Return to town when your HP is low

In games

In games, nobody fights monsters with a red health bar.

Health bar turning red? Pop a potion immediately. MP running low? Find a spot to sit and regenerate. Not feeling good? Return to town, resupply, then head back out.

This isn’t laziness or inefficiency—it’s common sense.

No player would say: “I need to prove I’m strong, so I’ll never return to town!” That’s not strength, that’s stupidity.

Challenging a monster with 10 HP? Even at full health you might not win. At low health, you’re just giving yourself away. Healing up first is the most efficient strategy.

If you think about it, returning to town has the best cost-performance ratio. Potions cost money and have limited effects. Returning to town requires a trip, but it’s free and restores you fully—from a time-cost perspective, it’s actually the best deal.

More importantly, games never treat returning to town as failure. On the contrary, it’s a designed mechanic. Inns, campfires, save points—games remind you everywhere: time to rest.

Reality

In reality, we’re all pushing through life with red health bars.

Three all-nighters in a row preparing reports. Working until 2 AM on PowerPoint. Replying to work messages on weekends. Body sending warning signals—headaches, blurred vision, stomach pain, mental fog—yet we keep saying “just a bit more.”

Some companies even make this their culture. 996, 24/7, “fighting spirit,” “wolf culture.” As if not burning your HP to zero means you’re not trying hard enough.

What happens when you push through on red health? Karoshi, depression, anxiety. HP hits zero, game over.

No wonder everyone wants to “lie flat” now. Jumping from one extreme to another—since we can’t keep going, let’s just quit completely.

But you don’t need to be so extreme. You don’t need to push yourself to breakdown, nor do you need to give up entirely. You just need to learn to return to town and heal.

Resting regularly and maintaining health has the best cost-performance. If pushing too hard leads to serious physical and mental problems—muscle atrophy, hospitalization, medication, long-term treatment—that’s when you truly lose.

Sleep is your return to town. Lunch is your health potion. Nutrition and exercise are the foundation of your maximum HP. These aren’t wastes of time—they’re necessary investments to keep you in the fight.

Productivity experts know: one hour in good condition beats three hours exhausted.

Next time you’re tired, don’t push through. Return to town, heal up, then venture back out.

Return to town when your HP is low.

Player notes

I’m a lazy person, but I also easily enter flow states.

When working or watching movies, I can stay motionless for six hours. Forgetting to eat or sleep, completely losing track of time. Food? Optional. Bathroom? Hold it if I can.

Sleep is the most painful for me. I always feel like sleeping means today’s me has to self-destruct, handing over the right to enjoy life to tomorrow’s me (why should today’s me care?). So every night I’m reluctant to sleep, postponing as long as possible.

Actually, sleep should be the most cost-effective miracle cure. Unfortunately, it can’t be sold for profit, so nobody advertises it. But everyone should value sleep more.

At work, I always resisted the Pomodoro Technique. “I’m in the zone, why stop?” “25 minutes is too short!” “What can I do in a 5-minute break?”

But after actually trying it, I found it’s just like the game’s healing mechanic. Fight monsters for a bit, return to town to heal, then continue fighting. It’s not interruption—it’s rhythm.

25 minutes of focus, 5 minutes to stand up, use the bathroom, get water, look outside, daydream, meditate, stretch. By the end of the day, I actually got more done, and my brain and eyes got proper rest.

Work-life balance is really just scaling up this concept. Daily small breaks (Pomodoro), weekly big breaks (weekends), and every few months super breaks (long vacations).

Just like in games, you constantly cycle between fighting monsters and returning to town. This isn’t being lazy—it’s basic strategy for sustained combat.

Important note: scrolling on your phone or watching videos feels like relaxing, but it’s actually draining you. Your brain is still running at high speed, dopamine being constantly stimulated, attention hijacked. That’s not rest—it’s just bleeding HP in a different way.

Thinking about it now, game design is brilliant. It teaches you from the start: not healing means death.

Leveling tips

□ Set fixed “return to town times”: no work after 11 PM, at least one full rest day per weekend
□ Use Pomodoro or similar methods at work, forcing 5-10 minute breaks every 25-45 minutes
□ Really rest when resting: leave screens, move your body, look into the distance—don’t just switch apps and keep draining
□ Treat sleep as a required condition for leveling up, not an optional feature
□ Learn to recognize “time to return to town” signals: scattered attention, constant mistakes, physical discomfort are all red health warnings