Healing in the Metaverse

"With just a few clicks on an app called Healium, a user can be transported from their living room couch to breathtaking 360-degree scenic views in a matter of seconds.

Healium offers a wide variety of virtual and augmented reality stories for users to experience, from teleporting to eight countries through magic portals to watching the seasons change at Emerald Lake, with new stories uploaded every 60 days. These immersive videos provide so much more than a pretty picture; there is real science behind them, and they have been proven by multiple peer-reviewed journals to reduce moderate anxiety by a third in as little as four minutes.

CEO and chief storyteller Sarah Hill began working in the world of augmented and virtual realities with her startup StoryUp VR in 2015. StoryUp’s original experience, titled “Honor Everywhere 360” was inspired by Sarah’s grandfather, who tragically passed before he was able to see his war memorial. Honor Everywhere 360 allowed terminally ill World War II veterans who couldn’t make an in-person Honor Flight to virtually visit the memorials as if they were standing right there. Through these experiences, Sarah’s team noticed that the veterans had a physiological response — an idea that would eventually lead to Healium.

Since 2016, the clinically validated mental fitness channel Healium has been creating VR and AR stories that help users manage their stress and anxiety in a unique way. The first of its kind, Healium uses an EEG headband and Apple Watch to monitor brain waves and heart rate throughout the experience. This biometric data is displayed to the user within the story as a firefly, allowing users to see their stress like never before. The firefly represents the amount of high beta activity in the brain, moving up and down over a solid white threshold line as brainwaves change. This visual neurofeedback informs the experience, and if using a wearable, a person is able to change their environment — whether it be changing the color of a jaguar’s fur or growing flowers — through brain patterns or lowering their heart rate. Though you can experience Healium without these wearables or a VR device, the optional hardware provides a more immersive and interactive experience that allows users to control their environment with the power of their thoughts. And that’s a powerful lesson for everyday life..." Lire la suite