Mood regulation, positive affect, and behavioral interventions for emotional wellbeing.
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Mood is more malleable than most people think — and more predictable. The research on what reliably shifts affect, and what doesn't, is clearer than the self-help landscape suggests.
Mood research has been transformed by affective neuroscience over the past two decades. What we experience as "feeling good or bad" is primarily a function of neurotransmitter balance, circadian timing, and physiological state — and only secondarily a function of life circumstances. This has counterintuitive implications for what actually moves the needle.
Exercise is the most reliable acute mood intervention, with effects lasting 4–8 hours. Across dozens of RCTs, a single aerobic exercise session (30+ minutes, moderate intensity) produces significant reductions in negative affect and increases in positive affect. The effect is comparable to antidepressant medication for mild-to-moderate depression in head-to-head trials. Mechanism: endorphin release, BDNF upregulation, and serotonin/dopamine normalisation. Critically, motivation to exercise is itself impaired by low mood — the barrier is highest exactly when the benefit is greatest.
Social connection is the strongest predictor of positive affect in daily life. Experience sampling studies (Kahneman et al., Killingsworth et al.) consistently find that social interaction is the highest-rated activity for positive affect — outperforming leisure, food, and entertainment. Brief, high-quality social contact raises mood more reliably than extended passive entertainment. Loneliness produces cortisol and inflammatory profiles indistinguishable from chronic stress.
Light exposure regulates mood through circadian and non-circadian pathways. Morning bright light (2,500+ lux for 20–30 minutes) advances circadian phase, regulates melatonin, and directly increases serotonin turnover via intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells. SAD meta-analyses find light therapy effective at the same magnitude as antidepressants, with faster onset. Effects on non-clinical mood (seasonal fluctuations, winter dips) are well-documented.
Sleep is the largest modifiable mood variable for most people. Partial sleep deprivation (6 hours/night for two weeks) produces negative affect and emotional reactivity equivalent to total deprivation for one night. Brain imaging shows a 60% increase in amygdala reactivity and reduced prefrontal-amygdala connectivity — the neurological signature of emotional dysregulation — after just one poor night. No intervention has a larger daily impact on mood than sleep quality.
Behavioural activation is as effective as cognitive restructuring for low mood. Decades of RCTs comparing CBT components find that scheduling positive activities (behavioural activation) produces equal mood improvements to cognitive work alone, and the combination is additive. The implication: what you do matters more than how you think about what you do, at least initially. Action precedes feeling in low-mood states.
Individual mood set points and responsiveness to interventions vary significantly. Some people are more exercise-responsive; others respond more to social interventions. Tracking mood against specific behaviours daily for 3–4 weeks is the most reliable way to identify your personal highest-leverage lever. Most people find one or two dominant variables that explain most of their mood variance — and the literature can't tell you which ones are yours.
Evidence base
50 papers
Sylvia Kauer, Sophie Reid, Alexander Hew Dale Crooke +5 more · Journal of Medical Internet Research · 2012 · 433 citations
This study found that young people who used a mobile phone app to self-monitor their mood, stress, and coping strategies significantly increased their emotional self-awareness, which in turn led to a decrease in their depressive symptoms.
Read the breakdown →Marcos Economides, Janis Martman, Megan Jones +1 more · Mindfulness · 2018 · 263 citations
Ten sessions of a mindfulness meditation app (Headspace) over up to one month reduced stress from external pressure, improved positive affect, and reduced irritability compared to listening to a psychoeducational audiobook about mindfulness — with moderate effect sizes (Cohen's d = 0.44–0.47) — suggesting that even brief, self-guided digital mindfulness training can produce meaningful psychological benefits for healthy adults.
Read the breakdown →Reinhard Pekrun, Thomas Goetz, Wolfram Titz +1 more · Educational Psychologist · 2002 · 3,817 citations
Academic emotions have largely been neglected by educational psychology. In 5 qualitative studies, it was found that students experience a rich diversity of emotions in academic settings. Anxiety was reported most often, but positive emotions were described no less frequently than negative emotions. Based on the studies reviewed in this article, taxonomies of different academic emotions and a self-report instrument measuring students' enjoyment, hope, pride, relief, anger, anxiety, shame, hopelessness, and boredom (Academic Emotions Questionnaire [AEQ]) were developed. Using the AEQ, assumptions of a cognitive-motivational model of the achievement effects of emotions, and of a control/value theory of their antecedents (R. Pekrun, 1992b, 2000), were tested in 7 cross-sectional, 3 longitudinal, and 1 diary study using samples of university and school students. Results showed that academic emotions are significantly related to students' motivation, learning strategies, cognitive resources, self-regulation, and academic achievement, as well as to personality and classroom antecedents. The findings indicate that affective research in educational psychology should acknowledge emotional diversity in academic settings by addressing the full range of emotions experienced by students.
Predicting Depression via Social Media
Munmun De Choudhury, Michael Gamon, Scott Counts +1 more · Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media · 2021 · 1,548 citations
Major depression constitutes a serious challenge in personal and public health. Tens of millions of people each year suffer from depression and only a fraction receives adequate treatment. We explore the potential to use social media to detect and diagnose major depressive disorder in individuals. We first employ crowdsourcing to compile a set of Twitter users who report being diagnosed with clinical depression, based on a standard psychometric instrument. Through their social media postings over a year preceding the onset of depression, we measure behavioral attributes relating to social engagement, emotion, language and linguistic styles, ego network, and mentions of antidepressant medications. We leverage these behavioral cues, to build a statistical classifier that provides estimates of the risk of depression, before the reported onset. We find that social media contains useful signals for characterizing the onset of depression in individuals, as measured through decrease in social activity, raised negative affect, highly clustered egonetworks, heightened relational and medicinal concerns, and greater expression of religious involvement. We believe our findings and methods may be useful in developing tools for identifying the onset of major depression, for use by healthcare agencies; or on behalf of individuals, enabling those suffering from depression to be more proactive about their mental health.
