Effectiveness Of Progressive Muscle Relaxation and Deep Breathing based on Internet method in facing Student anxiety during Covid-19

Introduction: The pandemic effect of coronavirus continues to grow throughout the world. This also happened in Indonesia marked by the increasing number of cases of Covid-19 to date. This also happens in Indonesia, which is marked by the increasing number of Covid-19 cases to date and it cannot be predicted when it will be resolved. This condition causes many health and emotional symptoms, one of which is shown by the increasing anxiety symptoms in students. Government policies that prohibit school activities and travel outside the city or hometown affect the increasing symptoms of anxiety cases. This makes conditions even more uncertain considering anxiety is one of the factors that can trigger stress that affects the body's metabolic performance and mental health, thus making a person vulnerable to Covid-19 exposure. One of intervention used to reduce anxiety is the method of progressive muscle relaxation and deep breathing. Considering that during the Pandemic Covid -19 period it was required to implement activities that were to maintain a safe distance (physical distancing), therefore the intervention was carried out using an online platform based on the internet. Objective: This study aims to determine the effectiveness of progressive muscle relaxation and breathing using an internet-based intervention method on anxiety levels in students. Method: This research is a quantitative descriptive and uses a quasi-experimental approach design with pretestposttest without a control group. The sampling method was purposive sampling implemented to students at the Faculty of Sport Science, Yogyakarta State University while ordinal pairing was carried out for data distribution.The analysis used was paired sample t-test with data analysis techniques using paired sample t-test through the SPSS 25 program with a significance level of 95% (α = 0.05). Results: The results showed that progressive muscle relaxation and deep breathing techniques proved to be effective in reducing anxiety in students facing the covid-19 pandemic (p-value = 0,000; α 0.05), which means the hypothesis was accepted. Internet-based progressive muscle relaxation and deep breathing exercises have proven to be effective in reducing student anxiety in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic.