While VR can have immediate effects like dizziness and nausea, there are several uses that VR has beyond relaxing after school, just to name a few in the clinical setting and with PTSD.   

VR causes dizziness and nausea because of motion sickness.  The same way you get motion sickness you get VR nausea because your body is still but your eyes and brain see things passing and think you’re moving.  Because of this sensory confusion, our bodies respond unpleasantly with headaches and stomach pain.  

So, at eye level, *pun intended* it can seem like VR is suitable for very little to the average person.  This is false as VR has one ability we may not have expected.  That ability is to limit pain.  VR has the magical ability to take you from your reality and place you in a completely different situation.  This ability has the potential to build a new kind of painkiller without the risk of dangerous addiction or overdose.  

In an article by Healthline called,”Study Finds Virtual Reality Can Help Reduce Severe Pain” they discuss how helpful VR can be to burn victims and birthing women.  While we don’t know precisely why VR limits pain so much, they theorize that virtual reality helps provide a powerful distraction from pain.  Their studies found that pain ratings went down by 1.72 on a self-rated scale of 1 to 10 which is undeniable proof of VR’s possibilities.  

For these reasons, I believe that virtual reality has the potential to replace light painkillers in modern medicine as well as bring a fantastic and new ability to the arsenal of doctors.