Three changes make an all-nighter harder to start. Get the console or the PC out of the room you sleep in. Decide the stop point before you launch anything, and pick something in the real world to stop for. Then tell one person what time you said you'd stop. Do the first one tonight.
The night doesn't start at 2am
It starts at nine, when you sit down without a stop point.
By two in the morning there's no decision left to make. You're tired, the next match is loading, and the version of you who cared about tomorrow clocked off hours ago. That's why "more discipline tonight" keeps failing. So move the decision earlier, to a moment when you can still make it.
The three changes, in the order that works
- **Move the machine out of the room you sleep in.** If the PC is the bed's neighbour, the night has no edge. Where that isn't possible, put the headset and the controller in a drawer in another room before you get in. This one has the most evidence behind it, and it keeps working while you're unconscious.
- **Set the stop before you start, and anchor it to something real.** An alarm gets dismissed. A person expecting you does not. A call at 10pm, a lift you're giving someone in the morning. Pick a stop that costs something to ignore. If stopping mid-session is what defeats you, [there's a piece on the exit itself](/guides/gaming/stopping-mid-session-when-you-cant).
- **Tell one person the time.** Not a speech. "I'm trying to be off by eleven, ask me tomorrow." The secret is doing work for the habit. One person knowing takes some of that work away.
One of these is enough for tonight. All three done badly is worse than the first one done properly.
Why the bedroom rule has numbers behind it
A meta-analysis of 20 studies covering 125,198 children found "a strong and consistent association between bedtime media device use and inadequate sleep quantity (odds ratio [OR], 2.17; 95% CI, 1.42-3.32)". The odd part is what came next. Children who had access to a device at night but did not use it were still more likely to sleep badly (OR, 1.79; 95% CI, 1.39-2.31).
Two caveats. Those studies were cross-sectional, so they show an association rather than proving the device caused the lost sleep, and the participants were children, so it isn't a clean read on a 27-year-old with a gaming PC. Still, even a device sitting there unopened tracked with worse sleep. Getting your days back after months of this is [its own separate problem](/guides/gaming/sleep-work-and-getting-your-day-back).
"How many hours is an addiction?"
There's no hour count, and anyone giving you one is making it up.
The World Health Organization recognises gaming disorder in ICD-11 as "a pattern of gaming behavior characterized by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences".
Two facts matter if someone's told you that you have a problem and you're not sure that's fair.
The first is duration. "The behaviour pattern must be severe enough that it results in significant impairment to a person's functioning... and would normally have been evident for at least 12 months." A bad month is not the diagnosis. Neither is a bad summer.
The second is prevalence: "Studies suggest that gaming disorder affects only a small proportion of people who engage in digital- or video-gaming activities."
The diagnosis is also contested, and you deserve to know that. In the DSM-5-TR, "IGD is included in the section recommending conditions for further research", and "gambling disorder is the only behavioral addiction... identified in DSM-5-TR". Twenty-four scholars published an open objection to the WHO proposal: their "main concerns are the low quality of the research base, the fact that the current operationalization leans too heavily on substance use and gambling criteria, and the lack of consensus on symptomatology", and they warned about "the treatment of abundant false-positive cases, especially for children and adolescents".
None of that means your nights are fine. It means the label is doing less work than the question you care about, which is whether gaming is costing you things you want back. [The recognised criteria, gone through properly](/guides/gaming/is-my-gaming-a-problem).
If you're reading this about your child
You're probably here at midnight after another argument. Start with the reassuring bit: most young people who play a lot are just playing a lot. The proportion who meet the clinical threshold is small, and that threshold asks for roughly a year of real harm.
The hours on the counter matter less than what those hours have replaced. Useful questions:
- Are they eating and sleeping, or has that genuinely stopped?
- Have they dropped a friendship, a team, or a subject they used to care about?
- What happens when the internet goes down by accident?
- Is the game providing something (status, company, being good at something) that's thin everywhere else?
That last one explains more than the screen time report does. Confiscating the console without replacing what it gave them buys a fortnight of silence and nothing else.
The National Centre for Gaming Disorders takes referrals from family members and runs parent workshops, so you don't have to work it out alone.
Where to get help in the UK
**The National Centre for Gaming Disorders** is an NHS clinic that "provides support for people in England aged 13 and over who are experiencing difficulties controlling their video game use", and "also offers support for parents and carers of young people aged 13 to 16". It "accepts self-referrals, as well as referrals from family members and professionals", and offers "CBT sessions focused on controlled levels of gaming and increasing other activities". England only, and it does not offer crisis interventions.
**SMART Recovery UK** is free, CBT-based, and covers gaming explicitly: it "supports a wide range of behavioural challenges, including gambling, food-related issues, shopping, gaming, and other compulsive behaviours". Their line is 0330 053 6022.
**Gaming Addicts Anonymous** runs online meetings with a UK phone dial-in. "The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop video gaming." Plenty of people take the meetings and leave the fellowship's beliefs. **ITAA** covers gaming alongside social media and other digital compulsions, online and in person.
If tonight is worse than tired, Samaritans is **116 123**, free, 24 hours a day. NHS urgent mental health support is **111**, option 2.
Some people keep the blocks, the bad hours and the person who knows in one place. That's what [Renovyn's Shield](/shield) is for. It's no substitute for the clinic.
Common questions
**How many hours of gaming a day is an addiction?** There's no hour threshold in any recognised definition. The WHO criteria turn on impaired control, gaming taking priority over other activities, and continuing despite clear harm, normally evident for at least 12 months. Six hours a day with a life that works is a different position from three and a lost job.
**What's the difference between gaming addiction and gaming as a hobby?** A hobby competes with other things and sometimes loses. Look at what happens when you try to stop rather than at how much you play, and at what gaming has crowded out this year.
**My son isn't eating or sleeping because of gaming. Where do I start?** Eating and sleeping come first, before any conversation about hours, and a GP appointment is reasonable if either has stopped. The National Centre for Gaming Disorders takes family referrals for young people aged 13 and over in England.
**Is gaming disorder actually a real diagnosis?** Yes in ICD-11, the WHO classification used across the NHS. No in the DSM-5-TR, where it sits in the research section. Both are true at once, and it's a live argument among researchers.
Sources
- [WHO, Gaming disorder frequently asked questions](https://www.who.int/standards/classifications/frequently-asked-questions/gaming-disorder). The ICD-11 definition, the 12 month requirement, the small proportion affected.
- [Association Between Portable Screen-Based Media Device Access or Use and Sleep Outcomes, JAMA Pediatrics](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27802500/). The meta-analysis, the bedtime odds ratio, the access-without-use finding.
- [Aarseth et al., Scholars' open debate paper on the ICD-11 Gaming Disorder proposal](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28033714/). The 24 scholar objection and the false-positive warning.
- [CNWL, National Centre for Gaming Disorders](https://www.cnwl.nhs.uk/national-centre-gaming-disorders). Who the clinic sees, referral routes, the CBT offered, no crisis care.
