Chess, stress and anxiety: a game that calms or one that raises tension?

Updated 18 October 2026 · Written by the How To Play Chess editorial team · Studies checked in the original journals

Chess and anxiety: what physiology measures

Two teams have measured what happens in a player’s body while they think. The first, French, equipped club players during real games.

The authors interpret these changes as the response to a high cognitive demand, and propose chess as a model for studying the effects of psychological stress on the body. In other words: a serious game is a stress situation, modest but real.

The second study, Spanish, had players solve problems of increasing difficulty.

The best-performing players seem to cope better with mental load, which matches a familiar observation among competitors: experience teaches you to stay calm. But with sixteen participants, these results remain to be confirmed.

6,000 calories a day: a contested estimate

In September 2019, an article by the American channel ESPN titled “The Grandmaster Diet” went around the world: a grandmaster would burn up to 6,000 calories a day in a tournament. The figure was attributed to the neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky, of Stanford University, who compared the players’ stress response to that of athletes.

This figure comes from no published study that measured it. Actual measurements, such as those by Troubat and colleagues, show a moderate rise in heart rate and a change in the body’s fuel, not an expenditure comparable to that of a long-distance runner. A metabolism researcher has also publicly challenged the estimate, for want of a supporting measurement. That players lose weight during a long tournament is plausible (stress, reduced appetite, irregular meals, sometimes physical exercise), but it does not mean that thinking burns thousands of calories.

This myth and others are examined on the page chess and health: 9 myths put to the test.

Is chess dangerous for your health?

No, no study shows it. Like any seated, absorbing activity, it simply calls for a few common-sense precautions:

• sitting still: long hours seated, at a tournament or online, are offset by physical activity;
• sleep: online games late in the evening, with a bright screen, can delay falling asleep;
• compulsive chaining: playing fast game after fast game following a defeat, to “win it back”, feeds frustration and fatigue;
• competitive pressure: for some players, particularly young ones, rating stakes become a source of anxiety; it is better to talk about it than to let it take hold.

Chess, mood and depression

In the French PAQUID cohort, older people who regularly played board games developed depression slightly less often during follow-up than the others. This is an association, observed in a study designed for dementia, and it weakens when baseline cognitive state is taken into account. It does not allow chess to be recommended against depression, which calls for medical support.

It is sometimes said that chess would act on depression through “neuroplasticity”. Brain plasticity is a real phenomenon, described on the page the chess player’s brain, but no study has shown that it would make chess effective against depression.

Playing to relax

To keep chess a pleasure rather than a source of tension:

1. Choose slow games or games without a clock, with a friendly partner.
2. Set yourself a limit on online games, and stop after two defeats in a row.
3. Vary the pleasures: solve problems, replay a famous game, analyse with nothing at stake.
4. Look after the setting: a clear table, good light, a board always ready. Le Palais des Échecs gives advice on setting up your chessboard in a quiet corner, the right way round and at a good height.
5. Play with others: the social side often counts for more than the result.

See also: chess and ADHD, chess and autism.