I’ve been having a real reckoning with my health over the last few years. As I hurtle toward middle age, my physical form is starting to rebel in just about every way possible, and I’m trying my damnedest to make responsible decisions, but it gets harder with every new ailment.

My eyes are finally starting to degrade, so I got some glasses. I ended up with an ulcer, so I take a pill while avoiding some of my favorite foods. My fingers go numb during flare-ups of my RSI, so I wear a goofy-looking brace even as I type this very sentence.

Bloody Hell

Those are all unpleasant reminders of my mortality, but the most brutal part of my well being is my subpar cardiovascular health. My entire adult life has prominently featured a job that requires me to sit at a desk for a minimum of eight hours a day, and that has begun to take a toll on me.

I don’t have a huge yard, but I found mowing the whole thing in one go was kicking my ass. Dealing with extra weight puts stress on my joints, and even minor injuries would take days on end to really start to heal. My cardiovascular health sucked, but how can I fix it?

When it’s temperate outside, I like to take brisk walks, and that gets my heart pumping just fine, but living in Delaware means huge stretches of the year are ill-suited for outdoor exercise. Frigid in the winter, sweltering in the summer, and rainy more often than I’d like. So walking works, but it’s not enough to keep up the good fight year-round.

Virtually Healthy

After Trump won the 2024 election in early November, I ended up making a series of purchases. Being that I have functional eyes and ears dating back to at least the summer of last year, I expected that many of my wishlisted big-ticket items might end up being significantly more expensive in the near future thanks to tariffs and overall economic decline. I grabbed new furniture, picked up a Steam Deck, and treated myself to a Quest 3 VR helmet.

I’ve covered VR on-and-off for the last decade, so I thought the Quest 3 might end up collecting dust like my PSVR, but I took the jump anyway. Thankfully, that prediction was wildly mistaken. The Quest 3 is an incredible piece of hardware, and I now use it multiple times a week.

Why? It certainly isn’t the ridiculous metaverse or tele-presence pitches Mark Zuckerberg cares about. Heck, it isn’t even the selection of games and “experiences” that push the hardware to its limits. What gets me to use my VR helmet is “Beat Saber.”

The core concept of “Beat Saber” isn’t miles away from “Guitar Hero” or “Just Dance,” but this specific combination of physical activity, music, and virtual reality works on me like nothing before.

By forcing my entire attention on the game, I end up easily lasting over an hour swinging fake lightsabers into colored blocks while listening to Daft Punk or Kendrick. Instead of watching the clock, I end up running through entire collections of tracks with little worry about checking my email.

Slowly, I’ve worked my way up to harder difficulties and even speed multipliers, so the challenge has scaled nicely with me as my stamina and accuracy increases. And because it remains alluring, I can finally remain consistent with my cardio when being outside isn’t really an option.

But does it work? I’m happy to say that mowing my lawn, even when I’m sticky from the humidity, has been a piece of cake so far this spring. I don’t need to take breaks anymore, and I can get everything done in about three-quarters of the time it took last year.

VR is sincerely playing a small-but-significant role in improving my health, and I never expected that when I shelled out $500 in a tariff panic late last year.

Image Credit: “Beat Saber,” Beat Games