Active Engagement with Virtual Reality Reduces Stress and Increases Positive Emotions

Stress, anxiety, and depression negatively affect productivity and the global economy with an estimated annual cost of ${\$}$1 trillion U.S. dollars, according to the World Health Organization. Moreover, prolonged daily stress—even if minor—can lead to severe health consequences, including cancer and various mental disorders. Virtual reality (VR) has been shown to be a promising tool for relieving daily stressors given its accessibility and its projected availability as compared to visiting with mental health professionals. Prior work in this area has mostly focused on the restorative effects of nature simulations, demonstrating that passively experiencing immersive nature scenes improves positive affect. However, aside from providing opportunities for exercise, little is known about how active VR engagement can improve one’s mental health. To address this research gap, this paper presents a new, active form of VR therapy and assesses its effectiveness as compared to passive VR experiences. We developed VR Drawing—inspired by art therapy, which promotes positive emotions through artistic creation—and VR Throwing—inspired by “rage rooms”, which allow people to release negative emotions via intentional destruction. In a between- participants study (n = 64), we found that both VR Drawing and VR Throwing significantly reduced participants’ stress levels and increased positive affect when compared to passively watching nature scenes in VR. Linear regression models suggest that the total number of user interactions positively affects improvement in positive emotions for VR Drawing, but has a negative impact on positive emotions for VR Throwing. This study provides empirical evidence of how active VR experiences may reduce stress and offers guidelines for creating future VR applications to promote psychological well-being.