Introduction: The Covid-19 pandemic presents its own challenges for educational institutions, especially universities. This makes universities in which there are educators, namely lecturers, are required to be able to organize online learning. The change in the teaching system adds to the problem of the mental health of the lecturers. People with mental health disorders can be stressed, depressed, and feel anxiety so that it interferes with routines. Progressive muscle relaxation is one of the self-management techniques based on the workings of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of progressive muscle relaxation techniques on mental health of nursing lecturers.

Method: The design of study was pre-experimental with a one-group pre-post test design without control. Sampling was carried out by total sampling on 25 nursing lecturers at Indonesian Muslim University. The instrument used was a mental health questionnaire and video of progressive muscle relaxation that will be done for 5-10 minutes, with a frequency of 3 times a week. The statistical test used is wilcoxon test with a confidence level of = 0.05.

Results: The results showed that there was effect of giving progressive muscle relaxation on mental health in nursing lecturers with a value (p = 0.001).

Conclusions: Progressive muscle relaxation has an effect on improving mental health in nursing lecturers. Therefore, it is necessary to do progressive muscle relaxation every day after doing activities so that physically and mentally become relaxed.