Coping with stress: the future for lawyers

In this QC blog we look at a technical innovation which may well become a feature of every office in the not too distant future

I recently attended various festivals in Japan, including one devoted to digital technology and content.

There were a number of things which caught the eye but there was one in particular which I suspect will be the template for anti-stress rooms which I believe are likely to become a common feature within professional offices.

Some of you may have seen 3-D films. There were various versions of 3-D being demonstrated at the festival, some of which were quite remarkable. However in the main they required special 3-D glasses to be worn. There was one 3-D exhibit which however did not require glasses. Although the 3-D was not as spectacular as the versions available with glasses, it was still pretty amazing as regards the depth and clarity of the images. That however was not the half of it.

The particular exhibit was in a small room. Think of a room which replicates a forest. There are 3-D images on the walls which give you the impression that you are actually in a forest. Appropriate sounds for the scene are pumped out from speakers.

So far this was impressive but not remarkable. It was the floor which was the piece de resistance. This was because there were images on the floor as well. The floor was a very shallow stream, perhaps a millimetre or two in depth. As you walked in the room you found yourself walking through the stream.

What was so remarkable about that, you may be asking yourselves? It was that the stream seemed to be real. It reacted to your footsteps. Thus with each step you effectively pressed the water away and it moved as if you were walking in a real stream, reacting to your real footsteps, with sound effects to match. This very much seemed therefore as though you were indeed pottering through a stream in a forest.

Obviously you could tell the difference between this and reality, although it was closer than you would have thought possible and I suspect as it is developed the distinction will become more and more fine. However for the purpose of the brain you did very much get the feeling that you had escaped from an office and were catching a few minutes in a relaxing woodland walk.

There was something very therapeutic about this experience. This is why I believe that, once one has overcome the amazement at the technical wizardry, this is likely to be used as a major anti-stress tool (whatever else it is used for: as it develops there is no doubt the prospect that when you are watching a film you will find yourself actually in the middle of the action, which will no doubt necessitate reclassification of some films which may be frightening when on the screen but no doubt would be absolutely terrifying if you were in the middle of it: just imagine the heart pounding effect of for example finding yourself in the middle of the scene from Jurassic Park where the Tyrannosaurus Rex was chasing various characters).

Imagine lawyers who are expected to churn out at least 12 hours work a day against deadlines where they also have to make sure the quality is right and where one deadline constantly replaces the last. Sometimes they're eating meals at their desk, sometimes they are there when nightclubs are in full swing in the early hours and most other people are asleep in bed. These are the sort of pressures which build and build and build and can lead to problems of the sort that were referred to in the previous blog.

Now consider that every so often, that lawyer could take a few moments which do not just involve standing by the kettle preparing to put more caffeine into the system. They could literally be transported to another world, a gentle world of greenery and relaxing sounds and sights, one where briefly they are able to think that they are wandering in the countryside with not a care in the world. I think it will not be many years before this is regarded as something which every office should have.

Of course there will always be some bosses who think that if there is a tool like this to help staff cope with stress, then it should mean that they are good for another hour or two of billable work a day! We shall see.