. I’ve talked before about how wargaming doesn’t need to cost more than a video game hobby or a woodworking hobby or a car hobby. But the problem is that, when you don’t have the money, even those hobbies can put a serious financial strain on you–and financial stress can have real effects.

Studies have shown that financial stress leads to anxiety, depression and substance abuse. And, worse still, this decline in mental health leads to an inability to manage money, which means you’re just going to spend more, making the problem worse and worse. And, if you let things get out of control, bills go unpaid, rent goes unpaid, and the mental strain of financial stress soon becomes a physical strain of “where am I going to live?”

I don’t want to harp on financial stress too much, because, as someone whose primary stress trigger is money, I know how difficult it is to talk about these things. The point is to find good ways to budget your money and stick to them. When I was really sick I would go to the game store and buy anything and everything, and I’d take them home and never open the boxes and they’d just sit in the closet. And we’d miss the rent. Now, after some financial counseling (and better mental health thanks to medication and therapy) my wife and I have set a hobby budget that I can spend every month.

We all know how hard it can be to control spending when a pot of Citadel paint costs $4.50 and a box of Space Marines costs $60. I’ve written a whole article about how to be a wargamer on a hobby budget, which feels pertinent here. There are ways to go about this hobby on all budgets.

But just like that study that shows there’s a cycle here of poor spending –> bad mental health –> poor spending habits, we need to find a way to break that cycle. And whether we break it at the “poor spending habits” by setting a budget and sticking to it, or whether we set it at “bad mental health” by talking to a therapist, a spouse, or a friend, we have to break it.

The Benefits Inherent in Wargaming and Mental Health

So we’ve done a lot of talking about how bad your mental health can get when you’re into wargaming, so let’s look at the other side: how much better your mental health can be when you’re into wargaming.

Social Interaction and Community and Wargaming

Wargaming and mental health can be a great pair when you are involved in a community. Finding the right gaming group, who you meet with consistently, can lead to good emotional and mental wellbeing. And it can be any group. I meet for games with the people at the FLGS, I play games with my sons, and I play games with my brother. The best memories I have in this hobby are not painting miniatures–despite the fact that I paint twenty times more often than I play–but the games and moments that I’ve had with friends and family.

And if we’re just talking about health overall, the New York Times reported on a study of 7000 people that ran for nine years, people who were disconnected from other people were three times more likely to die during those nine years. And it was true even if those people had risk factors like smoking, obesity, and lack of exercise–if they had close social ties they were more likely to live longer.

As I mentioned above, it can be hard to find the right communities, but generally your FLGS is a great place to start. I know that there are horror stories of game stores, and I remember very well being the nine-year-old kid at my local game store (which was also a comic book store, natch) and getting the stink eye from the Comic Book Guy. But, on the whole, game stores are very friendly places to most anyone. Even people who lack social graces tend to be accepted as long as they aren’t jerks. People often mock game stores as smelling of B.O. but to that I say “See? Doesn’t this show that this store is welcoming?”

Online, you’ve got to make sure you find the right kind of group to hang out with. I personally have found great friend groups on Twitter and on Facebook–but I’ve also run into some of the worst comments and people in both of those places. You’ve got to be willing to leave a group when they’re bad for you, be willing to block people who are toxic, and find a place where you fit.

Personally, I strongly recommend the Discord servers that come from Patreon communities. I think those communities are better moderated than Facebook and Twitter, and I think there’s something extra that comes from requiring you to pay to get in that gets people in a better state of mind. And it doesn’t have to cost much. I’m a member of five Patreon communities, and most of them give access to their Discord servers at just a couple dollars a month.

But the point is that social interaction–the social interaction that comes from wargaming–can very beneficial to your mental health.

Relaxation and Wargaming

So let’s talk about one of the biggest reasons that I personally am into wargaming: relaxation. I find painting to be extremely relaxing, and get a great deal of enjoyment from the time I spend painting. And I spend a LOT of time painting. I do the #HobbyStreak, which means that I paint for at least 30 minutes a day. (This is nowhere near the time spent by the Golden Demon-winning painters. Vince Venturella spends 60 hours a week painting. This is why he paints so well and I paint so poorly.)

But the thing is: it doesn’t matter whether you paint well or you paint poorly. One study showed that cortisol levels (which are one of the most common hormones measured to gauge stress) dropped by 75% when someone engaged in art. And it didn’t even matter if the person was good at art. Just the fact that they were engaged in a hobby helped relieve their stress.

Whether you find relaxation in the time you spend making army lists, or the time you spend chatting around the gaming table with your friends, or the time you spend at your hobby desk, there is relaxation and de-stressing to be found in wargaming.

Sense of Accomplishment and Mental Health

But let’s talk about that issue: do you need to be good at wargaming to find relaxation. I would posit that you don’t have to be, and I would even argue that some of the best painters and players are unhappy people (probably because of the above-mentioned isolation and obession), but there are benefits that come from “a job well done.”

And whether that job well done is a paint job, or a game played, or a bit of hobby lore learned, being good at something makes you happy.

Here’s something interesting: setting goals you can acheive–giving you that sense of accomplishment–helps your brain better than having broad, big goals. In a study where one group was told to “increase recycling” and a second group was told to “save the environment”, the people who were told to increase recycling reported a higher overall sense of happiness–because it was something they could achieve.

Does this mean that you need to set your sights lower and not shoot for the stars? I don’t think so. I have two goals set for my painting, and one is that I’m going to follow the hobby streak every day, and the other is that I’m going to enter the Golden Demon competition in 2026. Note that my goal is to enter the competition, not to win the competition. As an author who has not only won awards but has started an award competition that has run for 16 years, I am well aware that winning awards is capricious and fickle, and I don’t ever set winning awards as my goal.

Does that mean that Vince Venturella shouldn’t set winning a Golden Demon as his goal? Of course not. Everyone should be setting their own goals. I don’t set winning awards as mine, but I also don’t paint 60 hours a week. Everyone should be content in their own work.

Because if we’re citing a completely different study, mastering a skill–like learning to drive or solving a hard math problem–might cause stress at the time, but will lead to long-term happiness. So mastering a skill, like winning a Golden Demon, might very well be the thing you want to set your sights on–in the long term. https://www.sfsu.edu/news/prsrelea/fy09/014.html

Conclusion–Wargaming and Mental Health

So you can see that there are two sides to wargaming and mental health (as there are two sides to anything and mental health). There are things you can do in wargaming that will help your mental health and things that will hurt it. Wargaming can isolate you, make you obsess, and lead to financial stress, or it can get you socialized, relax you, and give you a sense of accomplishment.

No matter where you are on the mental health journey, and no matter where you are on the wargaming journey, you can always find areas where you can improve and areas where you should look for help.

*If you are in a mental health crisis, seek help immediately. Go to your nearest emergency room or call 988 for the Suicide Hotline. Help is available now.