Stamina! That mysterious green juice that
powers our muscles.
In video games, it allows characters to cleave dragons, climb volcanoes,
and lightly jog through a prairie.
I look at these heroic tasks, and I think…
How?
Look, I’m usually pretty high energy, but the fact of the matter is that
I’ve been stuck at home for the past two months
and I’ve cultivated the stamina of
a cartoon basset hound.
I used to be so much more productive, and my energy has just completely vanished.
Is it because I’ve been having trouble adjusting to this new working-from-home lifestyle?
Or is it because my build is trash?
Today, I’m saying goodbye to that boring, languid Brian,
and I am going to use the things I’ve learned
from video games to maximize my stamina.
*synth music*
I gotta go ham on these graphics ‘cause I don’t have a studio anymore.
There are two main ways that stamina is represented in video games:
stamina bars that automatically
replenish, and stamina bars that don’t.
And these different representations lead to
different techniques for boosting that stamina.
My hypothesis is that if I use these same
stamina techniques in real life,
then I will finally have the energy
to address laundry chair.
*Sad accordion music*
There are four methods of
augmenting your stamina in video games.
Let’s start with the easiest one to
understand. Item Refills.
You expend some energy, you eat something to replenish that energy. It's basic biology.
The Krebs cycle or something like that…
I am not interested, get that shit outta here.
The problem is that most video games are usually more fantastical than real life.
Oftentimes the item you need to consume is an elixir made from arcane magicks
siphoned from the very lifeblood
that sustains our world.
Or, if you’re Hideo Kojima,
it’s Monster Energy.
God bless you Death Stranding for having a magical canteen
that effortlessly turns dangerous Timefall
into a branded energy drink.
You know, for a video game that loves to give you a 40-minute-long cutscene
explaining why some dipshit is named "HOTWETMAN" or whatever,
this piece of world building has
a much simpler explanation:
MONEY.
And thanks to this shameless product placement, I have a concrete way to determine how to refill stamina.
Judging by Sam’s experience, it takes about 600 milliliters of Monster Energy to fully juice your bar.
And given the fact that this logic exists
in a world where everyone is stuck in isolated homes
and delivery people are among the most
important of essential workers,
I think it’s safe to say that conditions could not be better suited for this experiment.
The biggest difference between me and Sam Bridges is that I’m not getting paid by Monster Energy,
so I don’t have to pretend to like it.
Technique 2: Slowing Depletion.
Unlike item refills, this one asks
you to do some planning.
You only consume one of these items before you have to do a huge task,
so it usually shows up in games
where preparation is key,
like when you have to go fight a 40-ton pickle.
Monster Hunter has battles
that can last upwards of an hour,
which can make the preparation as important,
and as long, as the actual fight itself.
Kinda like eating a full pasta bake
before the big track meet.
There are quite a few ways to slow stamina depletion in Monster Hunter,
but sometimes the simplest option is the best one,
and in this case, the simplest option is steak.
Steak is made from raw meat in Monster Hunter
— and also the real world —
and if you eat it, it boosts your max stamina.
But the effects change based on how you cook it.
A rare steak refills your stamina bar and makes it longer,
but a well-done steak does all that AND it slows your max stamina depletion.
The steak snobs among you may turn
up your nose at the assertion
that a well-done meat is better
than a wet, juicy, rare one…
But I posit to you this question:
Which one would you rather have
jangling around in your leather satchel?
So I’ll be cooking these meats
until they are all-the-way gray.
Technique 3: Stamina Regeneration.
With this technique, every time you use stamina,
you’ll get it back faster.
And there is no game that makes you say,
“come on refill come on come ON
COME ON COME ON REFI-”
more than Dark Souls.
In Dark Souls you consume stamina every time
you attack, block, run, parry, roll, backstep,
backstab, ripost, jump, shoot arrows, call
your mom, check your bank account…
And if you’re in the middle of a boss fight and
you have run out of the stamina necessary
to dodge roll or swing your big sword,
well, them’s the breaks, kid.
Luckily, there are some accessories
that speed up that stamina regeneration.