Susan Nolen–Hoeksema, Blair E. Wisco, Sonja Lyubomirsky · Perspectives on Psychological Science · 2008 · 4,947 citations
The response styles theory (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991) was proposed to explain the insidious relationship between rumination and depression. We review the aspects of the response styles theory that have been well-supported, including evidence that rumination exacerbates depression, enhances negative thinking, impairs problem solving, interferes with instrumental behavior, and erodes social support. Next, we address contradictory and new findings. Specifically, rumination appears to more consistently predict the onset of depression rather than the duration, but rumination interacts with negative cognitive styles to predict the duration of depressive symptoms. Contrary to original predictions, the use of positive distractions has not consistently been correlated with lower levels of depressive symptoms in correlational studies, although dozens of experimental studies show positive distractions relieve depressed mood. Further, evidence now suggests that rumination is associated with psychopathologies in addition to depression, including anxiety, binge eating, binge drinking, and self-harm. We discuss the relationships between rumination and worry and between rumination and other coping or emotion-regulation strategies. Finally, we highlight recent research on the distinction between rumination and more adaptive forms of self-reflection, on basic cognitive deficits or biases in rumination, on its neural and genetic correlates, and on possible interventions to combat rumination.
Amygdala–frontal connectivity during emotion regulation
Sarah J. Banks, Kamryn T. Eddy, Mike Angstadt +2 more · Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience · 2007 · 1,195 citations
Successful control of affect partly depends on the capacity to modulate negative emotional responses through the use of cognitive strategies (i.e., reappraisal). Recent studies suggest the involvement of frontal cortical regions in the modulation of amygdala reactivity and the mediation of effective emotion regulation. However, within-subject inter-regional connectivity between amygdala and prefrontal cortex in the context of affect regulation is unknown. Here, using psychophysiological interaction analyses of functional magnetic resonance imaging data, we show that activity in specific areas of the frontal cortex (dorsolateral, dorsal medial, anterior cingulate, orbital) covaries with amygdala activity and that this functional connectivity is dependent on the reappraisal task. Moreover, strength of amygdala coupling with orbitofrontal cortex and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex predicts the extent of attenuation of negative affect following reappraisal. These findings highlight the importance of functional connectivity within limbic-frontal circuitry during emotion regulation.
Effects of light on human circadian rhythms, sleep and mood
Christine Blume, Corrado Garbazza, Manuel Spitschan · Somnologie - Schlafforschung und Schlafmedizin · 2019 · 626 citations
Humans live in a 24-hour environment, in which light and darkness follow a diurnal pattern. Our circadian pacemaker, the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) in the hypothalamus, is entrained to the 24-hour solar day via a pathway from the retina and synchronises our internal biological rhythms. Rhythmic variations in ambient illumination impact behaviours such as rest during sleep and activity during wakefulness as well as their underlying biological processes. Rather recently, the availability of artificial light has substantially changed the light environment, especially during evening and night hours. This may increase the risk of developing circadian rhythm sleep-wake disorders (CRSWD), which are often caused by a misalignment of endogenous circadian rhythms and external light-dark cycles. While the exact relationship between the availability of artificial light and CRSWD remains to be established, nocturnal light has been shown to alter circadian rhythms and sleep in humans. On the other hand, light can also be used as an effective and noninvasive therapeutic option with little to no side effects, to improve sleep,mood and general well-being. This article reviews our current state of knowledge regarding the effects of light on circadian rhythms, sleep, and mood.
Music listening enhances cognitive recovery and mood after middle cerebral artery stroke
Teppo Särkämö, Mari Tervaniemi, S. Laitinen +9 more · Brain · 2008 · 886 citations
We know from animal studies that a stimulating and enriched environment can enhance recovery after stroke, but little is known about the effects of an enriched sound environment on recovery from neural damage in humans. In humans, music listening activates a wide-spread bilateral network of brain regions related to attention, semantic processing, memory, motor functions, and emotional processing. Music exposure also enhances emotional and cognitive functioning in healthy subjects and in various clinical patient groups. The potential role of music in neurological rehabilitation, however, has not been systematically investigated. This single-blind, randomized, and controlled trial was designed to determine whether everyday music listening can facilitate the recovery of cognitive functions and mood after stroke. In the acute recovery phase, 60 patients with a left or right hemisphere middle cerebral artery (MCA) stroke were randomly assigned to a music group, a language group, or a control group. During the following two months, the music and language groups listened daily to self-selected music or audio books, respectively, while the control group received no listening material. In addition, all patients received standard medical care and rehabilitation. All patients underwent an extensive neuropsychological assessment, which included a wide range of cognitive tests as well as mood and quality of life questionnaires, one week (baseline), 3 months, and 6 months after the stroke. Fifty-four patients completed the study. Results showed that recovery in the domains of verbal memory and focused attention improved significantly more in the music group than in the language and control groups. The music group also experienced less depressed and confused mood than the control group. These findings demonstrate for the first time that music listening during the early post-stroke stage can enhance cognitive recovery and prevent negative mood. The neural mechanisms potentially underlying these effects are discussed.
