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Mindfulness, described as an awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, is the key to opening your eyes to the world around you. As a practice that is proven to increase sleep quality, mental health, and symptoms of chronic pain, there has never been a better time to inject some calm into your daily routine post-pandemic.
From remote workers to those of us still feeling anxious in the wake of Covid-19, mindfulness is a great way to aid the return to normal life. Studies have shown that those of us who practice at least one form of mindfulness a day have improved cognitive abilities, a wider attention span, and a more positive outlook on the world around them.
As we head towards a post-pandemic landscape, it’s time to incorporate mindfulness into your daily routine. Whether it’s yoga, meditation, or something more creative, new digital enhancements are constantly transforming relaxation as we know it. As technology meets well-being, read on to find out how digital mindfulness is improving the future of immersive relaxation, for the ultimate calming experience.
Why Is Well-being The Key To Success?
As many still remain in a locked-down routine post-pandemic, the effects of major lifestyle changes such as working from home and lack of socializing are continuing to impact the mental health and wellness of a global population.
As we see levels of lockdown loneliness rise, major changes to work environments, and a shift in our daily routines, practicing wellness has never been more important.
(Source: Statista)
As proven by the figures above, Covid-19 has had an enormous impact on the well-being of the globe. With 33% of Americans reporting feeling stressed, anxious or depressed between February to June 2020, stats show that many of us are struggling to cope with the ongoing challenges posed by the pandemic.
In response, corporate workers have seen productivity fall, stress-related ailments rise and company leaders have seen an overall dip in success. With a recent study from Nuffield Health revealing that at least 80% of remote workers are now struggling with their mental well-being, introducing mindfulness into the working routine is one effective way that company leaders can improve their team success rate.
In fact, prioritizing wellbeing is the key to success both in and out of the office. When left untreated and ignored, poor mental wellness can actually impact concentration and productivity at work, alongside inducing sleepless nights and low moods at home.
A new study by Atlas Cloud suggested that an employee’s “ability to stay focused” was one of the largest impacts of the pandemic on younger workers. With a lack of wellbeing support from a newly remote HR team, the study found that employees under the age of 25 found that their ability to perform tasks to their full ability fell by 26% as a result of their declining mental health.
Therefore, in order to remain on top of Covid’s constant reel of challenges, taking steps to improve both your mental health and well-being could be the pathway to a successful post-pandemic future.
The Introduction Of Digital Mindfulness
According to Forbes, practicing mindfulness has been proven to be one of the most effective solutions to stress and anxiety. Whether you’re tackling a stressful job or balancing a million tasks during your daily routine, taking time out to practice meditation and relaxation is important if you want to continue to stay on top of things.
Here’s the even better news. Practicing mindfulness has never been easier, thanks to the new digital developments transforming relaxation as we know it. As the world of virtual and augmented reality continues to evolve, say hello to digital mindfulness, the future of immersive relaxation.
What Is Digital Mindfulness?
The future of mindfulness is digital. With immersive technologies constantly adapting to aid the healthcare, corporate, gaming, and now wellness industry, the sky’s the limit for 21st-century tech lovers.
The question is, what is VR? The clue is in the name. Virtual Reality is a digital enhancement that allows us to experience a world that doesn’t actually exist. Gone are the days of getting lost in the pages of a book, with this technological advancement, getting lost in an entire virtual reality that not only surrounds you in real-time but allows you to interact with it.
The clever wearable headset allows you to be immersed in a 3D world that is driven by input tracking. In order to create that stereoscopic 3D effect, VR splits the display between your eyes in order to create a believable computer-generated experience. If that doesn’t make you feel like you’re part of a back to the future movie, we don’t know what will.
Alongside its Augmented Reality partner that improves regular eyeglasses designs by adding digital layers to enhance reality, which may enable you to see better and improve the way we collaborate.
(Source: Statista)
With an estimated 39.2 million shipments of VR headsets set to be making their way across the globe by 2022, it’s no surprise that the wellness industry has invested.
How Can Immersive Technology Improve Our Wellbeing?
