Virtual Reality: Changing The Ways To Approach Mental Health and Meditation
The development and improvement that our world has seen are not limited to just technology. I am talking about the growth of the society in general and our tolerance for speaking up for long-standing taboos.
It is because of our openness that we came to address the mental health and its importance in the long run for an individual. Ipso facto, we started to find new and effective ways to incorporate meditation and such practices into our daily routine, since they are tried and tested to offer incredible results.
And we did what we have been doing to make something effective — integrate technology with innovative ideas. This is how Virtual Reality came to enter the mental health spectrum.
The technology, after proving itself a boon in healthcare and education, has now landed to improve the processes of how we deal with mental health and meditation.
So, let’s have a look at some use cases or rather benefits of VR in meditation and how it is changing the landscape of the said paradigm.
Helps deal with anxiety and other issues
Since the 1990s, the use of VR technology had been proved itself useful in treating post-traumatic stress disorder. Not only this but institutions, for instance, Palo Alto-based Limbix library uses VR content specifically designed to treat issues, like alcohol addiction, claustrophobia, and teenage depression. Moreover, another organization named Psious, which is Barcelona-based is offering treatments targeting eating disorders.
As for anxiety, VR is used in the form of “exposure therapy”. It is a treatment where patients are made to experience anxiety-induced stimuli in an extremely safe and controlled environment. It helps the patients realize that the threats that give them anxiety are not dangerous.
Let’s say a patient suffers from anxiety attacks and fears heights. Now, through VR, the therapist can make the patient experience heights without actually being there and eventually will overcome the fear.
VR-induced meditation mobile applications
Just like every other domain, mobile applications have also captured the meditation space adjoined with VR. In fact, meditation app statistics show that 52 million users downloaded Top 10 apps in the year 2019. There are numerous ways in which virtual reality is transforming mental health apps.
It is even believed that VR mental health therapy for meditation space could even replace traditional therapy.
A known Virtual Reality meditation app named Joyable engages users in five-minute activities that are based on cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) principles. Some other Virtual reality meditation apps that have gained fame among users because of their features are:
Helps patients in ‘unlearning’ trauma
Studies accumulated over the years state that a PTSD patient also suffering from depression response in a more positive way when exposed to VR-induced therapy sessions.
It has been noticed that depressed patients are not fully able to imagine the traumatic memories that trigger the anxiety attacks, and resultantly, the therapy sessions do not work as effectively as they would have otherwise. This is where VR comes to save the day.
VR exposure stimulating traumatic and triggering events helps the patients bring the experience to life and this way, they can start to unlearn their anxiety response.
Interestingly, though the impact of VR in meditation and mental health is restricted to visual stimulus as of now, a daunting startup has come up with VR smells initiative which is still a work in progress.
Incorporating AI therapists into VR
Yes, the idea has surfaced. Witnessing the unaffordability and inaccessibility to proper treatment, experts have suggested integrating AI therapists into VR products such as meditations applications. An instance — In ever so hectic life, people usually do not find the time for self-care, let alone go for professional treatments and help.
In this regard, this amalgamation can prove to be highly useful, as the help will be available anytime the users feel the need. It can be an effective substitute for what we know as self-help books.
In the words of Stéphane Bouchard, the Canada Research Chair in Clinical Cyberpsychology at the University of Quebec — “It’s a relevant advance for patients who don’t have access to treatment or who do not need such a tailored treatment,”.
I guess this article clearly answers the questions revolving around “Why VR meditation instead of ‘regular’ meditation”. Even after what we have achieved so far, there is still a lot of potential packed in the VR technology. Without a doubt, we are yet to see the awesome byproducts of this next-gen technology with other technologies.