David R. Vago, David Silbersweig · Frontiers in Human Neuroscience · 2012 · 1,300 citations
Mindfulness-as a state, trait, process, type of meditation, and intervention has proven to be beneficial across a diverse group of psychological disorders as well as for general stress reduction. Yet, there remains a lack of clarity in the operationalization of this construct, and underlying mechanisms. Here, we provide an integrative theoretical framework and systems-based neurobiological model that explains the mechanisms by which mindfulness reduces biases related to self-processing and creates a sustainable healthy mind. Mindfulness is described through systematic mental training that develops meta-awareness (self-awareness), an ability to effectively modulate one's behavior (self-regulation), and a positive relationship between self and other that transcends self-focused needs and increases prosocial characteristics (self-transcendence). This framework of self-awareness, -regulation, and -transcendence (S-ART) illustrates a method for becoming aware of the conditions that cause (and remove) distortions or biases. The development of S-ART through meditation is proposed to modulate self-specifying and narrative self-networks through an integrative fronto-parietal control network. Relevant perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral neuropsychological processes are highlighted as supporting mechanisms for S-ART, including intention and motivation, attention regulation, emotion regulation, extinction and reconsolidation, prosociality, non-attachment, and decentering. The S-ART framework and neurobiological model is based on our growing understanding of the mechanisms for neurocognition, empirical literature, and through dismantling the specific meditation practices thought to cultivate mindfulness. The proposed framework will inform future research in the contemplative sciences and target specific areas for development in the treatment of psychological disorders.
Eric L. Garland, Norman A. S. Farb, Philippe R. Goldin +1 more · Psychological Inquiry · 2015 · 772 citations
Contemporary scholarship on mindfulness casts it as a form of purely nonevaluative engagement with experience. Yet, traditionally mindfulness was not intended to operate in a vacuum of dispassionate observation, but was seen as facilitative of eudaimonic mental states. In spite of this historical context, modern psychological research has neglected to ask the question of how the practice of mindfulness affects downstream emotion regulatory processes to impact the sense of meaning in life. To fill this lacuna, here we describe the mindfulness-to-meaning theory, from which we derive a novel process model of mindful positive emotion regulation informed by affective science, in which mindfulness is proposed to introduce flexibility in the generation of cognitive appraisals by enhancing interoceptive attention, thereby expanding the scope of cognition to facilitate reappraisal of adversity and savoring of positive experience. This process is proposed to culminate in a deepened capacity for meaning-making and greater engagement with life.
Happiness is greater in natural environments
George MacKerron, Susana Mourato · Global Environmental Change · 2013 · 880 citations
The Ripple Effect: Emotional Contagion and its Influence on Group Behavior
Sigal G. Barsade · Administrative Science Quarterly · 2002 · 3,268 citations
Group emotional contagion, the transfer of moods among people in a group, and its influence on work group dynamics was examined in a laboratory study of managerial decision making using multiple, convergent measures of mood, individual attitudes, behavior, and group-level dynamics. Using a 2 times 2 experimental design, with a trained confederate enacting mood conditions, the predicted effect of emotional contagion was found among group members, using both outside coders' ratings of participants' mood and participants' self-reported mood. No hypothesized differences in contagion effects due to the degree of pleasantness of the mood expressed and the energy level with which it was conveyed were found. There was a significant influence of emotional contagion on individual-level attitudes and group processes. As predicted, the positive emotional contagion group members experienced improved cooperation, decreased conflict, and increased perceived task performance. Theoretical implications and practical ramifications of emotional contagion in groups and organizations are discussed.
Functional Neural Plasticity and Associated Changes in Positive Affect After Compassion Training
Olga Klimecki, Susanne Leiberg, Claus Lamm +1 more · Cerebral Cortex · 2012 · 633 citations
The development of social emotions such as compassion is crucial for successful social interactions as well as for the maintenance of mental and physical health, especially when confronted with distressing life events. Yet, the neural mechanisms supporting the training of these emotions are poorly understood. To study affective plasticity in healthy adults, we measured functional neural and subjective responses to witnessing the distress of others in a newly developed task (Socio-affective Video Task). Participants' initial empathic responses to the task were accompanied by negative affect and activations in the anterior insula and anterior medial cingulate cortex--a core neural network underlying empathy for pain. Whereas participants reacted with negative affect before training, compassion training increased positive affective experiences, even in response to witnessing others in distress. On the neural level, we observed that, compared with a memory control group, compassion training elicited activity in a neural network including the medial orbitofrontal cortex, putamen, pallidum, and ventral tegmental area--brain regions previously associated with positive affect and affiliation. Taken together, these findings suggest that the deliberate cultivation of compassion offers a new coping strategy that fosters positive affect even when confronted with the distress of others.
Sabine Sonnentag, Charlotte Fritz · Journal of Occupational Health Psychology · 2007 · 1,985 citations
Drawing on the mood regulation and job-stress recovery literature, four self-report measures for assessing how individuals unwind and recuperate from work during leisure time were developed (Study 1). Confirmatory factor analyses with a calibration and a cross-validation sample (total N=930) showed that four recovery experiences can be differentiated: psychological detachment from work, relaxation, mastery, and control (Study 2). Examination of the nomological net in a subsample of Study 2 (N=271) revealed moderate relations of the recovery experiences with measures of job stressors and psychological well-being; relations with coping and personality variables were generally low (Study 3). Potential applications for the future use of these short 4-item measures in longitudinal and diary research are discussed.
Ed Diener, Stuti Thapa, Louis Tay · Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior · 2019 · 349 citations
Positive organizational scholarship has led to a growing interest in the critical role of positive emotions for the lives of both workers and organizations. We review and integrate the different perspectives on positive emotions (i.e., positive valence, positive emotion regulation strategies, and positive adaptive function) and the four main mechanisms (i.e., cognition, affect, behavior, and physiology) that lead to positive organizational outcomes. There is growing evidence that positive emotions influence variables vital for workplace success such as positive beliefs, creativity, work engagement, positive coping, health, teamwork and collaboration, customer satisfaction, leadership, and performance. We additionally review dynamic features of positive emotions (i.e., intraindividual variability, reactivity, inertia, cycles, feedback loops) and their relation to psychological and work outcomes. Finally, we discuss additional questions and future directions for consideration.
Social media and depression symptoms: A network perspective.
