Did mental health affect your chess ratings?

I noticed a severe decline in rating after being in severe distress. Anyone had something similar?

I get low on time every single game, unable to think at all, I cannot find the moves like I used to.

I dropped almost 200 points, that's absurd! It's like I forgot how to play suddenly.

Yes, and that damaged my mental health...and that damaged my play. Vicious cycle made worse all the time. I want to actually win to feel better about myself. Years of practice and I'm just getting worse.

maybe

Losing in chess damages mental health... It is better to play random opening instead... You can blame bad luck whenever you lose and it is fun to play them because of their novelty...

Anxiety, depression, or emotional distress take up a huge amount of mental bandwidth. That leaves less space for calculation, strategy, or even basic pattern recognition.

Definately. Christmas 2023 my personal family circumstance went bananas, stress level 3 billion. Chess rating went from a several steady yeary rise peaking at the time at 1450. Stress is real and there is that old saying:-

When stress comes through the door, ELO flies out the ......

Rather chess rating affects mental health

It's a vicious cycle. You are stressed, you play, you lose, you get even more frustrated and then it's all downhill from there

Sound reasonable, the worst you feel the worst you play, at least that's for me

Yes, which is why you stay away from the board when you have problems in life.

yes

Agreed

You don't need to be crazy to play chess.

But it helps.

And vice versa

yes. old age and rotten ape meat took a toll on my performance

agreed

Chess takes a certain level of confidence to play well, is what I noticed. That ties to mental health as dealing with stress or other bad moods can hamper your decision-making and make you second-guess your play.

It absolutely damages your performance.

Yep to a degree mental health affects my chess? but I cant give it all the credit? so do bad habits, no sleep, and my lifelong feud with logical decision making and lots of other things can shoulder some of the blame.

No doubt the more strain on the prefrontal cortex the less it is able to execute the high order thinking which is required in chess. I think for similar reasons you see judges being much harsher giving sentences just before lunchtime, because tanking glucose levels deprives the PFC of the resources it needs to make decisions effectively. In a similar way being anxious or depressed means your brain, even at a subconscious level, is preoccupied with matters unrelated to chess and so can't devote its full attention to the task at hand. Primitive parts of the brain that deal with emotion can also in effect override the more rational, logical PFC.