Doctors find that VR headsets can lower blood pressure and stress levels in an ER

Doctors might have just discovered a new use for VR headsets normally used for gaming - and to think people complain about this hardware causing motion sickness. In a small independent study, emergency medicine specialists at Ankaha Bilkent City Hospital in Ankara, Turkey, have found that a combination of peaceful VR environments and classical music can lower blood pressure and stress levels more quickly than regular medication.

"Patients who arrive in the emergency department with markedly elevated blood pressure—readings of 180 mmHg or higher on the top number, or 110 mmHg or higher on the bottom number—are extremely common", said Dr. Safa Dönmez, an associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Health Sciences in Ankara.

"The emergency department environment itself—the noise, the bright lights, the uncertainty—can make that worse. This made me wonder: if we could help patients feel calmer, could we also help their blood pressure come down faster?"

This led him and his colleagues, including Dr Kadir Yenal, to create and publish a study surrounding the use of VR in this specific medical scenario. The pair then presented their results at EUSEM 2026 (European Emergency Medicine Congress).

65 Patients who came into the ER were randomly assigned to a testing group if they had a case of hypertensive urgency, and a control group of 65 was also tested to compare results with.

All of them received the standard blood pressure medication they'd be prescribed anyway, but members of the main study group were also given a VR headset that displayed the following calming nature scene - a bit like that recurring Xen monk meditation sidequest in Cyberpunk 2077.

At the same time, they were played classical music playlists by composers known for their calming qualities. The music was played separately on a smartphone - personally, I would have just thrown on Walkabout Mini Golf for the patients, as the calming environments and chill soundtrack would kill two birds with one stone.

It turns out that those patients who were given VR and classical chill privileges saw 12%-15% drops in anxiety and blood pressure compared to the regular control group, who were only given blood pressure medication. This was observed and measured after both 15 and 30 minutes.

"After 15 minutes, patients in the VR group had both a lower absolute blood pressure reading and a greater reduction from their starting point, compared to the control group," reported Yenal. "This was a statistically significant finding, meaning it was unlikely to be due to chance.

"After that, the gap narrowed, and from 60 minutes onward the two groups were essentially equivalent."

Dönmez said, "For patients, the significance of the study is that if you were brought into an emergency department with markedly elevated blood pressure, frightened and in pain, then being offered a few minutes in a peaceful virtual forest while listening to Mozart would likely be welcomed."

Does this mean we'll see more VR headsets ready to use in hospitals across the world? I doubt it, especially with their prices going nowhere but up lately. Then again, enterprise versions of the Pico 4 Ultra and HTC Vive headsets are very popular and are used for all sorts of industries, including armed services, firefighting, and medical fields.

"I believe it can reasonably be considered as a supportive, patient-centered addition to standard care, especially for patients who are visibly anxious or distressed", said Yenal. One member of the abstract committee for the study said, "Although this is a single-center study, the results are interesting and deserve further investigation.

"They raise the possibility that this approach is not only safe and feasible, but offers meaningful benefits, particularly in reducing anxiety and helping to achieve faster blood pressure control during the early stages of treatment, and might avoid unnecessary medication."

Annoyingly, there's no mention of which VR headset was used for the study - I'd bet against it being the newly launched Steam Frame or Meta's new VR glasses, but I'd wager any modern headset would do the trick. So, next time you're feeling stressed, maybe throw on your VR headset, crank up the Debussy, and take a few deep breaths.

For more on VR, head over the look at the best Meta Quest accessories.