George Aalbers, Richard J. McNally, Alexandre Heeren +2 more · Journal of Experimental Psychology General · 2018 · 340 citations
Passive social media use (PSMU)-for example, scrolling through social media news feeds-has been associated with depression symptoms. It is unclear, however, if PSMU causes depression symptoms or vice versa. In this study, 125 students reported PSMU, depression symptoms, and stress 7 times daily for 14 days. We used multilevel vector autoregressive time-series models to estimate (a) contemporaneous, (b) temporal, and (c) between-subjects associations among these variables. (a) More time spent on PSMU was associated with higher levels of interest loss, concentration problems, fatigue, and loneliness. (b) Fatigue and loneliness predicted PSMU across time, but PSMU predicted neither depression symptoms nor stress. (c) Mean PSMU levels were positively correlated with several depression symptoms (e.g., depressed mood and feeling inferior), but these associations disappeared when controlling for all other variables. Altogether, we identified complex relations between PSMU and specific depression symptoms that warrant further research into potentially causal relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
Fabian Gander, René T. Proyer, Willibald Ruch +1 more · Journal of Happiness Studies · 2012 · 440 citations
Ellen Frank, Meredith L. Wallace, Mark J. Matthews +10 more · Frontiers in Digital Health · 2022 · 23 citations
We conducted a 16-week randomized controlled trial in psychiatric outpatients with a lifetime diagnosis of a mood and/or anxiety disorder to measure the impact of a first-of-its-kind precision digital intervention software solution based on social rhythm regulation principles. The full intent-to-treat (ITT) sample consisted of 133 individuals, aged 18–65. An exploratory sub-sample of interest was those individuals who presented with moderately severe to severe depression at study entry (baseline PHQ-8 score ≥15; N = 28). Cue is a novel digital intervention platform that capitalizes on the smartphone's ability to continuously monitor depression-relevant behavior patterns and use each patient's behavioral data to provide timely, personalized “micro-interventions,” making this the first example of a precision digital intervention of which we are aware. Participants were randomly allocated to receive Cue plus care-as-usual or digital monitoring only plus care as usual. Within the full study and depressed-at-entry samples, we fit a mixed effects model to test for group differences in the slope of depressive symptoms over 16 weeks. To account for the non-linear trajectory with more flexibility, we also fit a mixed effects model considering week as a categorical variable and used the resulting estimates to test the group difference in PHQ change from baseline to 16 weeks. In the full sample, the group difference in the slope of PHQ-8 was negligible (Cohen's d = −0.10); however, the Cue group demonstrated significantly greater improvement from baseline to 16 weeks ( p = 0.040). In the depressed-at-entry sample, we found evidence for benefit of Cue. The group difference in the slope of PHQ-8 (Cohen's d = −0.72) indicated a meaningfully more rapid rate of improvement in the intervention group than in the control group. The Cue group also demonstrated significantly greater improvement in PHQ-8 from baseline to 16 weeks ( p = 0.009). We are encouraged by the size of the intervention effect in those who were acutely ill at baseline, and by the finding that across all participants, 80% of whom were receiving pharmacotherapy, we observed significant benefit of Cue at 16 weeks of treatment. These findings suggest that a social rhythm-focused digital intervention platform may represent a useful and accessible adjunct to antidepressant treatment ( https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03152864?term=ellen+frank&draw=2&rank=3 ).
Laurien Hakvoort, Sirik de Jong, Maartje van de Ree +3 more · Journal of Music Therapy · 2020 · 27 citations
Patients diagnosed with both substance use disorder (SUD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often experience hypervigilance, increased fear, and difficulties regulating emotions. This dual diagnosis increases treatment complexity. Recently, a short-term music therapy intervention for arousal and attention regulation (the SMAART intervention) was designed based on neurobiological findings. Twelve patients with SUD and PTSD (50% females) in outpatient treatment participated in six weekly one-hour sessions of the SMAART intervention. Six patients completed the study. PTSD symptom severity was evaluated with the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptom Scale Interview for DSM-5 (PSSI-5) pre- and post-intervention, and sustained attention was evaluated with the Bourdon-Wiersma (BW) test. A significant difference in measurements for the PSSI-5 overall symptom severity was found pre- and post-intervention. Furthermore, participants showed significant improvement on subscales of hyperarousal, mood and cognition, and attention. The BW test completion time decreased significantly. Two participants dropped out before the end of the intervention due to craving. Concerning future research, it is recommended to define the role of the music more explicitly and to change the design to a randomized controlled trial. A risk for future larger studies is a high dropout rate (50%). Several limitations of the study are discussed.
Predicting Symptoms of Depression and Anxiety Using Smartphone and Wearable Data
Isaac Moshe, Yannik Terhorst, Kennedy Opoku Asare +5 more · Frontiers in Psychiatry · 2021 · 253 citations
Background: Depression and anxiety are leading causes of disability worldwide but often remain undetected and untreated. Smartphone and wearable devices may offer a unique source of data to detect moment by moment changes in risk factors associated with mental disorders that overcome many of the limitations of traditional screening methods. Objective: The current study aimed to explore the extent to which data from smartphone and wearable devices could predict symptoms of depression and anxiety. Methods: A total of N = 60 adults (ages 24–68) who owned an Apple iPhone and Oura Ring were recruited online over a 2-week period. At the beginning of the study, participants installed the Delphi data acquisition app on their smartphone. The app continuously monitored participants' location (using GPS) and smartphone usage behavior (total usage time and frequency of use). The Oura Ring provided measures related to activity (step count and metabolic equivalent for task), sleep (total sleep time, sleep onset latency, wake after sleep onset and time in bed) and heart rate variability (HRV). In addition, participants were prompted to report their daily mood (valence and arousal). Participants completed self-reported assessments of depression, anxiety and stress (DASS-21) at baseline, midpoint and the end of the study. Results: Multilevel models demonstrated a significant negative association between the variability of locations visited and symptoms of depression (beta = −0.21, p = 0.037) and significant positive associations between total sleep time and depression (beta = 0.24, p = 0.023), time in bed and depression (beta = 0.26, p = 0.020), wake after sleep onset and anxiety (beta = 0.23, p = 0.035) and HRV and anxiety (beta = 0.26, p = 0.035). A combined model of smartphone and wearable features and self-reported mood provided the strongest prediction of depression. Conclusion: The current findings demonstrate that wearable devices may provide valuable sources of data in predicting symptoms of depression and anxiety, most notably data related to common measures of sleep.
