Stress-Relieving Video Game and Its Effects: A POMS Case Study

Abstract

Stress is the response or a change in our bodies to environmental factors like challenges or demands that are physical and emotional. The main cause of stress is illnesses and it is gaining more interest, a hot topic for many researchers. Stress can be brought about by a wide range of normal life occasions that are hard to avoid. Stress generally refers to two things: first, the psychological perception of pressure and the body’s response to it. On the other hand, it involves multiple systems, from metabolism to muscles to memory. Many methods and tools are being developed to reduce stress in humans. Stress can be a short-term issue or a long-term problem, depending on what changes in your life. The emphasis of this article is to reduce the effects of stress by developing a stress-releasing game and verifying its results through the Profile of Mood States (POMS) and POMS-2 survey. Games are associated with stress levels; hence, parameters like sounds, visuals, and colors associated with reducing stress are used to develop a game for the stress reduction in the players. The survey research aims to determine that the purpose-built game will affect the player's stress level using a reliable psychological survey paper. The survey collected a variety of information from its participants over six months. Different aspects of a person’s psychology and reactions are recorded in this scenario by calculating the mean, standard deviation, degree of freedom, zero-error, and probability-value%. The POMS and POMS-2 results are obtained from the custom-built game, and these are found to be effective in reducing stress.