Research: all the subjects of our apps, shows, books, songs, movies

All episodes subjects and research

Here’s a list of all subjects, and below you will find each subject and the research we used to design it

1. Courage training – in incremental steps – and how it helps to deal with fear
2. Mindfulness for children or playfully train the Focus-Pocus and play with the ray of attention 🙂
3. How to work with and recognize emotions and how it helps to develop the capacity to manage your own emotions; what message do these feelings carry, how do we recognize them and what can we do with the energy and message they give; what we feel like doing and examples of situations in which doing what we feel like doing is not necessarily convenient; some games that could help us stop acting on impulse and think about the situation
4. How to recognize emotions on people’s faces. Facial expression training and cognitive emotion regulation technique – training the habit to stop and think when I feel a strong emotion – and how it helps to improve the social skills
5. An episode that showcases situations when emotions come by mistake (like when fears comes and there is no real danger) – how we can send them on a holiday in a wonderful place, thanking them because they came to our help despite being wrong this time around
6. Humor, it’s benefits and how to cultivate it and use it in difficult times – and how it can help us manage difficult emotions or sensations
7. Emotion recognition – naming and matching with situations, how they feel in the body – and how it helps us manage emotions
8. Attention Bias Training and positive outlook in life – how it helps to grow the self-esteem
9. Changing the meta-emotions by getting in touch with and helping our characters. Children and adults help the characters use the emotions and they get to see how all emotions can be used in their advantages. People of all ages also get to experience gradual desensitization
10. Oxytocin, it’s effects and how to natural generate it by hugging and other activities, by seeing cute images, movies, stories – and how it can help us cope with fear, pain and anxiety
11. Emotional Coaching – and how it can help us enhance our capacity to manage emotions – episode for adults and children together
12. Showing How Mental States And Illusions Affects Beliefs
13. Meet with our emotions, remember they are not our truth but they issue warnings or messages that may or may not be the truth, think about our values, decide what to do together with own emotions and values and use the courage and maybe the emotion’s energy to do what we decide to do (Susan David’s method for children)
14. How – and what for – to use compassion for self and others and how it helps in managing emotions and changing the undesired behaviors (and how it helps to enhance kindness)
15. How to stimulate the vagus nerve and increase proprioception – by meditation – listening to heart beats and listening to sensations in the body – and how can help us improve self-regulation skills
16. How and why to cultivate the emotion of AWE
17. Relaxing or Meditation techniques for children and how it helps to improve the quality of living
18. Stress inoculation training for children
19. Coping with pain via “selective attentional bias, conscious awareness and the fear of pain” – and how it helps to overcome fear
20. The tears come from a wedding or because losing a loved dog? – increase the gap between emotion and action
21. How and why to stop and think when feeling an emotion and a strong impulse to do something now
22. Express emotions trough art and movement (kinetic therapy) – and how it helps to express and release emotions
23. How to talk to oneself – a way to increase our emotional intelligence – and how it can help us build resilience
24. How to say NO firmly but with love to some emotions – and to some people
25. Visualization of bodily sensations or emotions – and how it helps to detect and cope with powerful emotions
26. Nature and sport benefits – and how it helps to relax the mind and release emotion’s energy
27. Muscular relaxation and body scanning – how it can help us identify sensations and release emotions
28. Why and how to bring harmony in our relations and how to communicate assertive
29. Gratitude diary and how to play with “Thanky-Smiley” 🙂 and how it helps us
30. Sleeping better helps you increase the quality of life
31. Mistakes as learning experiences and the growth mindset

The list of subjects and the research for each subject (please be kind, we worked a lot of months to find and organize this huge body of research and we’re still working on it):
1. Courage training – in incremental steps – and how it helps to deal with fear
Research:
Trait emotional intelligence (“trait EI”) concerns our perceptions of our emotional abilities, that is, how good we believe we are in terms of understanding, regulating, and expressing emotions in order to adapt to our environment and maintain well-being. Findings to date suggest that individual differences in trait EI are a consistent predictor of human behavior across the life span.
Date: 2016
Source: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1754073916650493#_i12

