According to a story in the Washington Post, video games are being proven to offer significant mental health benefits.

After being contacted by a customer who found the popular game "Bejeweled helped her better manage her depression, the makers of Bejeweled hired some researchers to study the possible mental health benefits of the game. The findings show why video games are gaining credibility as a medical intervention for those suffering from stress, depression, and anxiety:

Some games seem to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which can reduce the heightened tension that's a natural response to stress.

The researcher hypothesized that one reason for the apparent mental health benefits of video games is that many people in Western countries find it impossible to switch off; they're always alert and stressed out. When those Type A people try to relax, they get bored because they've come to require a certain level of stressful arousal.

Playing certain video games offers just enough mental challenge to keep such people occupied while putting them into a state of relative mindlessness. That state appears to have salutary effects on stress and other mental problems.

The story also shines a light on the power of biofeedback in gaming, the core concept behind all Somatic Vision games:

Researchers said that one of the breakthrough ideas in combating stress and other mental disturbances was manipulating a factor known as heart rate variability. Different emotions seem to produce heart rhythm "signatures," and several devices have been invented to measure that variability.

Companies such as HeartMath, of Boulder Creek, Calif., have developed video games in which winning requires players to regulate their heart rate variability, thus gaining greater control over their emotional responses to stressful situations.

HeartMath's "emWave" system, for example, has a sensor that can pick up a person's heart rate variability and feed those measurements into a computer. The screen then displays a game that gives people feedback about their heart rhythms and challenges them to play in such a way as to smooth them out.

The biofeedback allows people to see how they can control their stress levels through conscious effort.

The company put a Post reporter in touch with Rollin McCraty, a psychophysiologist who directs research at the Institute of HeartMath. He said dozens of studies demonstrate that the intervals between a person's heartbeats are linked with various emotional states.