Worry and Mindfulness Differentially Impact Symptom Burden Following Treatment Among Breast Cancer Survivors: Findings From a Randomized Crossover Trial.

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer survivors often experience many somatic and cognitive side effects resulting from their cancer diagnosis and treatment, including higher rates of pain, fatigue, and memory/concentration problems. Emotion regulation offers opportunities to either enhance or dampen physical health. PURPOSE: In a secondary analysis of a double-blind randomized controlled trial (RCT) using a typhoid vaccine to assess factors associated with breast cancer survivors' inflammatory responses, we assessed how two specific aspects of emotion regulation, mindfulness, and worry, corresponded to acute changes in focus problems, memory problems, and fatigue along with performance on pain sensitivity and cognitive tasks across two visits among breast cancer survivors. METHODS: Breast cancer survivors (N = 149) completed two 8.5-hr visits at a clinical research center. Survivors were randomized to either the vaccine/saline placebo or a placebo/vaccine sequence. Worry and mindfulness questionnaires provided data on trait-level emotion regulation abilities. Fatigue, memory problems, and focus difficulties were assessed via Likert scales six times-once before the injections and then every 90 min for 7.5 hr thereafter. Women also completed a pain sensitivity task and several cognitive tasks at each visit. RESULTS: Findings from this study showed that breast cancer survivors who worried more and were less mindful experienced subjective memory problems, focus problems, and cold pain sensitivity across two visits and irrespective of injection type. Lower mindfulness also corresponded to higher subjective fatigue and hot pain sensitivity and objective ratings. Emotion regulation skills did not predict objective pain sensitivity or cognitive problems. CONCLUSION: Results from this study highlight the benefits of adaptive emotion regulation in helping mitigate symptoms associated with breast cancer survivorship.

Breast cancer survivors experience side effects resulting from their cancer diagnosis and treatment, including higher rates of pain, fatigue, and memory/concentration problems. Emotion regulation offers the possibility to either better or worse physical health. This study assessed how two emotion regulation strategies, mindfulness and worry, corresponded to changes in focus problems, memory problems, and fatigue along with performance on pain sensitivity and cognitive tasks across two visits among breast cancer survivors. A total of 149 survivors completed 2 day-long visits in the laboratory where they rated their fatigue and memory problems six times across the day, completed cognitive tests, and a pain sensitivity test. Findings from this study showed that breast cancer survivors who worried more and were less mindful experienced subjective memory problems, focus problems, and cold pain sensitivity across two visits. Emotion regulation skills did not predict objective pain sensitivity or cognitive problems. Results from this study highlight the benefits of adaptive emotion regulation skills like mindfulness in helping improve the cognitive and physical symptoms commonly experienced by breast cancer survivorship.

Patient-Oncologist Therapeutic Alliance Among Young Adults with Cancer: Relationships with Meaning and Peace of Mind.

Cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment can impact how young adults make sense of their worlds and disrupt peace of mind. The patient-oncologist therapeutic alliance, built upon mutual care, respect, and trust, may foster a deeper understanding of one's illness and promote peace of mind. The study examined relationships between a comprehensive cancer-specific measure of therapeutic alliance and meaning and peace of mind among young adults with cancer (N = 56). Results indicated that a stronger therapeutic alliance was positively associated with meaning and peace of mind. Findings highlight the importance of the patient-oncologist therapeutic alliance in facilitating positive psychological outcomes among young adults with cancer.

A review and novel theoretical model of how negative emotions influence inflammation: The critical role of emotion regulation.

Psychological distress is an inevitable part of life. Research drawing on theories from clinical psychology, health psychology, and psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) has identified relationships between negative emotions such as anxiety and sadness with inflammation. When not regulated properly, negative emotions can create biological wear and tear on the body that can increase risk for morbidity and mortality. This review discusses previously available research on relationships between negative emotions and emotion regulation with inflammation among both physically healthy adults and those with chronic illnesses. I then present a novel comprehensive biobehavioral model of negative emotionality. This model emphasizes the influence of negative emotions and their contribution to heightened inflammation. Further, I also discuss how emotion regulation (including perseverative processes such as worry and rumination) mediates this association. The relationships between negative emotionality and emotion regulation may be bidirectional, and empirical investigation of this model should specifically seek to disentangle these relationships. The proposed model offers the opportunity to advance PNI research through understanding how emotional factors alter inflammation and contribute to accelerated biological aging and disease risk.

Omega-3 supplementation and stress reactivity of cellular aging biomarkers: an ancillary substudy of a randomized, controlled trial in midlife adults.