The app we designed allows adults to coach children in an engaging, guided and safe way
Life coaching may be a worthwhile intervention enhancing individual courage and helping with experienced fear and anxiety. The results obtained in this review revealed the need to develop an innovative theory about life coaching as a potentially successful intervention for people, whose professional or personal growth and development have been limited by lack of courage and feelings of fear and anxiety.
Date: 2017
Source: https://researchportal.coachfederation.org/Document/Pdf/3242.pdf
How common are the fears in childhod:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/13829311_Common_children_fears_and_their_origin
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17439760.2018.1497685

Neuroscientists recently determined just how courage works in the brain, finding that a region called the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC) is the driving force behind courageous acts — a conclusion which could one day prove useful in treating anxiety disorders.
Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/snakes-in-the-mri-machine/
The anterior cingulate cortex in psychopathology and psychotherapy: effects on awareness and repression of affect
The awareness of emotion and its subsequent regulation is an essential part of psychopathology and psychotherapy. A body of evidence indicates that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) plays a key role in accessing and regulating emotion and thus participates both in the conscious awareness and the repression of emotion.
… This distinction may support therapeutic interventions that target the up- or down-regulation of emotion dependent on clinical disorder. Specific focus is made to psychoanalytic therapy, being built upon the tenet of accessing repressed emotions, for which the ACC appears functionally significant. The research reviewed provides insight into how the ACC may be a primary region in the suppression and repression of emotion. Suggestions for how the ACC may be activated in different types of psychotherapy are also made.
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/293193544_The_Anterior_Cingulate_Cortex_in_Psychopathology_and_Psychotherapy_Effects_on_Awareness_Inhibition_or_Repression_of_Affect
AND: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15294145.2016.1149777

The fastest way to get back in control of your mind during a stressful event is to focus on routine tasks and small details. This will bring your mind back to the present moment. Studies show that this kind of mindfulness decreases fear and increases courage in cancer patients.
Source: http://selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2003_BrownRyan.pdf

It’s difficult to conquer your fears if you’re unable to be honest with yourself in the first place about what exactly those fears are. Research has found that acting courageously requires an understanding of one’s own anxieties and limitations — denial of fear does not support courageous action — and then choosing to work through them.
“Living in an authentic manner — meaning acknowledging and appropriately expressing one’s actual feelings, thoughts, and desires — requires acknowledging one’s fear and risks and moving forward anyway when the cause merits action,” Pepperdine University School of Management researchers wrote in a 2010 review of studies on courage.
Research has found that this repeated exposure lowers the psychological fear response until it is more manageable or in some cases gone. Afraid of public speaking? Practicing giving talk in front of groups will help bolster your courage when faced with speaking engagements of any size.

Courage is a measurable ability. Courage is the ability to carry out voluntary actions that oppose a fear response. It can be measured by quantifying the level of activity in a part of your brain called the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC). The sgACC is right next to the amygdala, which is the part of your brain that controls feelings of fear. A study published in Cell Press reviews an experiment where study participants had to choose whether or not to electronically move either a teddy bear or a live snake closer to their faces while their brains were being scanned. Courageous people who were able to bring the snake very close to their faces had high levels of sgACC activity while uncourageous people did not.

