  In our lives, we encounter various stressors that may cause negative mental
and bodily reactions to make us feel frustrated, angry, or irritated. Effective
methods to manage or reduce stress and anxiety are essential for a healthy
life, and several stress-management approaches are found to be useful for
stress relief, such as meditation, taking a rest, walking around nature, or
even breaking things in a smash room. Previous research has revealed that
certain experiences in virtual reality (VR) are effective for reducing stress
as traditional real-world methods. However, it is still unclear how the stress
relief effects are associated with other factors like individual user profile
in terms of different treatment activities. In this paper, we report our
findings from a formal user study that investigates the effects of two virtual
activities: (1) VR Meditation and (2) VR Smash Room experience, compared with a
traditional Sitting-in-Silence method. Our results show that VR Meditation has
a better stress relief effect compared to VR Smash Room and Sitting-in-Silence,
and the effects of the treatments are correlated with the participants'
personalities. We discuss the findings and implications addressing potential
benefits/impacts of different stress-relief activities in VR.
