Not everything that helps us is butterflies and rainbows. Sometimes, the things in life that scare us most are what help us overcome our fear – but much better to experience this in VR.
Welcome to the future of #anxiety treatment: a #virtualreality (VR) game that teaches you a #breathing technique to help #calm your nerves, then pits you against a monstrous humanoid that wants to eat you, all to practice deploying what you’ve learned in genuinely panic-inducing situations.
Developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge, with help from a local video game company, Ninja Theory, the game is being tested as a means of teaching people a strategy to cope with everyday anxiety.
“Therapists often ask people to learn techniques, such as breathing techniques, in totally static and unengaged ways, and then say: ‘Try this while you’re stressed.’ But there’s no way of getting people to try it when they’re stressed in that therapeutic situation. VR allows you to completely manipulate the environment that people are in, which can be really useful in that regard.â€
Engagement and context specific stimulation in the relative safety of your own headset is proving to be a major advantage of VR and game based therapies.