Higher levels of omega-3 track with longer telomeres, lower inflammation, and blunted sympathetic and cardiovascular stress reactivity. Whether omega-3 supplementation alters the stress responsivity of telomerase, cortisol, and inflammation is unknown. This randomized, controlled trial examined the impact of omega-3 supplementation on cellular aging-related biomarkers following a laboratory speech stressor. In total, 138 sedentary, overweight, middle-aged participants (n = 93 women, n = 45 men) received either 2.5 g/d of omega-3, 1.25 g/d of omega-3, or a placebo for 4 months. Before and after the trial, participants underwent the Trier Social Stress Test. Saliva and blood samples were collected once before and repeatedly after the stressor to measure salivary cortisol, telomerase in peripheral blood lymphocytes, and serum anti-inflammatory (interleukin-10; IL-10) and pro-inflammatory (interleukin-6; IL-6, interleukin-12, tumor necrosis factor-alpha) cytokines. Adjusting for pre-supplementation reactivity, age, sagittal abdominal diameter, and sex, omega-3 supplementation altered telomerase (p = 0.05) and IL-10 (p = 0.05) stress reactivity; both supplementation groups were protected from the placebo group's 24% and 26% post-stress declines in the geometric means of telomerase and IL-10, respectively. Omega-3 also reduced overall cortisol (p = 0.03) and IL-6 (p = 0.03) throughout the stressor; the 2.5 g/d group had 19% and 33% lower overall cortisol levels and IL-6 geometric mean levels, respectively, compared to the placebo group. By lowering overall inflammation and cortisol levels during stress and boosting repair mechanisms during recovery, omega-3 may slow accelerated aging and reduce depression risk. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00385723.

An experimental examination of worry and relaxation on cardiovascular, endocrine, and inflammatory processes.

BACKGROUND: Worry increases risk for long-term health issues by prolonging the physiological stress response. In contrast, relaxation may ameliorate the psychological and physiological burden resulting from worry. This study examined the impact of experimentally induced worry and relaxation on cortisol, heart rate variability (HRV), and inflammation. METHOD: Participants (N = 80) completed both a worry and relaxation induction (presented in a fixed order) while HRV was collected continuously. Three blood samples were taken (at baseline, after the worry induction, and after the relaxation induction) to measure IL-6, IFN-γ, TNF-α and serum cortisol. RESULTS: There were significant changes in IL-6 (p < 0.001), IFN-γ (p < 0.01), HRV (p < .001), and cortisol (p <  .001) but not in TNF-α (p = 0.65) across conditions. HRV decreased significantly from baseline to worry and then increased following relaxation. IL-6 was higher during relaxation compared to worry and baseline. Cortisol decreased significantly across conditions. Several patterns of covariance between inflammation and HRV and/or cortisol also emerged. CONCLUSIONS: These findings offer novel insight into how worry influences the immune system and emphasize the utility of a multi-methods approach to understanding the impact of worry on physical health.

A Pilot Study of Emotion Regulation Therapy for Generalized Anxiety and Depression: Findings From a Diverse Sample of Young Adults.

Emotion regulation therapy (ERT) for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and accompanying major depressive disorder (MDD) is a theoretically derived, evidence-based treatment that integrates principles from traditional and contemporary cognitive-behavioral and experiential approaches with basic and translational findings from affect science to offer a blueprint for improving intervention by focusing on the motivational responses and corresponding self-referential regulatory characteristics. Preliminary evidence supports the efficacy of a 20-session version of ERT. However, previous trials of ERT and other traditional and contemporary cognitive-behavioral therapies have often utilized relatively homogeneous samples. Various contextual and demographic factors may be associated with challenges that increase risk for negative mental and social outcomes for young adults ages 18-29, particularly for individuals from diverse backgrounds. The aim of this pilot study was to examine the effectiveness of a briefer 16-session version of ERT in a racially and ethnically diverse sample of young adults. Participants (N = 31) were enrolled at an urban-based, commuter college who consented to treatment for anxiety, worry, or depression at an on-campus counseling center. Open-trial results demonstrate strong ameliorative changes in worry, rumination, self-reported and clinician-rated GAD and MDD severity, social disability, quality of life, attentional flexibility, decentering/distancing, reappraisal, trait mindfulness, and negative emotionality from pre- to posttreatment. These gains were maintained throughout a 3- and 9-month follow-up. These findings provide preliminary evidence for the efficacy of ERT in treating a racially and ethnically heterogeneous population. Further, this study highlights comparable effectiveness of a briefer 16-session version of ERT.

Emotion Regulation Therapy: A Mechanism-Targeted Treatment for Disorders of Distress.

"Distress disorders," which include generalized anxiety disorder and major depression are often highly comorbid with each other and appear to be characterized by common temperamental features that reflect heightened sensitivity to underlying motivational systems related to threat/safety and reward/loss. Further, individuals with distress disorders tend to utilize self-referential processes (e.g., worry, rumination, self-criticism) in a maladaptive attempt to respond to motivationally relevant distress, often resulting in suboptimal contextual learning. Despite the success of cognitive behavioral therapies for emotional disorders, a sizable subgroup of patients with distress disorders fail to evidence adequate treatment response. Emotion Regulation Therapy (ERT) is a theoretically derived, evidence based, treatment that integrates principles (e.g., skills training, exposure) from traditional and contemporary therapies with findings from basic and translational affective science to offer a framework for improving intervention by focusing on the motivational responses and corresponding regulatory characteristics of individuals with high levels of chronic distress. Open and randomized controlled trials have demonstrated preliminary support for the utility of ERT as reflected by strong effect sizes comparable to and exceeding established intervention approaches. In addition, pilot findings support the role of underlying proposed mechanisms in this efficacious response. This article presents the functional model associated with ERT and describes the proposed mechanisms of the treatment. Additionally, a clinical case is presented, allowing the reader to gain a greater applied understanding of the different components of the ERT model and treatment.