Courage, like all abilities, can be improved. A study involving over 200 bomb-disposal operatorsfound that the only things separating courageous people from uncourageous people were adequate training, good and reliable equipment, high group morale, and live-action experience. The key finding overall was that most of the bomb-disposal operators performed extraordinarily well even though most of them were chosen at random for the position. Over a ten-year period, they successfully dealt with thousands of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and sustained less than 20 fatalities. The study concluded that virtually all soldiers, officers, and non-commission offers are capable of carrying out this difficult and dangerous work as long as they received specialized training. In other words, anyone can become courageous.
Source here: http://jramc.bmj.com/content/128/2/100.long
Baby Steps: The Best Way to Overcome Your Greatest Fears
Take a recent study by neuroscientists Daniela Schiller and Elizabeth Phelpsthat was published in Nature. At NYU, they taught a group of people to fear a blue square on a computer screen by occasionally pairing images of the blue square with a light shock. (By contrast, a yellow square came with no accompanying shock.) Each participant knew intellectually that the blue square was completely benign. It was that damn buzzer that was doing the shocking. But that didn’t stop their primal brains from developing a distinct fear response—increased sweat on the skin—to the blue squares, even sans shock.
To emphasize how little control the conscious mind has over unconscious fear learning, Schiller ran this test on me after I’d already read her study. Though I wasn’t consciously afraid of the blue squares after the first shock, the monitor measuring sweat on my skin showed otherwise. And when Schiller and Phelps’ test subjects came back into the lab a full year later, they still broke into a scared sweat when they saw the blue squares. And if that’s how deep and long our fears linger in the primal brain with blue squares and shocks, you can imagine what the brain does with real trauma. The way to heal the irrational fear successfully and permanently, Schiller and Phelps found, was by triggering the original fear memory with a reminder square, then following up very soon after (within six hours to be exact) with positive exposure therapy—repeated blue squares without shocks, essentially remaking the old fear memory. “Avoidance is the natural response to fear,” Schiller told me, “but it’s not the one that works.”
Date: 2013
Source: https://lifehacker.com/5973996/baby-steps-the-best-way-to-overcome-your-greatest-fears
Phobia treatment with the help of virtual reality:
Date: 2015
Source: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7377818/?reload=true

Courage as a potential mediator between personality and coping
… the present study investigates the relationship between courage, personality traits, and coping strategies, hypothesising that courage could mediate between personality and coping. The participants were 500 Italian adults, aged 18 to 60 years, paired for gender. The results showed that courage can be considered a mediator between personality and coping, affecting the use of self-directed strategies. Suggestions for the intervention were provided.
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313350427_Courage_as_a_potential_mediator_between_personality_and_coping

It’s normal to feel all kind of emotions, including fear; there’s nothing wrong with us for feeling them
The percentages of children reporting fears, worries, and scary dreams were 75.8, 67.4, and 80.5%, respectively, indicating that these anxiety symptoms are quite common among children.
Inspection of the developmental pattern of these phenomena revealed that fears and scary dreams were common among 4- to 6-year-olds, became even more prominent in 7- to 9-year-olds, and then decreased in frequency in 10- to 12-year-olds. The developmental course of worry deviated from this pattern. This phenomenon was clearly more prevalent in older children (i.e., 7- to 12-year-olds) than in younger children. Furthermore, although the frequency of certain types of fears, worries, and dreams were found to change across age groups (e.g., the prevalence of fears and scary dreams pertaining to imaginary creatures decreased with age, whereas worry about test performance increased with age), the top intense fears, worries, and scary dreams remained relatively unchanged across age levels.
Date: 2010
Source: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/S15374424jccp2901_5
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10693031
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12622611_Fears_Worries_and_Scary_Dreams_in_4-_To_12-Year-Old_Children_Their_Content_Developmental_Pattern_and_Origins

In one study, 63% of children (aged 6–17) reported a fear of needles, and significant relations between a fear of needles and the female sex, as well as increasing perceived pain intensity during immunizations (Taddio et al., 2012).
Approximately 80% of adults with needle phobia reported that a first-degree relative exhibits the same fear (Accurso et al., 2001). I
Date: 2018
Source: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2377960818759442

Parent-undergraduate concordance in fear of failure was documented for mothers and fathers, controlling for parents’ and undergraduate’s impression management and self-deceptive enhancement response tendencies. Love withdrawal was validated as a mediator of parent-undergraduate concordance in fear of failure for mothers but not for fathers. Mothers’ and fathers’ fear of failure was also a positive predictor of undergraduate’s adoption of performance-avoidance goals in the classroom, and undergraduate’s fear of failure was shown to mediate this relationship. Fathers’ fear of failure was also a negative predictor of undergraduate’s mastery goal adoption, and this relationship was likewise mediated by undergraduate’s fear of failure.
Date: 2004
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15257781
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/8451387_The_Intergenerational_Transmission_of_Fear_of_Failure

Many emotions are inherited so it’s not our fault, not the parents fault as they probably inherited them too and so on 🙂 It is all normal for any human being to be visited by emotions by mistake 🙂

