Virtual Reality as a Portable Alternative to Chromotherapy Rooms for Stress Relief: A Preliminary Study

• Main Authors: Miguel A. Vaquero-Blasco, Eduardo Perez-Valero, Miguel Angel Lopez-Gordo, Christian Morillas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-10-01
• Series: Sensors
• Subjects: virtual reality; EEG; emotions; stress; chromotherapy
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/20/21/6211

Chromotherapy rooms are comfortable spaces, used in places like special needs schools, where stimuli are carefully selected to cope with stress. However, these rooms are expensive and require a space that cannot be reutilized. In this article, we propose the use of virtual reality (VR) as an inexpensive and portable alternative to chromotherapy rooms for stress relief. We recreated a chromotherapy room stress relief program using a commercial head mounted display (HD). We assessed the stress level of two groups (test and control) through an EEG biomarker, the relative gamma, while they experienced a relaxation session. First, participants were stressed using the Montreal imaging stress task (MIST). Then, for relaxing, the control group utilized a chromotherapy room while the test group used virtual reality. We performed a hypothesis test to compare the self- perceived stress level at different stages of the experiment and it yielded no significant differences in reducing stress for both groups, during relaxing (<i>p</i>-value: 0.8379, α = 0.05) or any other block. Furthermore, according to participant surveys, the use of virtual reality was deemed immersive, comfortable and pleasant (3.9 out of 5). Our preliminary results validate our approach as an inexpensive and portable alternative to chromotherapy rooms for stress relief.