The ideologies of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism, known as the Three Teachings of East Asia, influence the cultural backgrounds, cognitive styles, and emotional expressions of East Asian populations at all times (Lin et al., 2021). In terms of psychological interventions, these influences are manifested in Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs), Second-Generation Mindfulness-Based Interventions (SG-MBIs) and Taoist Cognitive Therapy (TCT). TCT has its roots in Taoist philosophy, while Buddhist teachings mainly characterise the framework of existing MBIs or SG-MBIs.

Buddhist positive meditation techniques and ethical guidelines are the sources of MBI. Initially, people apply MBI to treat depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and other psychopathologies (Wielgosz et al., 2019). It was later promoted to be applied to a broader range of psychological interventions and showed positive results in reducing stress, anxiety, depression and burnout (Liu et al., 1996; Lomas et al., 2019; Ding et al., 2020). However, the practitioners criticise the early MBIs for placing too much emphasis on positive meditation techniques at the expense of methodology, for example it compromises transparency and conflation of Buddhists with universal ideals (Brown, 2017). Learned from that, the new SG-MBIs have incorporated more Buddhist ethics (for instance, the four immeasurable meditation and the emptiness meditation). In addition, compared with the early MBIs, the new SG-MBIs emphasise cultivating a lifestyle (van Gordon et al., 2014, 2015). Relevant psychological intervention studies also have confirmed the effectiveness of SG-MBIs in reducing mental health problems, such as depressive symptoms and enhancing positive emotions (Lv et al., 2020).

Taoism significantly affected East Asian countries, particularly mainland China, where the TCT method was formulated. That amalgamates cognitive therapy with Taoist values and strives to help people adapt to their environment (Zhang and Yang, 1998). The Tao ethics, which include the principles of “Benefit not to harm,” “Nourish not to contend,” and “Be quiet and follow nature,” are employed mainly by TCT to bring about a change in personal values and facilitate psychological treatment (Chang et al., 2016; Chang et al., 2019; Wu and Lei, 2019). Other forms of Taoist practice, such as Taoist Tai Chi (TTC), Qigong and acupressure, have their roots in Taoist philosophy and have been proven to alleviate symptoms of psychological issues like anxiety, depression and sleep difficulty (Fogarty et al., 2016; Lai et al., 2017; Vera et al., 2019). TCT has been recognised for its intervention effects in the past 20 years. Studies involving sleep interventions have shown that both MBI and TCT can positively affect sleep disorders (Xia, 2018).

The recently emerging Mindfulness-Based Positive Psychology (MBPP) or BMAA interventions come from Confucian ethics (Teng and Lien, 2016; Zhou et al., 2021). The emphasis is on intervention with ethical clarification or integration of Confucian values, focusing more on traditional Confucian self-cultivation techniques. MBPP integrates Confucian values into SG-MBIs. And BMAA emphasises traditional Confucian self-cultivation methods.

As a physical practice, “meditation” is a form shared by Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism (Meulenbeld, 2019). Taoism and Buddhism were the first to use the concept of “meditation,” so the standardised Confucian Tranquil sitting method developed during the Song and Ming dynasties was firmly related to Buddhism and Taoism. However, Confucian tranquil sitting differs markedly from Buddhism and Taoism meditation praxis in specific processes, goals and results. For example, the Confucian “tranquillity and reverence” method emphasises contemplation, nurturing, and physical concentration. The former requires that the consciousness level be quiet and awake, while the latter requires that the body level be solemn and neat so that the individual can achieve a state of unity (Yang, 2012). In the Confucian tranquil sitting method, the connotation transforms from “reverence” to “tranquillity,” the self-cultivation practice and the reasoning quasi-epistemological work combines, and the realisation of self-cultivation and moral principles produce a more concrete unification of the mind and body. Furthermore, although Confucianism also emphasises the elimination of personal “wild fancy” through tranquil sitting, it believes that the root cause of “wild fancy” is the interruption of the “harmony between man and nature” state. In contrast, tranquil sitting is the way back to the “harmony between man and nature” status. Only by doing this can the individual reflect on their “heavenly destiny” (the source of goodness) and eliminate the emotional changes and spiritual damage produced by “wild fancy.” In this sense, Confucianism aims to reconcile nature with humanity by emphasising personal tranquil sitting, and its emphasis on the ethical order is uncharacteristic of Buddhist and Taoist meditations.

Regarding the “tranquillity and reverence” method, Confucian tranquil sitting has yet to clarify detailed regulations on posture, breath, ashram (place), and time, the process of “nurturing” emphasised by Song and Ming scholars, which developed into the “tranquillity” and the “reverence” method (see Table 1). While in terms of tranquil sitting goals, it emphasises the state of mind and body during practice and implements it into daily life. In addition to the standard rule of tranquil sitting, the most prominent feature of Confucian tranquil sitting is the affirmation of the existence of the “secular world” and the “morality” so that the purpose of tranquil sitting is to make the “essence” manifest in the body and to put it into practice (Ma, 2012). Thus, the Confucian method of tranquil sitting differs from other meditation practices, for it has a primary intellectual orientation and the principle of behaviour (Yang, 2012).