Merikangas KR, Swendsen J, Hickie IB +8 more · JAMA Psychiatry · 2019 · 230 citations
Satu Baylan, Meigan McGinlay, Maxine MacDonald +10 more · Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2018 · 32 citations
Existing research evidence suggests that both music listening and mindfulness interventions may have beneficial effects on mood and cognition poststroke. This mixed-methods study, nested within a pilot randomized controlled trial investigating the feasibility and acceptability of combining music listening and brief mindfulness training poststroke, explored study participants' experiences of engaging in the interventions. Fifty-six stroke survivors who were randomized to receive an 8-week intervention of mindful music listening (n = 15), music listening (n = 21), or audiobook listening (n = 20, control) using self-selected material participated in a postintervention individual semistructured interview with a researcher not involved in their intervention delivery. Interview questions focused on affective, cognitive, and physical experiences. Data were coded and analyzed using thematic analysis. Across groups, listening was associated with positive distraction from thoughts and worries. Mindful music listening was most strongly associated with relaxation and concentration, improved attentional control, and emotion regulation, as well as enjoyment. Music listening was most strongly associated with increased activity, memory reminiscence, and improved mood. In addition, participants provided valuable feedback on intervention feasibility and acceptability. The findings suggest that the interventions were feasible and enjoyable for people recovering from stroke.
Measuring Teachers’ enjoyment, anger, and anxiety: The Teacher Emotions Scales (TES)
Anne C. Frenzel, Reinhard Pekrun, Thomas Goetz +4 more · Contemporary Educational Psychology · 2016 · 397 citations
Birte von Haaren, Simone N. Loeffler, Sascha Haertel +4 more · Frontiers in Psychology · 2013 · 41 citations
Acute and regular exercise as well as physical activity (PA) is related to well-being and positive affect. Recent studies have shown that even daily, unstructured physical activities increase positive affect. However, the attempt to achieve adherence to PA or exercise in inactive people through public health interventions has often been unsuccessful. Most studies analyzing the activity-affect association in daily life, did not report participants' habitual activity behavior. Thus, samples included active and inactive people, but they did not necessarily exhibit the same affective reactions to PA in daily life. Therefore the present study investigated whether the association between PA and subsequent affective state in daily life can also be observed in inactive individuals. We conducted a pilot study with 29 inactive university students (mean age 21.3 ± 1.7 years) using the method of ambulatory assessment. Affect was assessed via electronic diary and PA was measured with accelerometers. Participants had to rate affect every 2 h on a six item bipolar scale reflecting the three basic mood dimensions energetic arousal, valence, and calmness. We calculated activity intensity level [mean Metabolic Equivalent (MET) value] and the amount of time spent in light activity over the last 15 min before every diary prompt and conducted within-subject correlations. We did not find significant associations between activity intensity and the three mood dimensions. Due to the high variability in within-subject correlations we conclude that not all inactive people show the same affective reactions to PA in daily life. Analyzing the PA-affect association of inactive people was difficult due to little variance and distribution of the assessed variables. Interactive assessment and randomized controlled trials might help solving these problems. Future studies should examine characteristics of affective responses of inactive people to PA in daily life. General assumptions considering the relation between affect and PA might not be suitable for this target group.
Ulrich Reininghaus, Matthew J. Kempton, Lucia Valmaggia +19 more · Schizophrenia Bulletin · 2016 · 308 citations
While contemporary models of psychosis have proposed a number of putative psychological mechanisms, how these impact on individuals to increase intensity of psychotic experiences in real life, outside the research laboratory, remains unclear. We aimed to investigate whether elevated stress sensitivity, experiences of aberrant novelty and salience, and enhanced anticipation of threat contribute to the development of psychotic experiences in daily life. We used the experience sampling method (ESM) to assess stress, negative affect, aberrant salience, threat anticipation, and psychotic experiences in 51 individuals with first-episode psychosis (FEP), 46 individuals with an at-risk mental state (ARMS) for psychosis, and 53 controls with no personal or family history of psychosis. Linear mixed models were used to account for the multilevel structure of ESM data. In all 3 groups, elevated stress sensitivity, aberrant salience, and enhanced threat anticipation were associated with an increased intensity of psychotic experiences. However, elevated sensitivity to minor stressful events (χ(2)= 6.3,P= 0.044), activities (χ(2)= 6.7,P= 0.036), and areas (χ(2)= 9.4,P= 0.009) and enhanced threat anticipation (χ(2)= 9.3,P= 0.009) were associated with more intense psychotic experiences in FEP individuals than controls. Sensitivity to outsider status (χ(2)= 5.7,P= 0.058) and aberrantly salient experiences (χ(2)= 12.3,P= 0.002) were more strongly associated with psychotic experiences in ARMS individuals than controls. Our findings suggest that stress sensitivity, aberrant salience, and threat anticipation are important psychological processes in the development of psychotic experiences in daily life in the early stages of the disorder.
