Increased interest in meditation and its many positive benefits has been accompanied by a plethora of self-help books, YouTube guided meditations, and smartphone apps. Despite these various aids, users of meditation still have difficulty with certain practices, especially those that require using mental imagery. Thus, while compassion-based interventions are known to increase empathy, and reduce stress, anxiety, and depression, the benefits of these interventions aren’t being fully realized by many practitioners.
In this regard, Virtual Reality (VR) can be a potent ally as it “facilitate[s] the construction and sustainment of mental images.” To determine to what extent Virtual Reality can positively influence the outcome of compassion-based interventions, a group of Spanish researchers divided 16 university students into two groups that received compassion training. Half received traditional training, while the remainder’s training was augmented with VR. Participants in the VR group were able to observe themselves as a third person via a participant-facing eye-level camera, and to reach out and “touch” themselves, by touching the outstretched hands of an interviewer (an experimental method known as The Machine to Be Another).
Following the training, both groups showed “increased positive qualities towards self/others, decreased negative qualities toward self, and increased awareness and attention to mental events and bodily sensations.” However, the use of VR-bolstered mental imagery was associated with a greater frequency of self-care behaviors, like nutrition and hydration, exercise, regular sleep, and active self-compassion, after a period of two weeks.
The study, by its methodology and limitations, opens the door for several avenues of future research. For example, the participants were primarily female (75%), all university students, and limited in number. Furthermore, while a corollary relationship was found between the use of VR and increased frequency of self-care behaviors, its directionality and precise nature is still unclear.
In light of an increased interest in meditation, and given the greater availability both in terms of production and price of VR headsets, the study’s findings provide a practical solution for improving the effects of compassion-based interventions, including reduced stress, anxiety and depression, and increased self-compassion and self-love.
The study, “Putting Oneself in the Body of Others: A Pilot Study on the Efficacy of an Embodied Virtual Reality System to Generate Self-Compassion“, was authored by Ausiàs Cebolla, Rocío Herrero, Sara Ventura, Marta Miragall, Miguel Bellosta-Batalla, Roberto Llorens, and Rosa Ma Baños.