106. Emotional management in school physical education courses: taking the integration of mindfulness yoga into mental health education for middle school students as an example

Integrating mindfulness yoga into middle school physical education courses significantly improves students' emotional regulation and reduces anxiety and depression. In a quasi-experiment with 162 eighth graders, the group receiving a 12-week mindfulness yoga program (two class hours per week covering asana, breathing meditation, and mindfulness awareness) scored higher on the Emotion Regulation Scale (M = 82.63) than the control group (M = 69.35). Classroom observations showed positive emotion expression increased from 2.3 to 5.7 times per class hour, while emotional outbursts dropped from 1.8 to 0.3 times. Practice duration correlated positively with emotional regulation ability.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Abstract Background In recent years, mental health problems among middle school students have shown a trend of younger age and diversification. Difficulty in emotional regulation has become a core factor affecting their academic performance and social adaptation. The research takes the improvement of middle school students’ emotional management ability as the core goal, proposes an intervention idea that combines the core elements of mindfulness yoga such as breathing regulation and mindfulness awareness with physical education course teaching, constructs a standardized teaching plan and conducts quasi-experiments. Methods The research adopted a quasi-experimental design. A total of 162 students from four parallel classes of the second grade of junior high school in a certain middle school were selected as the research subjects. Among them, two classes (81 students) were randomly set as the experimental group, and the remaining two classes (81 students) were set as the control group. The experimental group implemented a 12-week integrated physical education course of mindfulness yoga with 2 class hours per week. The teaching content covered three major modules: basic asana practice, breathing meditation training, and guidance of mindfulness awareness. The control group received regular physical education courses, ensuring that the class hours were consistent with the activity intensity. The research adopted the “Middle School Students’ Emotion Regulation Scale,” “Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS),” and “Self-Rating Depression Scale.” Three questionnaires were conducted before the intervention, at 6 weeks of the intervention, and after the intervention ended. Record students’ emotional expression behaviors through the classroom observation record sheet twice a week. Results After the intervention, the total score of the “Middle School Students’ Emotion Regulation Scale” in the experimental group (M = 82.63, SD = 7.21) was significantly higher than that in the control group (M = 69.35, SD = 8.14), and the difference between the groups was statistically significant (t = 10.32, p<.001). Classroom observation data show that the frequency of positive emotion expression of students in the experimental group increased from an average of 2.3 times per class hour before the intervention to 5.7 times per class hour, and the number of emotional outbursts decreased from an average of 1.8 times per class hour to 0.3 times per class hour. The duration of mindfulness yoga practice was significantly positively correlated with the total score of emotional regulation ability (r = 0.68, p<.001). Discussion Research has confirmed that integrating mindfulness yoga into middle school physical education courses has a significant effect on enhancing students’ emotional management abilities and improving their mental health status. This intervention model does not require additional teaching hours. It can achieve the infiltration of mental health education merely by optimizing the content of physical education courses, which has significant practical significance for enhancing the coverage and effectiveness of mental health education in schools. Future research can further expand the sample size, extend the intervention period and conduct follow-up studies to verify the persistence of the intervention effect.