Walking into the Wellness Lounge at Foothill College, the first noticeable thing is the brightly colored walls. In the background, melodic string and piano music play at a slow tempo while students are quietly busy working at their tables. Wellness assistants, Kaitlyn Paik and Sofi Goldwater, are greeting students and staff walking in, showing newcomers all the available amenities, including massage chairs, snacks, the tea station, and on the shelf as you enter… a set of 3 VR (Virtual Reality) headsets.
I strapped on the VR headsets. Using them requires you to sign a release form and hold collateral like an ID card. Once the headsets were on, I had many options for the available apps on it. This includes a wellness application. This program has many modes to relieve stress. I selected the calm mode on the headset. This mode had 3 stages, which were a series of guided meditation. It started with focusing on breathing, using small magic sprites at twilight to focus on breaths. After that stage, the next one progressed, culminating in the last stage which has the viewer focus on the bright blue sky and birds to relax breathing and body until the session comes to a close.
The Wellness Lounge has been open for one quarter and has had a relationship with the VR Lab and the STEM Center. The VR headsets are on loan from the STEM Center and are maintained by the VR Lab. Juan Bello, VR Lab Technician, emphasized this when speaking about the headsets “The collaboration with the wellness lounge and the VR Lab happened when Alexis Donato reached out to the STEM department….[she] believed that VR would fit into the place. As the VR Lab manager, I was tasked to go to the Wellness Center and meet with Alexis to see how VR would be best used.” Alexis Donato is the head of the Wellness Lounge and in charge of the Wellness Center in addition to that, she added to this comment, explaining that she was unsure of the usage at first until the center opened up, “We got a headset donated, and we didn’t use it at all. And then this wellness lounge space opened, and I thought, oh my gosh, that’s the perfect place to use the VR headset,” Donato said.
Donato explained how mental health can be taken care of in a variety of ways, including VR. “We’re trying to reduce the stigma of mental health on campus and creating the lounge let us kind of create a way to let all students take care of their mental health, and mental health can be taken care of in a variety of ways, including VR. Research shows that, you know, different mindfulness activities help with yielding different results.” Donato said.
Wellness assistant Kaitlyn Paik emphasized this point too, “Many people might not immediately equate VR to a ‘calm’ experience. However, our headsets include meditation games that ensure a peaceful and interactive experience. I think that the VR headsets are an incredibly valuable tool that helps students to relax and decompress,” Paik added.
To expand on this sought-out value the VR Lab has upcoming application additions planned to appear in the wellness VR headsets. “We bought six new games, all meditation-based. It’s like guided Tai Chi, three travel apps. So it’s all not necessarily meditation-based…it’s like a National Geographic app, Google Earth and I guess other meditation-type apps, traveling apps.” Bello said. He went further to talk about the process for choosing apps, saying that “Alexis came to me with a list of apps she found online that would be useful. I’ve also been looking at, like, quest apps for the last two years. So I kind of already know what exists, what’s quality, what’s more of like just the fad. And then using her list and what I already found, I kind of just combined them to about five or six options to download,” Bello said.
Bello hopes to expand VR to other avenues and areas on campus and hopes others will also participate in joining the VR Lab, whether that is for personal projects or just to explore. “I’ve been trying to see how I can spread VR use all across campus. The library has five headsets, but they’re hard to access because you need instructor permission. And then I wanted to have different places on campus where people could find out about VR, and maybe use it. And when Alexis reached out about the Wellness Center, it made a perfect connection to see, like, hopefully, people there, find out about the VR Lab, and they can come to the lab to explore more VR. And this is, like, very introductory. And then right now we’re working on having, like, a headset in the Pride Center and the BIPOC Center, and I want to spread out around campus more,” Bello said.
“For students who are just interested in any VR capabilities or use cases, I would tell them to come to the VR Lab and just talk about what ideas they have. I’m really glad to help you in any way and put you in the right direction like I’ve been really about VR. I kind of know what’s going on in, like, the current land, what people have done in the past, and, like, what is possible to just, like, research. And I’d love to point you in the right direction and get, like, the VR community at Foothill growing.” Bello added
“We’ll have like, a little community going that fizzles out because I think there’s not, like, a lot to stick on to, but if people have all these little projects, I’d love to just get the hub going for VR.” Bello explained.
If you’re interesting in trying out the VR headsets or just experiencing the tranquility of the Wellness Lounge, you can find it in Building 2100, located next to the Bookstore.
