How Second Life can help in the battle against anxiety

We regularly hear the word anxiety, but how many of us actually know what it is? More to the point, did you know that Second Life can help sufferers battle anxiety?

Anxiety is that feeling of nervousness, tension, and unease that something terrible is going to happen. It’s something that a lot of us experience some of the time, such as when we’re in stressful and unfamiliar situations.

For anxiety sufferers, those attacks are a lot more frequent and severe. They don’t just stop at feelings of dread or worry but extend to feeling physically sick and a suffocating tightness in the chest.

We’ve looked at the ways in which Second Life can help in the battle against anxiety.

Second Life allows people to practice their social skills

One of the most prominent forms of anxiety is social anxiety. This is the thought of having to socialize, especially if you doubt you have the social skills to do so. Second Life provides people with a safe space to practice those skills anonymously and where they won’t be judged. On Second Life, you can build confidence from interactions and then take that into the real world with you. By helping remove the fear and anxiety that comes from being in a social situation, you’ll be in a better position to battle the condition long term.

Second Life helps us relax

Stress and worry are two of the main triggers for anxiety, which goes part of the way towards explaining why anxiety is on the rise in America. When we play Second Life, those feelings disappear. Your mind isn’t on what is troubling you out there in the real world, you feel more relaxed as a result, and your anxiety levels decrease. Outside of Second Life, you can use natural supplements to try and help you relax and battle anxiety. Herbs and plants such as kava root, lavender and the best kratom powder online are just some of the natural remedies some people use.

Second Life makes us question

Playing Second Life makes you ask questions and forces you to think about what you are doing with your avatar. Compare that to what goes on in your own head. You very rarely question what you are thinking or why or even if your mind is playing tricks on you. That is part of what anxiety is. It is where your brain takes a situation and distorts it into something far bigger, causing you serious worry. It might be an innocent email from your boss which your mind tells you is going to result in you being sacked or a friend failing to reply to a text and making you think you’ve fallen out. If you can question these thoughts, then you can start battling back against anxiety.

Second Life teaches us to test things out

You make a decision that you’re going to do something in Second Life, and you test it out. That way, you find out if the outcome is positive or negative. One of the most crippling aspects of anxiety is that it gives you a real fear of failure to the point where you can be paralyzed from doing anything. You won’t go to that party for fear that nobody will talk to you. If you act in real life as you do in Second Life, you’ll test out your negative theory and probably find out that you were wrong – people will talk to you. Once you get that confidence, you can battle anxiety.