Islamic Self-Healing to Overcome Students’ Academic Anxiety

Abstract

Academic anxiety is one of the psychological problems commonly experienced by santri due to high academic demands, intensive learning activities, and environmental pressures in Islamic boarding schools. From the perspective of Islamic Psychology, psychological calmness is closely related to an individual’s spiritual closeness to Allah SWT, which is manifested through the practices of prayer (doa) and remembrance (dhikr). This community service activity aimed to examine the effectiveness of Islamic self-healing through prayer and dhikr in reducing the level of academic anxiety among santri. The study employed a quantitative approach with a one-group pretest–posttest design, involving an Islamic self-healing intervention through the practice of prayer and dhikr. Data were collected from 25 santri who participated in the entire series of Islamic self-healing interventions. The results of the analysis showed a decrease in the mean academic anxiety score from 75.20 at the pretest stage (high category) to 61.80 at the posttest stage (moderate category). These findings indicate that Islamic self-healing interventions through prayer and dhikr contribute to a reduction in academic anxiety among santri. Therefore, the practices of prayer and dhikr have the potential to serve as effective, contextual, and value-congruent psychological interventions within the setting of Islamic boarding schools.