Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Psychological wellbeing among young adults has declined globally, along with rising levels of depression, creating an educational and societal crisis and highlighting the urgent need for school-based mental health interventions. In response, the Body-Mind Axial Awareness (BMAA) method-an embodied body-mind enhancement program rooted in East Asian self-cultivation traditions-was developed at National Taiwan University to promote students' mental resilience and wellbeing. METHODS: This study examined the effects and mechanisms of a 10-week BMAA course on depressive tendencies (measured by the Beck Depression Inventory), interoceptive sensibility [measured by the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA)], and sense of agency (measured by the Sense of Agency Scale) in university students. To test these aims, a pre-post design with an active control group was used (BMAA: n = 50; control: n = 21). RESULTS: The findings showed that BMAA participants experienced significant reductions in depressive tendencies, improvements across all dimensions of interoceptive sensibility, and decreases in negative sense of agency (SoNA) compared with the control group. Mediation analyses further revealed a serial pathway in which enhancements in the Not-Distracting, Attention Regulation, and Trusting dimension of interoception led to reductions in SoNA, which in turn contributed to decreased depressive tendencies. Additionally, independent mediation pathways involving the Not-Worrying dimension and SoNA alone were also significant. DISCUSSION: To our knowledge, this is the first evidence that interoception and the sense of agency play crucial, sequential roles in how embodied practices like 2 BMAA support emotion regulation. BMAA not only offers a feasible method for promoting students' mental health and resilience but also shows promising potential for broader clinical use in the future.