Personalized machine learning of depressed mood using wearables
R. Shah, Gillian Grennan, Mariam Zafar-Khan +4 more · Translational Psychiatry · 2021 · 116 citations
Depression is a multifaceted illness with large interindividual variability in clinical response to treatment. In the era of digital medicine and precision therapeutics, new personalized treatment approaches are warranted for depression. Here, we use a combination of longitudinal ecological momentary assessments of depression, neurocognitive sampling synchronized with electroencephalography, and lifestyle data from wearables to generate individualized predictions of depressed mood over a 1-month time period. This study, thus, develops a systematic pipeline for N-of-1 personalized modeling of depression using multiple modalities of data. In the models, we integrate seven types of supervised machine learning (ML) approaches for each individual, including ensemble learning and regression-based methods. All models were verified using fourfold nested cross-validation. The best-fit as benchmarked by the lowest mean absolute percentage error, was obtained by a different type of ML model for each individual, demonstrating that there is no one-size-fits-all strategy. The voting regressor, which is a composite strategy across ML models, was best performing on-average across subjects. However, the individually selected best-fit models still showed significantly less error than the voting regressor performance across subjects. For each individual's best-fit personalized model, we further extracted top-feature predictors using Shapley statistics. Shapley values revealed distinct feature determinants of depression over time for each person ranging from co-morbid anxiety, to physical exercise, diet, momentary stress and breathing performance, sleep times, and neurocognition. In future, these personalized features can serve as targets for a personalized ML-guided, multimodal treatment strategy for depression.
Georg Riemann, Nadine Weisscher, Peter J. J. Goossens +3 more · BMC Psychiatry · 2014 · 22 citations
BACKGROUND: Bipolar disorder (BD) and borderline personality disorder (BPD) both are severe and chronic psychiatric disorders. Both disorders have overlapping symptoms, and current research shows that the presence of a BPD has an adverse effect on the course of BD. The limited research available shows an unfavorable illness course, a worse prognosis and response to medication, longer treatment duration, more frequent psychiatric admissions, higher drop-out, increased risk of substance abuse, increased risk of suicide, and more impairment of social and occupational functioning. However, there is no research available on the effect of specific psychotherapeutic treatment for this patients. METHODS/DESIGN: This paper presents the protocol of a RCT to investigate the presence of borderline personality features in patients treated for BD (study part 1) and the effectiveness of STEPPS (Systems Training for Emotional Predictability and Problem Solving) added to treatment as usual (TAU) for BD compared to TAU in patients with BD and comorbid borderline personality features (study part 2). STEPPS is a validated and effective intervention for BPD. The study population consists of patients treated for BD at specialized outpatient clinics for BD in the Netherlands. At first the prevalence of comorbid borderline personality features in outpatients with BD is investigated. Inclusion criteria for study part 2 is defined as having three or more of the DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria of BPD, including impulsivity and anger bursts. Primary outcomes will be the frequency and severity of manic and depressive recurrences as well as severity, course and burden of borderline personality features. Secondary outcomes will be quality of life, utilizing mental healthcare and psychopathologic symptoms not primarily related to BD or BPD. Assessment will be at baseline, at the end of the intervention, and at 12 and 18 months follow-up. DISCUSSION: This will be the first randomized controlled trial of a specific intervention in patients with BD and comorbid BPD or borderline personality features. There are no recommendations in the guideline of treatment of bipolar disorders for patients with this complex comorbidity. We expect that a combined treatment aimed at mood disorder and emotion regulation will improve treatment outcomes for these patients.
Debra Trampe, Jordi Quoidbach, Maxime Taquet · PLoS ONE · 2015 · 290 citations
Despite decades of research establishing the causes and consequences of emotions in the laboratory, we know surprisingly little about emotions in everyday life. We developed a smartphone application that monitored real-time emotions of an exceptionally large (N = 11,000+) and heterogeneous participants sample. People's everyday life seems profoundly emotional: participants experienced at least one emotion 90% of the time. The most frequent emotion was joy, followed by love and anxiety. People experienced positive emotions 2.5 times more often than negative emotions, but also experienced positive and negative emotions simultaneously relatively frequently. We also characterized the interconnections between people's emotions using network analysis. This novel approach to emotion research suggests that specific emotions can fall into the following categories 1) connector emotions (e.g., joy), which stimulate same valence emotions while inhibiting opposite valence emotions, 2) provincial emotions (e.g., gratitude), which stimulate same valence emotions only, or 3) distal emotions (e.g., embarrassment), which have little interaction with other emotions and are typically experienced in isolation. Providing both basic foundations and novel tools to the study of emotions in everyday life, these findings demonstrate that emotions are ubiquitous to life and can exist together and distinctly, which has important implications for both emotional interventions and theory.
Niall Bolger, Elizabeth A. Schilling · Journal of Personality · 1991 · 1,056 citations
This article investigates mechanisms through which neuroticism leads to distress in daily life. Neuroticism may lead to distress through exposing people to a greater number of stressful events, through increasing their reactivity to those events, or through a mechanism unrelated to environmental events. This article evaluates the relative importance of these three explanations. Subjects were 339 persons who provided daily reports of minor stressful events and mood for 6 weeks. Exposure and reactivity to these minor stressors explained over 40% of the distress difference between high- and low-neuroticism subjects. Reactivity to stressors accounted for twice as much of the distress difference as exposure to stressors. These results suggest that reactions within stressful situations are more important than situation selection in explaining how neuroticism leads to distress in daily life.