And even more luckily, you can purchase legitimate versions of these items for about... 300 bucks.
Uh, no thank you. I can make that at home.
And even if I did have the means
to purchase these official props,
there’s still one massive problem.
The in-game items are imbued with dark, abyssal magicks
that I simply do not have the arcane wisdom to conjure.
Luckily, I do have one little piece of magic I can use.
It’s called:
The placebo effect!
There are plenty of psych studies that show that clothing choices
can have an effect on our mood and your confidence,
and there are even more studies that show
that placebos can have legitimate beneficial effects,
so why wouldn’t donning The Mask
of the Child help me deal with laundry chair?
*More sad accordion music*
And finally, technique 4: Permanent Increases.
This is by far the best way to maximize your stamina.
When you’ve got all the stamina in the world, even the heaviest of tasks won’t phase you.
There are plenty of realistic games that use this technique, like Red Dead Redemption 2,
where the only way to increase your max stamina is to do a bunch of stamina heavy tasks, like sprinting.
But the thing about this technique is that…
IT SUCKS.
UH, I’M SORRY?! You’re telling me
that in order to have more energy,
I have to use up all the little energy I have?
That’s recursive logic.
I don’t have any energy to begin with,
and you want me to run a mile? Bullshit!
So since Rockstar doesn’t actually care about realism, let’s talk about a more grounded game:
Breath of the Wild.
In this game, Link can trade four spirit
orbs to increase his hearts or his stamina.
But I want to focus on this little guy, the
Horned Statue.
Here, you can do a different sort of trade… a devil’s bargain. You can increase your max stamina...
YOU JUST HAVE TO GIVE UP SOME LIFE.
The only problem is that I can't figure out how I would gain more stamina
by doing something physically detrimental, like using a shampoo with sulfates.
I would never do that.
So for now, I’ll be focusing on the first three techniques.
Here’s how the experiment will go: I will spend one day
on each technique,
rating my stamina level every hour of that day.
If I’m at a 0, then I’m either sleeping or dead, so most of my stamina levels will be between 1 and 10,
with a 1 being the stamina level of a hotboxed sloth,
and a 10 being the energy of a 6-year-old at a laser tag party who just finished his first can of mello yello.
My goal is to be at a level 10 at all times.
I’ll also be rating the boosts based on three criteria:
Boost speed, Boost endurance, and Boost Quality.
But first, we have to do a control trial.
Which is just a normal day.
“Just after 7 o'clock on a Monday. I'd say my power level
is at a 5. I'm about to have some coffee."
I went about my day as I normally do, 
which is to say, boringly.
If we take a look at this graph,
you’ll see that there were two little spikes.
The first one, which happened
after I had my morning coffee,
and the second one after I hit
a real low spot right after lunch.
I have no idea if I’m pointing to the right places.
“It's half past one. I decided to be productive by at least leaving my house.
Gonna go buy a liter of Monster.
You can't tell because I'm wearing a mask,
but I'm grimacing under here."
This is obviously just one control trial,
but it is emblematic of the lethargy
I’ve been feeling for the past few weeks.
I never got above an 8, and in fact
my average for the full day
was just a little bit higher than how I was feeling
right after I woke up. That’s pretty bad.
But it means there's nowhere to go but up.
And I’ll be going WAY UP with the first technique trial.
“Feeling about a 5, not super tired, not super energetic.
But instead of making coffee, I instead
will go and take a swig from my canteen,
which I have filled up with three different Monster Energy drinks, up to the liter mark.
If I'm at halfway through my stamina right now, 
I should be drinking 300 milliliters. Let's see if this kicks in!"
And the effects of Sam Bridges’ favorite
concoction did, indeed, kick in. "8 o'clock!
Let's, okay, obviously the energy drink has,
uh, affected me. Let me put this down so I
can move around with my hands. I can still
have more stamina. Yeah, I feel like I'm at
an 8 right now. You know normally I'd say
that that's fine. I'm trying to be at the
peak performance level. Another 120 milliliters
down the hatch. Let's do some work, baby!