The intergenerational transmission of anxiety: a children-of-twins study
Anxiety and neuroticism measures were completed by 385 monozygotic and 486 dizygotic same-sex twin families (37% male twin pair families) from the Twin and Offspring Study in Sweden (TOSS)
..
For both anxiety and neuroticism the models provide support for significant direct environmental transmission from parents to their adolescent offspring.
..
Direct environmental transmission is in line with developmental theories of anxiety suggesting that children and adolescents learn anxious behaviours from their parents via a number of pathways such as modelling.
Date: 2015
Source: https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/the-intergenerational-transmission-of-anxiety-a-childrenoftwins-study%28c58a9809-2518-433d-bc1b-45a84f548af5%29.html
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25906669
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275357584_The_Intergenerational_Transmission_of_Anxiety_A_Children-of-Twins_Study

Courage importance:
In Coaching:
As clients work side by side with coaches, they may experience varying degrees of internal psychological, and emotional barriers. As a result, courage for the client has often been discussed in popular coaching literature (Kimsey-House, Kimsey-House, Sandahl, & Whitworth, 2011), and is considered an important aspect of the client’s success much of the time.

“The ability of a coach to generate courage in a client is essential. It is one of the most important things. My ability to see and experience my client’s heart and then work with them…that’s how they are going to transform, that’s how they are going to evolve. They need to leap courageously into the next part of their life, and my job is really to be there with them as they are doing that” -Leadership coach, courage and coaching study, 2015

Resilience has been previously defined as, “good outcomes despite serious threats to adaptation or development,” (Masten, 2001, p. 228). In short resilience is about our ability to bounce back from adversity (Reivich & Shatté, 2002). Additionally, Brown (2015) proposes that resilience and courage go hand in hand. If we are resilient it means when we fall, we dust ourselves off, get back up, and keep going. This is a process that takes courage. We have to risk falling in the first place, and then once we fall, we have to rise and put ourselves at risk all over again. Interestingly, psychologists have discovered that resilience is both an ordinary part of being human (Masten, 2001), and is something that can be cultivated through cognitive skills training. When people have more resilience they can more effectively navigate life’s hurdles, which psychologists have shown to be positively correlated with well-being (Reivich & Shatté, 2002)

A profound example of stoic courage in action resides in the inspiring case of a concentration camp survivor, Viktor Frankl. In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, he sums up stoic courage in one fell swoop. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms- to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way” (Frankl, 1959, p. 66). Courage for the stoics means maintaining a sense of mastery over one’s inner domain. It is about standing guard at the door of our mind, and carefully monitoring what thoughts we let in, and what thoughts we let out. When people choose to do this, it is often associated with personal integrity, freedom, and righteousness (Frankl, 1959)

Modern psychologists have expanded upon the concept of general courage however, and are now offering up evidence showing that people from all walks of life can perform courageous actions in different ways, and to varying degrees (Rate et al., 2007). Pury et al. (2007) refers to the more mundane forms of courageous action as personal courage, which in essence is the idea that there are various behaviors, which may be considered courageous for an individual yet are not recognized as such by larger society. There are a number of brands of courage that fit within this category. Psychological courage for example, came out of clinicians work with patients undergoing therapy. Psychologists noted that throughout the therapeutic process patients will often confront things that are personally scary for them, may perceive that they are at risk of losing control over their psyche, and ultimately could be ostracized or looked down upon for seeking help with these challenges. All of which, may require significant personal courage (Pury et al., 2007), however, to an outsider may be observed as much more benign (Putman, 1997). In relation, Finfgeld (1999) has helped us to understand vital courage, which is the idea that those managing medical challenges, or those who are suffering from chronic disease and may be facing uncertain death, often are courageous as they continue to persevere. Examples of this abound in modern society. Take for instance, children who choose to bear the burden of painful treatments as they wait for a call, which may never come, telling them that their heart transplant has been approved. These acts may be much quieter in nature, in that they are not garnering much attention, yet it seems that they are brave nonetheless. Another example of personal courage comes to us from the research on vulnerability. Using grounded theory to analyze the data from hundreds of qualitative interviews it was discovered that there were no participant examples of vulnerability, defined as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure, that were not associated with personal courage (Brown, 2012).

