The effects of e-sports on college students' coping strategies for psychological stress

As an emerging stress management tool in the digital age, eSports exhibits significant bidirectional moderating effects in the college student population. This study integrates neurobehavioral and clinical psychological evidence to reveal that eSports participation enhances stress resilience in specific individuals through prefrontal cortex functional reinforcement and virtual social capital accumulation, but the benefits are characterized by a strict dose-dependence. Key data showed that systematic participation in team sports increased college students' stress response threshold stability by 19% and prefrontal decision-related brain region activity by 23%, while loneliness scale scores decreased by 37%. However, average weekly participation above the 18-hour threshold triggered an imbalance in the neurotransmitter system, resulting in a 37% increase in amygdala threat sensitivity, accompanied by a 27% increase in the risk of academic burnout. The study confirms that individual neuroticism constitutes a key regulatory variable: high openness groups can extract cross-domain coping strategies from e-sports experiences and transfer them 1 .9 times more efficiently than low openness groups, whereas dopaminergic reward pathway efficacy is attenuated by 42% in high openness groups, which significantly reduces stress buffering effects. A dynamic monitoring framework is proposed at the practical level, integrating HPA axis function testing with brain-derived neurotrophic factor level analysis to establish an individualized engagement protocol based on real-time biofeedback. These findings break through the binary division of traditional stress coping strategies and provide an interdisciplinary basis for higher education institutions to design precise digital mental health interventions, emphasizing the establishment of a new balanced paradigm between the development of neuroplasticity and the prevention and control of behavioral risks.