*singing* Don't mind me, just gonna do some
work right now. Feeling fine! Probably a 9.
Or maybe a 9 and a half! Maybe a 10? Probably...
I'll, mmm, 9 and a half. Can we get waffle
fries? Does anyone deliver waffle fries? NO
FILMING! Let's go write more scripts!" Things
were going great for me in the stamina department.
Until they weren’t. *incoherent mumbling*
"The crash, and then right after eating lunch
has kind of... just brought the whole thing
down to a 3. Now that I have seen that Monster
gives me a super high and then immediately
crashes me, I’m going to do the only thing
a sane person would do, and consume more monster
energy. Let's go to work!” And though I
went searching for that magnificent, full
stamina feeling I fleetingly experienced in
that morning, I still averaged less than the
control trial for the rest of the afternoon.
I drank 3 full cans of Monster Energy.
“If I hadn’t had the monster energy, would
I have been dead right now? I don't understand.”
There was only one little spike that happened
after I had to go outside to pick up steaks
for the next day’s trials, and though the
energy drinks didn’t keep me up all night,
there were some other side effects, that ultimately
led to a bad review of this technique. “My
body is tired, but my mind is just, there's
some anxieties in there? And also I feel,
like, physically not great." Still I had high
hopes for Trial 2. Since the previous two
trials trended downward, I had hoped that
Slowing Depletion would help. Unfortunately,
due to the previous day’s trials, I was
operating at a deficit. "Went to bed alright
and then I woke up about 2 hours after that,
and then kept waking up every 30 minutes.
I'll tell you what, more than anything in
the world, what I would love to do is go ahead
and brew myself a pot of coffee, but you know
what, I’ll do you one better.
Super cheap, beef eye-round steak.
I’m gonna ahead and grill one of these puppies up to a healthy 160 degrees Fahrenheit.
Let’s get some breakfast going.”
I tried my best to go into this experience unbiased, and honestly, the first steak of the day wasn’t that bad.
“I feel more powerful."
And though it didn’t give
me quite the same bump as the Monster Energy,
my stamina levels rose and stayed level for
the entire morning.
“It feels like I'm maintaining it a lot better.
Maybe I really am not degrading
my stamina. It is almost lunchtime.
Maybe I'll eat two well-done medallions of steak."
That’s exactly what I did. Sadly, the second meats of the day were not as wonderful,
and this is where the true challenge
of this technique came in.
“I do really wish I was eating
something other than this.
The problem is that I'm still very hungry, and... but I also
don't want to eat any more well-done steaks.”
With my stomach rumbling and my stamina flagging,
I decided to try to take my mind off it by
working on the accessories for the next day’s
trials. And this did give me a little stamina boost,
and that stamina maintained, but other
things weren’t going so hot.
“Great, stamina’s going alright, but I am so hungry,
and also so upset with idea that I have to eat more of these well-done pucks of meat.
But I'm gonna make the last two!
Now a lot of you might be wondering,
doesn’t it get easier over time?
And the answer is obviously no.”
By the end of the day, it's easy to see that
though my stamina didn't get quite as high,
it did last longer, so there might be some
truth to this slowing degradation technique.
But unlike the Monster Energy trial,
this one was both literally and metaphorically
harder to swallow.
There’s a reason energy
drinks aren’t chewable.
Luckily, our final trial didn’t make me consume anything.
“I slept a little bit better last night, 
at least, so I'd say I'm at, like, a 4.
But the goodnews is that I know just what to do. Let me go put on my accessories.
I already feel energized.”
Okay, full disclosure, as much as
I believe video game logic,
I did just tape some tin
foil onto some cardboard.
I wasn’t expecting much from this trial.
But the results speak for themselves.
“Why don’t I carry around a shield more often!
This makes me feel so powerful!”
I had a morning boost that rivaled Item Refills!
Sure, working in full garb was
a little bit annoying,
but that didn’t stop me from being an
active participant in my virtual meetings.
"Yeah, I can, I can help out with that, Jenna,
if you need any extra help on that one."