Astill Wright L, Shajan G, Purewal D +4 more · JMIR Ment Health · 2026
Jaldin MA, Balbim GM, Pinto J +9 more · Med Sci Sports Exerc · 2025
Astill Wright L, Roe J, Guo B +1 more · JMIR Ment Health · 2026
Personalised depression forecasting using mobile sensor data and ecological momentary assessment
Alexander Kathan, Mathias Harrer, Ludwig Küster +10 more · Frontiers in Digital Health · 2022 · 44 citations
Introduction Digital health interventions are an effective way to treat depression, but it is still largely unclear how patients’ individual symptoms evolve dynamically during such treatments. Data-driven forecasts of depressive symptoms would allow to greatly improve the personalisation of treatments. In current forecasting approaches, models are often trained on an entire population, resulting in a general model that works overall, but does not translate well to each individual in clinically heterogeneous, real-world populations. Model fairness across patient subgroups is also frequently overlooked. Personalised models tailored to the individual patient may therefore be promising. Methods We investigate different personalisation strategies using transfer learning, subgroup models, as well as subject-dependent standardisation on a newly-collected, longitudinal dataset of depression patients undergoing treatment with a digital intervention ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="IM1"><mml:mi>N</mml:mi><mml:mo>=</mml:mo><mml:mn>65</mml:mn></mml:math> patients recruited). Both passive mobile sensor data as well as ecological momentary assessments were available for modelling. We evaluated the models’ ability to predict symptoms of depression (Patient Health Questionnaire-2; PHQ-2) at the end of each day, and to forecast symptoms of the next day. Results In our experiments, we achieve a best mean-absolute-error (MAE) of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="IM2"><mml:mn>0.801</mml:mn></mml:math> (25% improvement) for predicting PHQ-2 values at the end of the day with subject-dependent standardisation compared to a non-personalised baseline ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="IM3"><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">MAE</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mo>=</mml:mo><mml:mn>1.062</mml:mn></mml:math> ). For one day ahead-forecasting, we can improve the baseline of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="IM4"><mml:mn>1.539</mml:mn></mml:math> by <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="IM5"><mml:mn>12</mml:mn><mml:mtext>%</mml:mtext></mml:math> to a MAE of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="IM6"><mml:mn>1.349</mml:mn></mml:math> using a transfer learning approach with shared common layers. In addition, personalisation leads to fairer models at group-level. Discussion Our results suggest that personalisation using subject-dependent standardisation and transfer learning can improve predictions and forecasts, respectively, of depressive symptoms in participants of a digital depression intervention. We discuss technical and clinical limitations of this approach, avenues for future investigations, and how personalised machine learning architectures may be implemented to improve existing digital interventions for depression.
Astill Wright L, Monk-Cunliffe J, Guo B +1 more · JMIR Ment Health · 2025
Astill Wright L, Bakstein E, Saunders K +2 more · Int J Bipolar Disord · 2026
Astill Wright L, Majid M, Moore M +6 more · J Med Internet Res · 2025
Cassandra Vieten, John A. Astin · Archives of Women s Mental Health · 2008 · 377 citations
Volovic-Shushan S, Josman N, Nitzan U +1 more · Aust Occup Ther J · 2026
Sleep and affect in older adults: using multilevel modeling to examine daily associations
Christina S. McCrae, Joseph P. H. McNamara, Meredeth A. Rowe +4 more · Journal of Sleep Research · 2008 · 196 citations
The main objective of the present study was to examine daily associations (intraindividual variability or IIV) between sleep and affect in older adults. Greater understanding of these associations is important, because both sleep and affect represent modifiable behaviors that can have a major influence on older adults' health and well-being. We collected sleep diaries, actigraphy, and affect data concurrently for 14 days in 103 community-dwelling older adults. Multilevel modeling was used to assess the sleep-affect relationship at both the group (between-persons) and individual (within-person or IIV) levels. We hypothesized that nights characterized by better sleep would be associated with days characterized by higher positive affect and lower negative affect, and that the inverse would be true for poor sleep. Daily associations were found between affect and subjective sleep, only and were in the hypothesized direction. Specifically, nights with greater reported awake time or lower sleep quality ratings were associated with days characterized by less positive affect and more negative affect. Gender was not a significant main effect in the present study, despite previous research suggesting gender differences in the sleep-affect relationship. The fact that self-ratings of sleep emerged as the best predictors of affect may suggest that perceived sleep is a particularly important predictor. Finally, our results suggest exploration of affect as a potential intervention target in late-life insomnia is warranted.
Feng Tian, Pengda Gao, Longzhuang Li +4 more · Knowledge-Based Systems · 2013 · 82 citations
Johnstone JM, Hughes A, Goldenberg JZ +2 more · Nutrients · 2020
Effect of 4 weeks daily wild blueberry supplementation on symptoms of depression in adolescents
J. Fisk, Sundus Khalid, Shirley Reynolds +1 more · British Journal Of Nutrition · 2020 · 42 citations
Abstract Adolescence is an important period for cognitive maturation and emotional regulation, and this age group is particularly vulnerable to developing depression. Diets rich in fruits and vegetables have been associated with decreased risk of developing depressive disorders across the lifespan, maybe due to the high flavonoid content of these foods. Previously, we have shown increases in transient positive affect (PA) in both children and young adults 2 h after administration of a wild blueberry (WBB) intervention. Here, using a randomised double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, we investigated the effects of 4 weeks, daily WBB supplementation (containing about 253 mg anthocyanins) on transient and chronic mood in adolescents. Healthy 12–17-year old ( n 64, thirty-five females) participants were randomly assigned to receive either a WBB or matched placebo supplementation. Depression and anxiety symptoms were assessed before and after the intervention period using the Mood and Feeling Questionnaire and Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale. Transient affect was assessed before, 2 weeks and at 4 weeks using PA and negative affect. Following the intervention period, there were significantly fewer self-reported depression symptoms in participants who were supplemented with WBB compared with placebo ( P = 0·02, 95 % CI –6·71, –5·35). There was no between-group effect on anxiety symptoms or on transient affect. Further investigation is required to identify specific mechanisms that link flavonoids consumption and mood. If replicated, the observed effects of WBB supplementation may be a potential prevention strategy for adolescent depression and may have benefits for public mental health.
Effects of guided imagery and music (GIM) therapy on mood and cortisol in healthy adults.