An intervention must fit its cultural and ethical context to gain a satisfactory outcome. However, some of the values conveyed in the abovementioned interventions may conflict with Confucianism, one of the most influential traditions in the wider East Asian region, including mainland China. For example, certain aspects of Taoism, which originated in the Chinese mainland, have been refuted by Confucianism. Its well-known ethics of “out of the world,” expressed as the upekkha-equanimity meditation、metta-lovingkindness meditation、karuna-compassion meditation and mudita-empathetic joy meditation (Monteiro et al., 2019), is in contrast to the ethics of “self-prudence when alone” practised in mainland China (Lai, 2019), for the Confucianism is adherence to a more positive value, such as the practice of “inner sanctity,” which places greater emphasis on secular morality and social responsibility, as opposed to the “out of world” ideas.

In contrast to the transcendental teachings of Buddhism and Taoism, Confucianism emphasizes engaging in the secular world and reacting accordingly (Weber, 1959), and using tranquil sitting in order to preserve the ethical self-cultivation “Shendu (慎独)” (Han, 2023).MBPP and BMAA incorporate facets of Confucianism tradition and rituals. Although they merely scratched the surface of the traditional Confucian moral code, these techniques also inspired traditional Confucian interventions in Mainland China. However, these interventions still address the surface symptoms instead of treating the underlying cause.

It is crucial imports the “tranquillity and reverence” method parts from the MBPP method of “self-cultivation” and formulates the tranquil sitting intervention technique developed from the BMAA basis. In stark contrast to the MBPP and the BMAA, interventions that involve aspects of Confucianism are employed to mitigate cultural conflict. The synthesis of these two components produces an innovative approach based on the “tranquillity and reverence” method of tranquil sitting to bring about essential alterations in mental health and apply them to daily life. This novel intervention approach with an “inside out” perspective is a significant step forward from the traditional Chinese ethical psychological intervention developed since TCT, it focuses more on the inner workings of the individual than on external skills. Based on the “tranquillity and reverence” method, our study refers to its tranquil sitting form. It based on the established Buddhist and Taoist meditation intervention frameworks and experiences to create a set of tranquil sitting interventions applicable to the subjects to improve their sleep quality.

We designed a randomized controlled experiment to test the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) changes of quarantined university students in the intervention and control groups. The experiment was conducted from September to November 2022 at a university undergoing “the silent management” (Lockdown) in Lanzhou city, Gansu Province of China. We mainly use the Tencent conference software for online communication, assisted by WeChat. Lanzhou is located in northwest China and is a critical node city of the Silk Road Economic Belt with 28 universities. From September to November 2022, there were severe outbreaks of COVID-19 in Lanzhou city. To reduce the risk of transmission, universities in the city adopted stricter lockdown measures and suspended all onsite teaching.

The project participants were 88 enrolled university students from a university in Lanzhou city; 39 (44.3%) were male, 49 (55.7%) were female, aged 18 to 36 years (M = 23.78, SD = 3.32). We applied PASS 15 to calculate that an initial sample size of 44 participants (sample size estimation =15) in each group was employed at the beginning of this study, which was calculated based on α = 0.05, power = 0.9 (2-tailed test), intervention group pre-PSQI mean = 5.63, SD = 2.83, post-PSQI mean = 5.63, SD = 2.65 (according to Ding and Yao, 2020). When the programme finished, the intervention group’s power = 0.99 (T1 PSQI mean = 9.17, SD = 4.67, T3 PSQI mean = 5.06, SD = 2.49, n = 35). Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in Lanzhou city, these university students had to attend classes online and isolate themselves at school due to school closure.

Participants were recruited online mainly through a school-based student WeChat group, where they signed an informed consent form after being informed about the intervention programme and precautions. So, this is not a strictly randomized controlled experiment. Then we invited them to a WeChat group of intervention programme participants, social workers, and counsellors. Participants were selected based on the following criteria: (a) enrolled students (undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students) who were at least 18 years old and experiencing campus closure; (b) not participating in a similar intervention programme; (c) entirely volunteering for the intervention programme, (d) in good health and without serious mental health problems and (e) self-reported as no religion.

The research subjects had to take three assessments: the pre-experiment (T1), post-test (T2), and one-month follow-up test (T3) (hereafter referred to as T1, T2, and T3). 70 (79.55%) individuals from the intervention programme finished the data collection at all three points. The 88 enrolled and isolated university students were randomly distributed into two groups: the intervention group received instructions on the tranquil sitting technique, and the control group received simple interactive body moves.

Nine participants in the intervention group and nine in the control group failed to complete data collection during the intervention period, so we excluded these participants from the analysis. Therefore, the experiment retained data from 70 participants ultimately. Include 30 (42.9%) males and 40 (57.1%) females, aged 18 to 32 years (M = 23.56, SD = 3.13) (see Table 2 for demographic information on the sample and Figure 1 for the flow chart).

