“Emotion regulation studies how individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express them.” (Gross 1998)
Mindfulness is the self-regulation of one’s own awareness so that attention is centred on current emotions, feelings and events. This area in psychology was based on the Buddhist applications of awareness.
Emotion regulation is the idea of being able to change how one expresses emotions both internally and externally by changing their own reaction to initial feelings of the emotion intending to be regulated. This can be done through many methods, such as avoidance, intensification of either the initial emotion of others to counter-act it. Emotional regulation is something that is done by everybody, and problems with emotional regulation such as under or over regulation are theorised to be the causes of certain disorders such as anxiety, under regulation, obsessive compulsive disorder, and over regulation. (Gross, 2007. Campbell-Sills, L., & Barlow, D. H. 2007)
The practical use of mindfulness in psychology is usually centred on the treatments of emotion based psychological problems such as anxiety and stress disorders. (Khoury et al 2013.) Mindfulness based therapies employ the use of regulating ones emotions through the use of changing someone’s relationship with a specific emotion rather than the earlier methods of changing the thoughts themselves. This is to promote a higher acceptance level of one’s emotions rather than to deny them and rely on the use of avoidance strategies.
There are two main mindfulness based therapies which are MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) and MBCT (Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy). MBSR is a group based therapy using techniques such as meditation to acquire positive mindful awareness designed to help participants of the program to cope better with stressors in the their life. Research suggests that MBSR is capable of helping patients with overall mental health and to be a combatant against stress, depression and anxiety. (Fjorback, L. O., Arendt, M., Ørnbøl, E., Fink, P., & Walach, H. 2011). However one drawback that was mentioned in the meta-analysis by Fjorback et al was that the effectiveness of MBSR is directly correlated with how many years of training in the therapy technique the therapist had, which means that those with a lower amount of training would have difficulty replicating positive results in patients undergoing MBSR. MBCT is a therapeutic technique heavily influenced by Cognitive Behavioural Therapy that includes aspect of mindfulness that is used mainly to help patients with depression from relapsing, most usually patients that suffer from severe forms of depression such as MDD (Major Depressive Disorder.) The main objective of MBCT is to alter the mind-set of a depressive patient so that when their depression is triggered, instead of relying upon automatic responses which would lead them into a depressive episode, they are able to recognise what is triggering them and become aware of the emotions that are being caused by such and to accept them and for it to become more of a reflective process than that of a reactive one. Research by Ma, and Teasdale (2004) has shown that in such cases, the relapse rate can be reduced by up to 50%.
Mindfulness and it’s ideology of accepting and reflecting can then be seen as an effective method of better regulating emotions rather than using coping mechanisms which result in negative drawbacks due to not dealing with the issues that have caused the emotions.
References:
Campbell-Sills, L., & Barlow, D. H. (2007). Incorporating emotion regulation into conceptualizations and treatments of anxiety and mood disorders.
Corcoran, K. M., Farb, N., Anderson, A., & Segal, Z. V. (2009). Mindfulness and emotion regulation. Emotion regulation and psychopathology: A transdiagnostic approach to etiology and treatment, 339-355.
Fjorback, L. O., Arendt, M., Ørnbøl, E., Fink, P., & Walach, H. (2011). Mindfulness‐Based Stress Reduction and Mindfulness‐Based Cognitive Therapy–a systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 124(2), 102-119.
Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of general psychology, 2(3), 271.
Khoury, B., Lecomte, T., Fortin, G., Masse, M., Therien, P., Bouchard, V., … & Hofmann, S. G. (2013). Mindfulness-Based Therapy: A Comprehensive Meta-Analysis. Clinical Psychology Review.
Ma, S. H., & Teasdale, J. D. (2004). Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression: replication and exploration of differential relapse prevention effects.Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 72(1), 31.
Emotion and Motivation 
Hi Adam! I like your post and I think it is a very interesting point that actually tuning into the emotion we experience can be a lot better than many other coping strategies that aim to get rid of negative feelings. Research by Holahan et al. (2005) for example confirms that avoidance coping, the attempt to avoid aversive emotions by not to dealing with stressful events is actually linked to increased stress and depressive symptoms in the long term. The long-term setting of this study (several assessments in a 10 years period) adds further significance to these findings as the design really captures the long-term outcomes of coping strategies as they apply to the real life.
Another study (Blalock & Joiner, 2000) has looked at the type of avoidance more differentially and found that it is cognitive avoidance coping in particular that is related to symptoms of depression and anxiety, rather than behavioural attempts like avoiding unpleasant situations. These findings further supports the emphasis on one’s present experience, as it is encouraged in the mindfulness approach. Interestingly, Blalock and Joiner (2000) could only find a significant link between avoidance coping and negative outcomes in females. Maybe this could explain high ratios of female participants in mindfulness courses as compared to men? The study was conducted over a relatively short time span of 3 weeks, so this would need to be investigated further in longitudinal studies. However, if these findings would be confirmed it would be really interesting to find out maybe in future research why avoidance coping might work out okay for men but not for women!
Blalock, J. A., Joiner Jr. T. E. (2000). Interaction of Cognitive Avoidance Coping and Stress in Predicting Depression / Anxiety. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 24(1), 47-65. doi: 10.1023/A:1005450908245
Holahan, C. J., Moos, R. H., Holohan, C. K., Brennan, P. L., Schutte, K. K. (2005). Stress Generation, Avoidance Coping, and Depressive Symptoms: A 10-Year Model. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73(4), 658-666. doi: 10.1037/0022-006X.73.4.658
Mindfulness as a tool for emotional regulation provides a healthy alternative compared to techniques which regulate emotions through avoidance, such as suppression, which have cognitive deficits. These deficits can have effect on memory- Richard and Gross (2006) found a heightened number of errors when recalling memories constructed while suppressing emotions- which mindfulness does not. In terms of ‘ease of use’, cognitive appraisal can provide an option which does not have the negative cognitive effects that suppression and likewise emotional regulators have and requires less effort to achieve compared to mindfulness. Merely reappraising negative emotions can lighten an individual’s mood (Gross, 1998) while at the same time activating self-regulatory components of the brain (Ochsner et al., 2004). If an individual has the necessary time and commitment to achieve mindfulness then the benefits can be immense, this however is not always a possibility for all individuals.
Avoiding stressors as a way to deal with stress can lead to higher ratings anxiety in the long term. Another method of dealing with stressors using mindfulness and cognitive behaviour therapy is a method called anchoring. Instead of avoiding stress or simply tuning to positive emotions, it allows you to condition a positive response in replace of the negative one. A participant is taken to a state of complete relaxation before using a hand signal (such as rubbing together their index finger and thumb). If a person does this enough, they effectively use classical conditioning to anchor the feeling of relaxation to the hand signal. When approached with a stressful situation or negative feeling in the future they can simply use this hand signal to bring them back to feelings of relaxation. This method has been found to be significantly useful in reducing negative feelins in the presence of a stressful situation. (Levitt, E 1980).