A Comparison Study on Stress Relief in VR
Dongyun Han, Donghoon Kim, Kangsoo Kim, Isaac Cho · 2023
In modern life, people encounter various stressors, which may cause negative mental and bodily reactions to make them feel frustrated, angry, or irritated. Earlier studies have revealed that Virtual Reality (VR) experiences are effective as traditional methods in reality in stress management and reduction. However, it is still unclear how different activities in VR and their combinations could moderate the effects on stress reduction. In this work, we conduct a comparative study to investigate the effects of two virtual activities: 1) meditation in VR, 2) a smash room experience in VR, and 3) a traditional meditation method of Sitting in Silence in the real world. The results show that VR meditation has the highest short-term effects on temporal stress, followed by VR smash room and Sitting in Silence.