Effects of the Soothe Vision well-being tool on university students' mood: a pilot study

The "Soothe Vision" well-being tool was designed through co-production with young people, combining soothing images from Project Soothe and literary quotes and music to produce a set of soothing videos. The present research was a pilot study evaluating its effects on mood states in university students. Specifically, it examined if the Soothe Vision tool (intervention group) was more effective than viewing the soothing images from Project Soothe alone (control group) in producing positive mood changes. This study was conducted online with 151 Chinese university students (age M = 22.77; SD = 0.23) both in and outside China. Standardised measures were used to assess the symptoms of depression, anxiety, personality traits and loneliness at the baseline phase. Changes in mood states were measured before and after the intervention. Repeated measure ANOVAs indicated that both groups showed reduced negative mood states (i.e., negative affect, depressive and anxious mood) and an increased serenity affect; however, there were no group differences. Correlation analyses suggested that higher levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms at baseline were associated with a greater reduction in depressive and anxious mood. Participants with a higher neuroticism score reported larger reductions in anxious mood states. These preliminary findings suggest that imagery-based tools/interventions can be beneficial in increasing positive mood and reducing negative mood in students, particularly in those with higher levels of baseline depressive and anxiety symptoms as well as those with higher vulnerability by virtue of neuroticism.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-025-07649-7.