Participants did not differ in gender between the intervention and control groups (p = 0.629) or in mean age (p = 0.215). There were no differences between groups on PSQI score (p = 0.063), degree(p = 0.302), quarantine(p = 0.184) and birthplace(p = 0.457) (see Table 2). There was no significant difference in PSQI between the intervention and control groups at T1 (see Table 2, T1 Wilcoxon Z = 1.86, p = 0.063). The Human Subjects Ethics Committee of the School of Philosophy and Social Sciences approved the protocol at Lanzhou University.

We assessed participants’ sleep quality in the intervention programme using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) (Buysse et al., 1989). The PSQI was developed based on the analysis of various scales for assessing sleep quality and is composed of seven components(19 items, range of subscale scores, 0–3): sleep quality, sleep latency (i.e., time needed to fall asleep), sleep duration (i.e., number of hours of actual sleep per night), sleep efficiency (i.e., total sleep time divided by time in bed, converted to a score 0–3), sleep disturbance (i.e., waking up in the middle of the night), sleep medication and sleep dysfunction (i.e., having difficulty staying awake during the day). The sum of these component scores yields a global score (range of scores, 0–21). The PSQI has shown good internal reliability when applied to studies related to sleep quality in China (Wang J. et al., 2022; Wang L. et al., 2022). In the present study, the Cronbach’s α values for T1, T2 and T3 were 0.844, 0.852 and 0.882, respectively, indicating that the overall internal consistency of the PSQI in the present study was good.

SPSS 20.0 was used to analyse the programme data. The skewness and kurtosis test indicates that the intervention and control groups follow the approximately normal distribution at T1, T2 and T3. Therefore, we can utilise the repeated measures analysis. The Shapiro–Wilk test suggested that the PSQI and its entry data were skewed at T1, T2, and T3, prompting the paired-samples Wilcoxon test to be used to determine the change in PSQI scores at the three points stated above (Rice and Harris, 2005). We used Cohen’s r to calculate the effect size, with values of 0.1 representing a minor effect size, 0.3 signifying a moderate effect size, and 0.5 or higher indicating a substantial effect size (Coolican, 2018, p. 395).

When the universities enforce strict lockdown management, they entail students staying on campus, minimizing contact with each other and even remaining in dormitories if necessary. University students frequently suffer from anxiety, depression, and insomnia due to this regulation (Saraswathi et al., 2020). The correlation between psychological problems and sleep disturbances is mutual, and China has already seen some positive sleep intervention results based on Confucian culture (Chu and Carew, 1990). The tranquil sitting intervention technique proposed in this study is close to MBI, SG-MBI and TCT in form, advocates Confucian ethics of “tranquillity and reverence” in self-cultivation and pursues a “tranquillity” state to alleviate psychological problems or sleep disorders.

Even with the university lockdown, students must manage multiple duties in their lives and studies, making it hard to achieve peace of mind. Therefore, the authors crafted this intervention promotes tranquillity and encourages individuals to incorporate self-cultivation to manage their daily lives. In the formation of psychological tranquillity, the primary focus is on integrating the physical, emotional, and mental states.

The objective of evaluating morality is to contemplate and respond to daily life with it. Upon receiving guidance from the social worker tutors, the participants quickly learned to align the body, regulate their breath, and focus their cognition after becoming accustomed to the tranquil sitting. Self-cultivation helped strengthen their mental fortitude and capacity to cope (Hwang and Chang, 2009). With the help of the social worker instructors, once the subjects experienced the tranquil sitting state, they mastered the exercises of “body alignment,” “breath regulation,” and the “cognitive focus” (Teng and Lien, 2016). Their mental resilience and coping ability improved through the tranquillity of self-cultivation. Thus, their sleep quality was enhanced from the inside outward.

The programme integrates both group and individual interventions. Group intervention can furnish mutual support (Supiano and Luptak, 2014), so it was primarily conducted in group mode. However, some participants may find it challenging to express their inner thoughts and needs in the groups. Thus, each social worker instructor maintained one-on-one contact with about eight subjects via SMS or WeChat. Moreover, every participant had the opportunity to receive individualized online assistance besides the group intervention. This initiative helps build trust and informs the director about each participant’s mental health and sleep status.

The whole programme consists of 14 topics and lasts for 10 weeks, with two sessions of about 50 min each week. The intervention includes the following six sections: 1. Explore the cultural roots of Confucianism. 2. An overview of the Confucian tranquil sitting ritual and the underlying ethics. r3. A primer on Confucian methodologies of “tranquillity and reverence” tranquil sitting. 4. Practice Confucian “body alignment,” “breath regulation,” and “cognition focus” techniques. 5. Practice engaging in Confucian tranquil sitting with the “body, breath, cognition” method, contemplation and response. 6. Review of the intervention programme. Table 3 shows the specific intervention content.

The fourth and fifth sections were the focus of the intervention, which lasted 6 weeks. The intervention group participated in two 50-min tranquil sitting sessions per week. The control group interacted simultaneously and in the same format without the instructor guiding them to tranquil sitting. The intervention was carried out strictly according to the plan developed by the social worker and the directors, with fun and interactive sessions during and after the intervention to ensure its effectiveness and the participants’ attendance.