Exploring the Role of Virtual Reality in Physical Education for Stress Adaptation Among Adolescents in Socio-Political Crisis Settings

Physical education can serve as more than a motor domain. In unstable social environments, it can also function as a structured context for emotional regulation, controlled challenge, and resilienceoriented learning.

The present quantitative experimental study examined cardiovascular stress reactivity during a single-session virtual reality protocol embedded in a secondary-school physical education setting.

Fifty high school students aged 15-19 years participated (25 males, 25 females). After a resting baseline assessment, each participant completed a time-pressured virtual fire emergency task followed by a standardized 5-minute AimXr combat-survival challenge. Heart rate was monitored continuously with a Mi Band 6 wearable, and the primary physiological outcomes were resting heart rate, minimum heart rate, average heart rate, maximum heart rate.

In addition, a composite performance score was derived from cardiovascular and task-performance indicators. The findings indicated clear cardiovascular activation during virtual exposure, with average heart rate increasing substantially from pre-exposure baseline to task performance.

The primary physiological outcomes were resting heart rate, minimum heart rate, average heart rate, and maximum heart rate. Average heart rate showed a weak-to-moderate positive association with performance score. This finding suggests that greater cardiovascular engagement was modestly related to better task performance, but it should be interpreted cautiously because the study did not formally test a curvilinear model.

The result may be discussed conceptually in relation to the Yerkes-Dodson framework, but it does not provide direct evidence of an inverted-U relationship. The results support the educational use of supervised virtual reality in physical education as a safe means of rehearsing decision-making, self-regulation, and stress adaptation in adolescents living under conditions of heightened uncertainty.