References:
Brown, B. (2012). Daring greatly: How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead. New York, NY: Gotham.
Biswas-Diener, R. (2012). The courage quotient: How science can make you braver. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Brown, B. (2015). Rising strong: The reckoning. The rumble. The revolution. New York: Penguin.
Finfgeld, D. (1999). Courage as a process of pushing beyond the struggle. Qualitative Health Research, 9(6), 803-814.
Frankl, V. (1959). Man’s search for meaning. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Fredrickson, B. (2013). Love 2.0: How our supreme emotion affects everything we feel, think, do, and become. New York, NY: Hudson Street Press.
Holiday, R. (2014). The obstacle is the way: The timeless art of turning trials into triumph. New York, NY: Penguin.
Howard, M. C., & Alipour, K. K. (2014). Does the courage measure really measure courage? A theoretical and empirical evaluation. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 9(5), 449-459.

Pury, C. L. S., & Lopez, S. J. (2010). The psychology of courage: Modern research on an ancient virtue. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Pury, C. L. S., Starkey, C. B., Breeden, C. R., Kelley, C. L., Murphy, H. J., & Lowndes, A. Y. (2014). Courage interventions: Future directions and cautions. In A. C. Parks (Ed.), The Wiley Blackwell handbook of positive psychological interventions, (pp. 168-178). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Date: 2015
Source: http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1077&context=mapp_capstone

Book on courage training:
https://books.google.ro/books?id=cTekTve1iAUC&pg=PA77&lpg=PA77&dq=fear+ladder+courage&source=bl&ots=s7bWl_LB-0&sig=ZPitgSGmWnSffIB73L25jbOP9wE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjzw9byjZjXAhXPYlAKHWoKB_AQ6AEIPzAI#v=onepage&q=fear%20ladder%20courage&f=false

Best Practices for Teaching Those Afraid in Water
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED519576.pdf

he groundbreaking work of Brene Brown, a researcher at the University of Houston Graduate School of Social Work and author of the best-selling Daring Greatly, has found that the belief in our own unworthiness drives us to live fear-based lives. We are afraid of letting people see who we really are and potentially exposing ourselves, so we avoid the one thing that can make us more courageous: vulnerability. Courage and vulnerability are closely aligned, says Brown, and the two qualities can greatly improve our lives.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2013/04/21/brene-brown-how-vulnerability-can-make-our-lives-better/2/#22dd361513e8
Brown tells Forbes that to conquer our fear we must “dare greatly,” or go out there in the arena and expose ourselves to failure and criticism:
I think the first thing we have to do is figure out what’s keeping us out of the arena. What’s the fear? Where and why do we want to be braver? Then we have to figure out how we’re currently protecting ourselves from vulnerability. What is our armor? Perfectionism? Intellectualizing? Cynicism? Numbing? Control? That’s where I started. It’s not an easy walk into that arena, but it’s where we come alive.

Research has found that this repeated exposure lowers the psychological fear response until it is more manageable or in some cases gone. Afraid of public speaking? Practicing giving talk in front of groups will help bolster your courage when faced with speaking engagements of any size.

“Exposure is hands down the most successful way to deal with phobias, anxiety disorders, and everyday fears of any sort,” Stanford neuroscientist Philippe Goldin told Lifehacker.

To build a courageous character, the muscle of courage must be continually strengthened. Aristotle, the ancient philosopher who focused most on courage, said that we develop courage by performing courageous acts. Recent psychological research also suggests that courage is an ethical habit that we develop by repeatedly practicing acts of bravery, according to psychologist Ben Dean.
Date: 2013
Source:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/15/conquering-fear_n_3909020.html