Cathy H. McKinney, Michael H. Antoni, Mahendra Kumar +2 more · Health Psychology · 1997 · 214 citations
Healthy adults (N = 28) participated in a randomized trial of Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music (GIM; a depth approach to music psychotherapy) sessions on mood and cortisol. Participants in both GIM and wait-list control conditions completed the Profile of Mood States (POMS) and donated 15 cc of blood before and after the 13-week intervention period and again at a 6-week follow-up. Split-plot factorial and post hoc analyses demonstrated that after 6 biweekly sessions GIM participants reported significant decreases between pre- and postsession depression, fatigue, and total mood disturbance and had significant decreases in cortisol level by follow-up. Pretest to follow-up decrease in cortisol was significantly associated with decrease in mood disturbance. A short series of GIM sessions may positively affect mood and reduce cortisol levels in healthy adults. Such changes in hormonal regulation may have health implications for chronically stressed people.
MINDFULNESS SEBAGAI STRATEGI REGULASI EMOSI
Cleoputri Yusainy, Ratri Nurwanti, Ignatius Ryan Jeffri Dharmawan +5 more · Jurnal Psikologi · 2019 · 32 citations
Research on emotional regulation has been dominated by a hedonist perspective, which argued that the existence of positive affects and the absence of negative affects is an indicator of optimal human functioning. Meeting hedonic needs, however, is not the only goal of emotional regulation. Emotional regulation can also facilitate the integrity of the personality-oriented function as a whole. Mindfulness as an emotional regulation strategy is escorted by attention to all that is taking place in the present moment with an attitude of acceptance, thereby facilitating person-oriented function by bringing emotional experiences towards neutrality. The effectiveness of brief induction of mindfulness in comparison with other strategies in Gross and Thompson’s (2007) Process Model of Emotion Regulation (i.e., reappraisal, distraction, suppression) and control condition was tested in this randomized-mixed design experiment (N = 260) through self-reported ratings of affective valence for 60 positive, neutral, and negative photographs. The effectiveness of mindfulness was equivalent to positive reappraisal for positive stimulus, but lower than positive reappraisal for negative stimulus. Suppression consistently demonstrated equality of effectiveness with mindfulness, while distraction was as equally ineffective as control condition. These complex dynamics of emotional responding between mindfulness and other emotional regulation strategies requires further exploration.
Kun Qin, Du Lei, Jing Yang +9 more · BMC Psychiatry · 2021 · 24 citations
BACKGROUND: Given that psychopharmacological approaches routinely used to treat mood-related problems may result in adverse outcomes in mood dysregulated adolescents at familial risk for bipolar disorder (BD), Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Children (MBCT-C) provides an alternative effective and safe option. However, little is known about the brain mechanisms of beneficial outcomes from this intervention. Herein, we aimed to investigate the network-level neurofunctional effects of MBCT-C in mood dysregulated adolescents. METHODS: Ten mood dysregulated adolescents at familial risk for BD underwent a 12-week MBCT-C intervention. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was performed prior to and following MBCT-C. Topological metrics of three intrinsic functional networks (default mode network (DMN), fronto-parietal network (FPN) and cingulo-opercular network (CON)) were investigated respectively using graph theory analysis. RESULTS: Following MBCT-C, mood dysregulated adolescents showed increased global efficiency and decreased characteristic path length within both CON and FPN. Enhanced functional connectivity strength of frontal and limbic areas were identified within the DMN and CON. Moreover, change in characteristic path length within the CON was suggested to be significantly related to change in the Emotion Regulation Checklist score. CONCLUSIONS: 12-week MBCT-C treatment in mood dysregulated adolescents at familial risk for BD yield network-level neurofunctional effects within the FPN and CON, suggesting enhanced functional integration of the dual-network. Decreased characteristic path length of the CON may be associated with the improvement of emotion regulation following mindfulness training. However, current findings derived from small sample size should be interpreted with caution. Future randomized controlled trials including larger samples are critical to validate our findings.
Cao Y, Shi Y, Low DCW +4 more · JMIR Res Protoc · 2025
Philip ST, Thimmapuram J, Thakur K +6 more · Medicine (Baltimore) · 2025
Paret C, Jindrová M, Kleindienst N +16 more · BMC Psychiatry · 2025
Tandon T, Berger T, Meyer B +3 more · Trials · 2025
Cognitive reappraisal increases neuroendocrine reactivity to acute social stress and physical pain
Thomas F. Denson, J. David Creswell, Matthew D. Terides +1 more · Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2014 · 74 citations
Cognitive reappraisal can foster emotion regulation, yet less is known about whether cognitive reappraisal alters neuroendocrine stress reactivity. Some initial evidence suggests that although long-term training in cognitive behavioral therapy techniques (which include reappraisal as a primary training component) can reduce cortisol reactivity to stress, some studies also suggest that reappraisal is associated with heightened cortisol stress reactivity. To address this mixed evidence, the present report describes two experimental studies that randomly assigned young adult volunteers to use cognitive reappraisal while undergoing laboratory stressors. Relative to the control condition, participants in the reappraisal conditions showed greater peak cortisol reactivity in response to a socially evaluative speech task (Experiment 1, N=90) and to a physical pain cold pressor task (Experiment 2, N=94). Participants in the cognitive reappraisal group also reported enhanced anticipatory psychological appraisals of self-efficacy and control in Experiment 2 and greater post-stressor self-efficacy. There were no effects of the reappraisal manipulation on positive and negative subjective affect, pain, or heart rate in either experiment. These findings suggest that although cognitive reappraisal fosters psychological perceptions of self-efficacy and control under stress, this effortful emotion regulation strategy in the short-term may increase cortisol reactivity. Discussion focuses on promising psychological mechanisms for these cognitive reappraisal effects.
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