Is Chess a placebo that prolongs life by reducing stress?

Is Chess a placebo that prolongs life by reducing stress?

In my experience, quite the opposite.  I actually get more stressed.  Maybe I'm just one of those Type A people, but given the stereotype of old men playing chess in the park, there might be something to this.

Not the way I play.

They just look old. 

Wow! It's manavendra!

I would say chess is a game which could be stressful, so if the reduction of stress prolongs life, then chess probably fails in that regard.

Good trysts!!! you can be excused of dis-honesty only on the grounds that before deceiving others you have taken great pains to deceive yourself.

Unrelentingly and unceasingly, Chess is daily and hourly scrutinis-ing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each chess pieces'. If a wild Chess player habitually performs such useless activity, Chess will favour rival individuals who devote the time and energy, instead, to surviving and recapturing. Chess cannot afford frivolous jeux d'esprit. Ruthless utilitarianism trumps in Chess, even if it doesn't always seem that way.

 It is you, manavendra! Only you could write such confusing prose!

When I play chess I am focused, but nervous. So I don't know if chess really reduces stress, because it doesn't work for me

Chess surely does no favours to the survival of its possessor. But it does benefit the genes that distinguish him from his less spectacular rivals. The chess game is an advertisement, which buys its place in the economy of games by attracting other chess players. The same is true of the labour and time that a Chess player devotes to his game: a sort of external fantasy built of pieces, openings, colourful midgames, endgames and, when available, traps, screws and bottle caps.

Nobody is sure what the benefit of Chess is - perhaps some kind of hygiene, cleaning out parasites from the brain; there are various other hypotheses, none of them strongly supported by evidence. But uncertainty as to details doesn't - nor should it - stop players from presuming, with great confidence, that Chess must be 'for' something. In this case common sense might agree, but Chess logic has a particular reason for thinking that, if the Chess players didn't played, their statistical prospects of genetic success would be damaged, even if we don't yet know the precise route of the damage.

You should probably look up the word placebo.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I don't believe that for a second!

Please, Cows, don't encourage him to look up (or use) any more words.

I'm beginning to think he has a conceptual flaw. 

Who isn't nowadays? 

Nobody is sure what the benefit of Chess is because there isn't one.

Hello Indian Chess Philosopher Manavendra.

Well, there are several sides to this coin.

First, as we are all addicted to chess, -I am anyway- "getting the shot" makes you relaxed an relieves the stress. Just one more shot...

Second, yes, chess is some kind of a placebo use of the brain. It's supposed to be used for other things than this.

Third, chess is the most stressful situation I can imagine. Other things in my life seems much more relaxed compared to the chess-stress experienced when I am expected to make the next move.

Fourth, because I spend so much time lurking chess websites, I have less time going out in the open doing dangerous stuff, which would increase the chances of a fatal accident. In other words, Chess prolongs Life.

Fifth, on the other hand my endurance and health rapidly degrade, all of us simply remain clumsy mortals, we all die anyway.

Sixth, in my life I have yet to find something else that is quite as rewarding and entertaining as chess... it provides humongous mountains of fun and giggling.

To the OP, do you maybe mean panacea instead of placebo?

Trysts...If you recall, manavendra made a memorable contribution to one of your threads. He said we could know him best by what he didn't say. Then, he disappeared. Left us wondering, "What didn't he say now?"

 I do recall that, MyCows! He also is the only alien known to communicate without the use of crop circles:)