Background: The prevalence of anxiety among college students is a growing global concern, with a median prevalence of 32%. This study addresses the need for effective interventions within an educational policy framework to alleviate anxiety and promote mental health among college students. Objective: The study aims to evaluate the impact of breathing relaxation exercises and tactile art therapy on college students' self-understanding and psychological well-being, providing reference information for policies and practices in mental health education. Methods: We enrolled 10 college students from X University in South Korea, dividing them into an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group underwent 10 sessions of breathing exercises and tactile art therapy, while the control group received standard psychological counseling. Pre- and post-tests assessed breathing function, self-understanding, and psychological well-being. Results: The experimental group demonstrated significant improvements in breathing function, particularly in forced vital capacity (FVC), and in psychological well-being, as measured by the Psychological Well-Being Scale (PWBS). Sub-factors such as safety, goal orientation, and self-acceptance within self-understanding, self-acceptance, positive relationships, purpose in life, and environmental mastery within psychological well-being, showed notable enhancements. In contrast, the control group did not show significant effects in terms of FVC and FEV1（p > 0.05）, and there were no statistically significant differences in the various sub-factors of self-understanding and psychological well-being. Conclusion: The study demonstrates that integrating breathing relaxation exercises and tactile art therapy into educational policy can significantly reduce anxiety and enhance the psychological well-being of college students. These findings suggest that such interventions can be effective components of a comprehensive educational policy aimed at improving student mental health.

In higher education, mental health education is a complex task that involves many educational factors. From the perspective of psychological education, the basic tasks and value pursuits of university mental health education and curriculum ideological and political education are the same. Both are student-centered, providing a basic guarantee for the integration of the two. Currently, some universities are facing issues such as the need to clarify the concept of "psychological education", the trend towards value neutrality in mental health education, and the need to improve the quality of the psychological education team. In response to this situation, universities should integrate educational factors, provide clear value guidance, strengthen integrated education, improve the overall quality of the education team, continue to promote the ideological and political construction of psychological health education courses in universities, and achieve new breakthroughs.