Jenna - "Yeah, Brian. I guess so."
But around 11, the mask and shield were getting to me,
so I started altering which of the
accessories I was wearing.
There’s no set bonus, so as long as I have one item equipped,
my stamina regeneration should be
a little bit faster than normal.
“For the past hour, I took off the mask, and I’ve
just been living on the Chloranthy Ring.
I do feel more tired.
I'm gonna rethink about the mask."
At 1:30, I had to do a stream, and I did that in the mask.
And sure enough,
my stamina was boosted after that experience.
In fact for most of the day, the accessories
helped and didn’t make my stomach hurt,
but there were other costs.
“I don’t like wearing this mask.
I feel like my stamina has increased. But it seems like there's an obvious trade off going on here,
because, like, it's not, it’s not comfortable to wear. You can see, like, it's been squishing my nose.
I’m deciding whether or not I want to have higher energy levels or if I want to feel comfortable,
is really what's happening at the moment."
Take a look right there.
I imagine that the Wright Brothers wore a similar
expression the day they went to Kitty Hawk,
because that is the face of a man
who is ready to soar.
Remember how I said I couldn’t figure out 
how to trade health for stamina?
Well judging from these previous trials,
each one of them was physically detrimental in
a specific and wonderful way.
"I feel, like, physically not great."
"Why am I still so hungry?"
"It's not comfortable to wear."
Perhaps I could trade my health for more stamina by
doing every technique at once.
Welcome to The Final Trial!
“Waking up this morning and realizing what I was going to have to do today
really just made me not want to get out of bed.
I am about to do all three stamina things at once.
I’m not expecting it to feel good, but I am expecting
an increase in productivity unlike... 
anyone has ever seen from me.”
So after donning my outfit and
grilling up a well-done steak,
I sat down for breakfast.
“God I hate this steak.”
And by 9 o’clock, I felt the effects.
“I think maybe god didn’t intend for us to wake up and drink an energy drink
and eat a well-done steak and then wear a tin foil mask.
I’m at a 5.”
Okay, so the boost didn’t happen right away,
but let’s remember that some of
these boosts take a while to warm up.
And given the fact that I'm increasing my max stamina,
I should be hitting a 10, maybe an 11
or 12, by midmorning.
Except things didn’t change.
“It's 10 o'clock and I'm still at a 5. What the hell?
I'm just gonna cook all the steaks, I'm gonna drink all the
energy drink, I'm gonna wear this while I'm doing it.
I'm just gonna do it all right now.
I'm tired of this. I'm also physically tired."
I ate four steaks.
I drank all of the rest of my energy drink.
I was GOING to increase my maximum stamina.
“I’m ready to take on the day.”
*pained moan*
It turns out that doing every single stamina boosting technique at once fills your stamina bar so full,
that the bar explodes.
I felt physically ill and
had to lie down for several hours.
I can’t even review this boost technique because it
just knocked me unconscious.
But I will say that I did rebound later that day.
“So I left my house.
Came out here to take a little walk while maintaining adequate social distance.
I feel... I feel a WHOLE lot better.
You can't tell, but I'm smiling under this."
And this made me rethink some of my trials.
Most of my afternoon boosts weren’t due to gimmicky
ingestibles, they were because I took a small walk,
or I did a fun craft, or I talked to
my friends online.
Was I doing these techniques for nothing?
Is video game logic wrong?
No.
I just didn't understand what
video games were teaching me.
Getting good at Dark Souls or Monster Hunter is about knowing how many swings of your big sword
you can do before you need to take a break.
It only becomes a major issue if you completely run out, and you have to spend a few seconds staggered,
or spend a few hours lying in bed.
Maybe the real stamina technique I need to learn is recognizing that, right now,
I may not be able to do as much as I want to.
But if I focus on the little wins,
I can manage my stamina,
and I can manage my expectations for my stamina.
So although I may still wear the
Chloranthy Ring, it will just be for the fashion.
And today, I’m gonna take care
of laundry chair.
You tell me when the camera stops
rolling so I can stop folding.
*SYNTH BANGER*
