The Virtual Meditative Walk: An Immersive Virtual Environment for Pain Self-modulation Through Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Meditation Xin Tong (&) , Diane Gromala, Amber Choo, Ashfaq Amin, and Chris Shaw Simon Fraser University, Surrey, Canada {tongxint,gromala,achoo, ashfaq_mahmood_amin,shaw}@sfu.ca Abstract. One in five people in North America experience chronic pain. The primary non-pharmacological approach to treat chronic pain is to ‘manage’ pain by practices like Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Meditation. Previous research shows the potential of mindfulness meditation to help foster patients’ emotional wellbeing and pain self-modulation. Thus, the Virtual Reality (VR) system named “Virtual Meditative Walk” (VMW) was developed to help patients direct their attention inward through mindfulness meditation, which incorporates biofeedback sensors, an immersive virtual environment, and stereoscopic sound. It was specifically designed to help patients to learn MBSR meditation by providing real-time feedback, and to provide further training reinforcement. VMW enables patients to manage their chronic pain by providing real-time immersive visual signals and sonic feedback, which are mapped to their physiological biofeedback data. In the proof-of-concept study, this com- bination of immersive VR and MBSR meditation pain self-modulation tech- nique proved to be effective for managing chronic pain. Keywords: Virtual reality Á Chronic pain Á Mindfulness-based stress reduction meditation Á Immersive environment 1 Introduction It is estimated that 20 % of people in North America [1] and 15-20 % in industrialized nations [2] suffer from chronic pain. Defined as pain that lasts more than 6 months and persists beyond the healing of its putative cause, chronic pain usually involves neurobiological, psychological and social dimensions [3]. Chronic pain also lasts much longer than acute pain, and is not be associated with any observable bodily damage and might persist for a lifetime. Although pharmacological approaches are the most common treatment method, they cannot address all aspects of the condition. Furthermore, analgesics such as opioids can have serious side effects, such as both dependency and addictive tendencies [4, 5]. Hoffman et al. demonstrated that immersive Virtual Reality (VR) is an effective © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 R. Shumaker and S. Lackey (Eds.): VAMR 2015, LNCS 9179, pp. 388–397, 2015. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-21067-4_40