{"id":432546,"date":"2025-12-08T05:05:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T05:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/432546\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T05:05:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T05:05:16","slug":"north-yorkshire-nhs-service-becomes-first-to-offer-vr-mindfulness-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/432546\/","title":{"rendered":"North Yorkshire NHS service becomes first to offer VR mindfulness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seb Cheerin Northallerton<\/p>\n

\"BBC\/SebBBC\/Seb Cheer<\/p>\n

Charlie Jenkinson is one of about 30 patients who are receiving the VR treatment<\/p>\n

One of the first patients to receive virtual reality mindfulness treatment on the NHS has said it had “transformed” his life.<\/p>\n

Charlie Jenkinson is a patient of the North Yorkshire Talking Therapies team, which is the first NHS service to offer the immersive ‘Tend VR’ treatment.<\/p>\n

The mindfulness-based cognitive therapy guides service users through practical activities and exercises, such as breathing techniques.<\/p>\n

Mr Jenkinson said: “I don’t find it easy being in front of other people, so doing a breathing exercise with a group of people, or even with a therapist online, I find really difficult.”<\/p>\n

The 40-year-old said he had “probably had depression throughout my life”, but a “combination of factors” had put pressure on him over the last five years.<\/p>\n

“I ended up just freezing the whole time,” he said. <\/p>\n

He is one of about 30 patients with anxiety and depression who are receiving the VR treatment as part of a 10-week course.<\/p>\n

“The first time I did the breath ball exercise, it was just transformative for me,” Mr Jenkinson, from Stokesley, said.<\/p>\n

\"TendTend VR<\/p>\n

The mindfulness treatment includes guided breathing exercises (left) and watering plants (right)<\/p>\n

The exercise encourages patients to breathe in while squeezing the trigger on one of the hand-held controllers.<\/p>\n

Set against the backdrop of a peaceful forest, they see a ball growing as they inhale and shrinking as they exhale.<\/p>\n

Mr Jenkinson said he often used the technique when not using the headset by closing his eyes and visualising the ball.<\/p>\n

“I’m often in the forest or I’m by the lake – I’m even moving my finger as if I’m actually using the trigger on the handset,” he said. <\/p>\n

He also said the treatment had helped to relieve pain in different parts of his body.<\/p>\n

“I couldn’t believe how much that has transformed my life,” he added.<\/p>\n

Listen: How virtual reality is changing therapy<\/p>\n

Poppy Danahay, North Yorkshire Talking Therapies team manager, said the breath-ball exercise worked as it wasn’t “a breathing exercise where you’re thinking about breathing”.<\/p>\n

“You’ve got a sound in the background that’s helping you stay in the moment, there’s a visual,” she said. <\/p>\n

Being immersed in the exercise helped patients to “move away from thoughts that come in and intrude”.<\/p>\n

She continued: “What drives anxiety and depression can be some unhelpful and negative thoughts.”<\/p>\n

\"BBC\/SebBBC\/Seb Cheer<\/p>\n

Poppy Danahay (left) and Carla Webb say patients are experiencing “great recovery rates” from the VR treatment<\/p>\n

The uptake of the treatment had been “really great” so far, according to clinical lead Carla Webb.<\/p>\n

“If we think about the rural demographic of North Yorkshire, it’s not easy for everybody to be able to come in to a healthcare setting,” she said.<\/p>\n

Patients visit the team in Northallerton at the start and the end of the course, with fortnightly telephone calls with a therapist in between.<\/p>\n

The check-ins help to ensure that Tend VR is “right” for the patient, according to Ms Danahay.<\/p>\n

“We will always talk again if there’s anything more that we can do as a service to support the depression and anxiety,” she said.<\/p>\n

Ms Webb added: “We’re still in the early days, but actually what we are seeing is great recovery rates for patients.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seb Cheerin Northallerton BBC\/Seb Cheer Charlie Jenkinson is one of about 30 patients who are receiving the VR…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":432547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[158,67,132,68,729,730],"class_list":{"0":"post-432546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-virtual-reality","8":"tag-technology","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-virtual-reality","13":"tag-vr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115682209188919991","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}