Promoting well-being in students through an art-of-living intervention: Developing an online training for eighth and ninth graders

During secondary school, students’ well-being is challenged in manifold ways and declines continuously. To address this issue, we designed and evaluated a six-day online art-of-living intervention to foster eighth and ninth graders’ (N = 69) well-being. Art-of-living (AoL) is based on empirical evidence and conceptualizes strategies that lead to well-being. We tested the effectiveness of the AoL training and investigated the possible contribution of body-related AoL exercises to cognitive exercises by comparing two intervention groups (cognitive
training vs. cognitive and body-focused training) and a waitlist control group. Levels of AoL and well-being at pretest, posttest, and two-week follow-up showed that both significantly increased in the intervention groups. No significant differences were found between the cognitive and combined training. We discuss methodological issues of the study and propose that the approach to enhance student well-being by using art-of-living exercises is fruitful for application in school and should be explored further.