Improving - Outside the Game

Instead of spending all your time looking for ways to improve within CS:GO, there are some easy ways outside the game to improve your performance that we will explore on this page.

Mindset

Improving your mindset is one of the things that will have the most impact on your gameplay and learning. Unfortunately it is one of the hardest to focus on when you start to have a bad session, or already having a bad day. Hopefully some of these techniques can help you out.

Breathing

Try implementing box breathing for a way to refocus your attention and calm your mind.

Start a time for 2 minutes
Follow the image
- Inhale as the circle expands for a count of 4
- Hold your breath as the circle is at it's maximum for a count of 4
- Exhale as the circle contracts for a count of 4
- Hold your breath as the circle is at it's minimum for a count of 4
- Repeat

If the timer goes off and you want to continue, do so! Don't worry about setting the clock this time, just go on as long as you are feeling good.

Food & Drink

Getting frustrated? Feeling light headed? You might just be hangry. Gaming is an activity that can eat away seemingly endless amounts of time, and there is a good chance that you have missed out on some nutrition in pursuit of better map times. Getting a bite to eat and rehydrating gives your brain the fuel it needs to keep going. It also gives you an opprotunity to get up and move. Speaking of getting up...

Exercise

How long have you been sitting in your chair since you last got up? More than an hour? If so, try getting up now and doing 10 jumping jacks. Getting your heart rate up is beneficial when most of us are sedentary behind a keyboard all day. Besides combatting against conditions like DVT from sitting too much, getting exercise, whether going for a run, or doing some air squats is a great way to feel better.

Stretching

Ugh. Stretching. That's what a lot of people, formerly including myself, used to think. Stretching feels great however, and helps to ward off injuries. There are two kinds of stretching I am talking about, one is your whole body. Try some yoga at your desk to get some relief. The other kind is hand and wrist specific stretching. If you play competitive games or are at your computer long enough, you are almost certainly going to start noticing tight wrists and maybe even soreness pop up. You want to bite that at the head before it becomes something like Carpal Tunnel. Try adding some of these stretches into your gaming breaks, when the server is changing maps is a great time to do so!

Ergonomics

Ergonomics can have a big impact on your performance if you are spending hours a day at your desk. Try these quick tips to improve your set up.

Computer Settings

There are a number of things you can do in your operating system to improve your experience in game.

Disable mouse acceleration
Disable mouse acceleration
Disable mouse acceleration
See above

Have you done it yet? I was going to add more little tips and PC optimizing tweaks here, but really this is going to have the most monumental change in your experience across all PC games. So much so that it's the only thing I want you to change. Please do it. Computers default to having mouse acceleration on, and if you've never turned it off, you probably don't think about it that much. To test if you have it on, move your mouse to the far left of the screen, and then pick up your mouse and put it on the far left side of your mouse pad. Now very very slowly, move your mouse over to the right, to about the middle of the screen. Now, very quickly move your mouse back towards the left side of the mouse pad, watching your pointer on the screen. When the pointer reaches the left side of the screen again, STOP! Check if your mouse is at it's initial starting point, if mouse acceleration is on, then your mouse will NOT be back where you started. Check out this video here for a visual demonstration of what I am talking about. And head on over to this guide on Tom's Hardware to see how to disable this "feature".