Drawing on embodied cognition theory and selected principles of Dance Movement Therapy (DMT), this action research developed and pilot-tested a "dance + psychology" emotion-management curriculum for high school students. The study included two phases. First, a self-developed questionnaire was administered to 120 students in Grades 10-12 to identify emotional needs, participation preferences, and psychological boundaries. Second, a three-session curriculum (45 minutes per session) was implemented with 45 students from a non-exam-grade class. The needs assessment indicated high levels of emotional suppression (M=4.15) and marked concerns about public display, bodily embarrassment, physical contact, and privacy. These findings informed two design principles: non-performance orientation and strong privacy protection. The resulting modules focused on body-mind awareness, emotional externalization, and interpersonal empathy. Pilot feedback suggested that students perceived the curriculum as safe and useful. Reported anxiety scores declined from 7.2 to 3.5 on average, and approximately 80% of students reported trying at least one embodied regulation technique during daily study breaks. Because the pilot used a single-group design without a control condition, these findings should be interpreted as preliminary evidence of feasibility, acceptability, and perceived usefulness rather than as causal evidence of intervention effectiveness. The study offers a locally adapted model for integrating embodied activities into school-based mental health education while respecting adolescents' psychological boundaries.

Shitong Zhao. Embodied Regulation: Feasibility-Oriented Action Research on Integrating Dance into a High School Mental Health Curriculum for Emotion Management. International Journal of New Developments in Education (2026), Vol. 8, Issue 6: 36-43. https://doi.org/10.25236/IJNDE.2026.080606.

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