Golden State Warriors teammates Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry and Andre Iguodala play around with virtual reality. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
Diving into virtual worlds while exercising might help to reduce pain and allow people to sustain workouts for a longer period of time, a new study shows.
The research, led by Maria Matsangidou, a Ph.D. candidate at the Kent University School of Engineering and Digital Arts in the U.K., set out to determine whether the subjective component of pain could be minimized if the brain were busy elsewhere in a virtual setting.
The study analyzed 80 people—21 men and 59 women with an average age of 23 years—as they performed isometric bicep exercises.