Docs to fight stress in Second Life
I learned this while researching this Boston Globe piece (link, excerpt, below): Dr. Joe Kvedar, director of the Center for Connected Health in Boston, says cognitive-behavioral therapy is “the next logical step” for clinical testing in-world. (In-world is where Second Lifers say they are, when they are logged-in.) Kvedar, below, addresses a conference, in-world.
MD to fight stress in Second Life - The Boston Globe
In another sign that Second Life is beginning to resemble the first, doctors are stepping into the virtual world to reach patients they might otherwise miss.
A Massachusetts General Hospital neurologist, Dr. Daniel Hoch, wants to learn whether therapy administered in Second Life, the virtual world created by Linden Lab, can have benefits in the world that we share with our spouses, kids, death, and taxes.
In coming months, an instructor from Mass. General will lead 20 to 40 Second Life recruits through guided meditations designed to reduce their stress levels.
Note: They are teaching their subjects the Relaxation Response, which I believe is based on Transcendental Meditation. — mb
Filed under: Boston Globe, Internet, Mind control, Personal tech, Psyops, Science, Second Life, Treatments, Virtual reality, boston | Tagged: boston, Boston Globe, cambridge, harvard, psychology, relaxation response, Second Life, tm, transendental meditation
[...] ParallelNormal - Mark Baard, a technology columnist for the Globe, links readers to his recent piece, MD to Fight [...]
[...] ParallelNormal - Mark Baard, a technology columnist for the Globe, links readers to his recent piece, MD to Fight [...]
I’m writing a short article on this topic. Any Second Lifers, ‘Real Lifers’ (especially docs, therapists or anyone interested in the subject) have an opinion? You might be quoted!
Upon joining Second Life, I found it was a great way to escape. However, due to viruses and programs such as CopyBot, the Linden Dollar exchange rate, and running a business in SL, it turns out this virtual world can be extremely stressful.
I’d love to hear what people have to say on the subject.
Thanks!
I’m using my Second Life name. I lead a quiet RL [real life]; most of the stress and negativity I encounter arises from my active SL [Second Life].
My island’s landshaper/terraformer took the opportunity on his own to create a small nature walk on the west side of Spindrift, with 3 small social/meditation areas. He used low hills on one side of the small bayou to visually screen off the rest of the terrain. One of my friends added a carved bench & small tree-fountain; another added a bonsai fountain and a misty-vapored air fountain, as well as a mandela and cushions.
So when i feel the need, I [perceive that] I sit in one of these spots, hear the trickling water, watch the white-noise randomness of the waterflow, and relax, rather than try to sit in a house in rl and do the same.
I am actually just sitting in my puter room, staring at a 19″ flatscreen 16″ from my head, filling perhaps one-third of my field of view. However, I’ve been in SL for 1 1/2 years now, and my mind/brain/body have bought into a deeply immersive environment, partly due to that subtending angle.
It’s definitely more relaxing to me than staring at a carpet pattern or the same mandela poster on the wall in rl. Is this because the stress originated in SL rather than RL? I don’t know, but I don’t think so.
Other avatars have built deeply meaningful memorials to lost ones or people they were just fans of. These help rl *and* sl-only friends from far rl locations to meet or individually grieve, share, and find some catharsis, closure and healing. Rest in peace, RadEd Statosky … Gary Gygax … Arthur C. Clarke …
Still others with rl diseases and situations have built social groups to share emotions and trade information and encouragement to otherwise isolated sufferers.
-Paradox Olbers in SL
Anyone is welcome to tread the nature walk at Spindrift and bide a while …