Terraria, Disgaea, and my stupid brain

I've been playing a lot of Terraria this week, in lieu of doing things that are actually productive. Terraria is a fantastic game, but I've already played 280+ hours of it according to Steam. And the new patch didn't necessarily add anything that interesting. So why am I starting a new character yet again?

I've also been playing a lot of the PSP version of Disgaea, which I already completed on the DS. Disgaea is, again, a fantastic game, but I've already finished it and even did some power leveling back on the DS. So why is it that I feel compelled to dive into the item world yet again?

I think there's something in common here. This past week has been stressful to me for various reasons, and I feel like I don't have control over my life in some ways. I also feel overwhelmed by the amount of things bouncing around in my head, which is distracting me from the things I need to get done. All in all, it's been kind of crappy. So why those two games?

Terraria and Disgaea could not be farther apart in how they play, but the way that they feel in my brain is very similar. Both games occupy my brain almost completely. My spacial reasoning is occupied by digging or trying to find Geo chains. My forward thinking is occupied by planning the best builds to fight the next boss, or by planning on which items I will level up first. My senses are occupied by constant input, either from massive particle effects and lighting changes, or by amazing combat animations. I'm usually doing math in my head at the same time, either counting the blocks I need to build a cool house, or the damage I'm doing to enemies and how many attacks I need to do to finish them off.

That said, neither game is that hard. The parts of my brain being occupied are challenged, but not that much. It's relaxing in a way that only video games seem to be, at least to me. I've got constantly shifting, realizable small goals, along with overarching large goals that I am always making progress towards. 

I have a few "stress relief," or more accurately "problem avoidance," games. Terraria, Minecraft, Disgaea, Dragon Quest, Peggle. They are pretty different on the surface, but in the end they all occupy multiple parts of my brain so that I'm not really thinking about anything else.

I don't think this is always healthy behavior. It can be very toxic, in fact. But it is something I do, and I think it's something that can be done healthily as long as I'm aware that I'm avoiding shit, and what kind of effect these games have on me.