The question is, how does VR improve the practice of mindfulness? Mindfulness is all about being immersed within your thoughts and feelings, weightless muscles, and sinking into a zone of relaxation and tranquillity. As a wellness technique that involves immersive practices such as meditation, adding virtual reality to the mix is a game-changer for those of us looking to inject ultimate calmness into our daily routine.
Read on to find out some of the ways that immersive technology such as VR and AR can seriously improve wellbeing and aid the success of mindfulness.
Augmenting Meditation
Virtual reality combines mindfulness with a uniquely immersive experience that allows users to enjoy a personal meditation session that fully immerses their senses. Aided by a number of VR-powered meditation apps such as Flow VR, incorporating virtual reality into your meditation routine facilitates your escape to tranquillity.
Using immersive 360° degree landscapes of peaceful places such as the rainforest or the beach combined with high-quality 4D sound encourages the user to fall deeper into the meditation, making the overall experience more successful.
Pairing VR with meditation adds an extra dimension to the overall mindfulness experience. By introducing a headset to your meditation routine, find yourself transported without leaving the comfort of your home in a make-believe world, devoid of distractions. Studies show that those of us who sink further into meditated states practice more successful wellbeing. One study showed that just four minutes into a VR-enhanced mediation routine, users displayed a slower heart rate and reduced stress and anxiety levels.
With this new eye open approach to mindfulness meditation, enjoy relaxing for long periods of time while creating your own computerized serenity.
Exposure Therapy
As well as aiding digital mindfulness, Virtual Reality has also become a game-changer in the world of mental health tech. As a vital component of our general wellbeing, mental health has become even more important to professionals post-pandemic, with treatments constantly evolving to aid those who suffer.
One of these treatments is exposure therapy. According to the American Psychological Association, exposure therapy is defined as: “A psychologically generated safe environment in which psychologists “expose” individuals to the things they fear and avoid.” Exposure to the situations that patients fear the most within a safe space, aids the reduction of fear and decreases avoidance when faced with similar situations in the real world. This is where VR steps in to improve the experience. As an immersive digital aid, virtual reality can work as a tool to fully immerse the patient within a lifelike generation of their feared reality. VR allows therapists to create a computerized version of someone’s fears or past trauma, while also remaining in a safe and controlled environment where the professional has control over the intensity of the exposure.
Clinical Cyberpschologist, Stéphane Bouchard claims that VR opens doors for the future of digitalized mindfulness, suggesting that patients are able to now receive a more effective quality of therapy. “In one of our studies, we asked patients who are afraid of heights to actually jump from a cliff,” Bouchard states.
Better still, VR allows patients to take their therapy outside of the doctor’s office and back into the comfort of their own home. Especially for those who suffer from anxiety, new VR-powered smartphone apps aim to walk users through a number of short activities that mirror the fundamentals of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT).
Virtual Employee Well-being
For those of us who have swapped the office for the comfort of the couch, not all has been rosy when it comes to working from home. With remote employment set to double in the next five years, adopting digital wellness into your WFH routine is also vital.
(Source: Statista)
Virtual Reality has transformed remote wellness schemes for HR professionals and business leaders. With well-being remaining the key to success for many corporate companies, remote employees are no exception to the rule. As more colleagues continue to interact virtually from the comfort of their homes, VR and AR technology have made it possible for HR professionals to host immersive virtual wellbeing workshops that enhance mindfulness and reduce stress.
In fact, research suggests that immersive VR workshops not only treat symptoms of burnout and remote loneliness but also accelerates learning and improves focus, making these headsets great mindful tools as well as effective training solutions.
The Future Of Digital Mindfulness
When looking at the future of VR and AR technology, it’s hard to predict how far the evolution of immersive technology could go. As technological developments continue to transform the face of the wellness industry, the sky truly is the limit.
As the globe recovers from the impacts of Covid-19, it’s safe to predict that digital mindfulness is only set to expand. With a larger proportion of remote workers, higher levels of anxiety and stress, and constant healthcare developments unveiling as a result of the pandemic, VR aids are needed now more than ever. As new meditation apps and forms of virtual workplace wellbeing schemes continue to hit the market, it’s time to get ready to be transported to computerized tranquillity as this certainly isn’t the end for truly virtual reality.
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