Courage is trained as a muscle
Avoiding fear strengthens it
Book: Roar! Courage: From Fear to Fearless
By Rik Schnabel
Source: https://books.google.ro/books?id=aM4RDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT231&lpg=PT231&dq=repeatedly+practicing+Ben+Dean&source=bl&ots=5_nO3ucGvC&sig=PTxePL6rTvHYCw2HkHGZsDSlOjM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjBkej6mpnXAhVGrxoKHd_ODagQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Studies show that live-action experience is the only way to fully adapt to intensely stressful situations. For example, the experience of dealing with hoaxes or false alarms made no additional contribution to the confidence or competence levels of new bomb-disposal operators. But once these inexperienced operators successfully completed just one bomb-disposal task on a live device, their confidence levels and feelings of competence rose to the level of experienced operators. Other studies show that virtual reality graded exposure therapy is only 100% effective in treating people who have a fear of flying if it’s accompanied with live physiological feedback.
Courage is created by action. Bold people are just ordinary people who have experienced something stressful an extraordinary number of times.
Source1 : http://jramc.bmj.com/content/128/2/100.long
Source2 : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12381038

Source: https://www.isaiahhankel.com/courageous-people
Mentoring to Promote Courage and Confidence Among Elementary School Students With Internalizing Problems: A Single-Case Design Pilot Study

To fill this void, the authors’ purpose was to evaluate the efficacy, acceptability, and integrity of a structured school-based mentoring program, the Courage and Confidence Mentor Program (CCMP), for elementary students. A single-case experimental multiple baseline design across participants was used to evaluate the efficacy of the CCMP with 6 students. Visual analysis of the results and single-case effect size estimates revealed that all but 1 of the participants demonstrated noticeable reductions in internalizing problems as measured by teacher-completed direct behavior ratings. Findings were confirmed by other dependent variables gathered from students and teachers.
Date: 2017
Source: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15377903.2017.1292975
A multi-component cognitive behavioural intervention for the treatment of fear of falling after hip fracture (FIT-HIP): protocol of a randomised controlled trial
For each of these feared situations, guided exposure will be conducted by means of a separate fear hierarchy. In the FIT-HIP intervention the fear hierarchy is represented in a ‘fear ladder’. Each ‘fear ladder’ contains six steps, each step representing a goal. Goals for exposure are ranked according to the intensity of fear of falling it gives rise to, and edited in such a manner that there is an increasing intensity of concern/fear. Goals are formulated in accordance with the Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS) method [28, 29]. The GAS is a technique for developing individualised, scaled descriptions of treatment goals. It is a method to evaluate the (rehabilitation) therapy. Goals are formulated in a SMART manner (specific, measurable, acceptable, realistic and defined in time), in collaboration with the patient in order to relate to the personal interests and social environment of the patient. The goals are scaled from −3 to +2, with −3 being deterioration in function, −2 the starting point (current situation when starting the therapy) and 0 being the primary goal. At −1 there is improvement in function but the primary goal in not yet achieved, and at +1 and +2 the function is better than the primary goal. All treatment goals are formulated as functional goals of improvement of mobility. They are not formulated as goals to (primarily) decrease fear. The fear ladders are evaluated with the participant every week and adjusted if necessary. Figure 2 is an example of a FIT-HIP fear ladder.
Date: 2017
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5359926/

Child social anxiety (SAD) also referred to as social phobia (SP) is characterized as a marked and persistent fear of social or performance situations in which embarrassment may occur (1). The child usually has an immediate fear response in these situations that often results in significant avoidance or distress. According to the DSM-IV (1), a diagnosis of social anxiety disorder requires that the anxiety interfere significantly in the child’s daily routine or cause significant distress. While adolescents and adults are required to acknowledge the fear as excessive or unreasonable, this criterion is not required among children.
Some of the most common fears found in children with social anxiety disorder include fears about performance situations such as speaking or performing in front of people (e.g., musical recital, plays, etc.), social interactional fears such as joining or starting a conversation and interacting with same-age peers (4,5).
Studies show that prevalence rates for childhood social anxiety disorder range from 3% to 6.8% in pediatric primary care samples and .5%–9.0% in community studies with slightly elevated percentages for adolescents (12–17). The variation in prevalence rates can be explained by methodological factors including differing diagnostic instruments, time frame, as well as varying thresholds of impairment that are utilized to determine a diagnosis. In clinical settings, rates of childhood social phobia have been found to range from 29–40% (18, 19), making it one of the more commonly seen child anxiety disorder. In community samples, girls are more likely to receive the diagnosis than boys (17).
Treatment
For those children with social anxiety disorder, varying evidence based treatment options are available including cognitive behavior therapy and pharmacotherapy. While data are not available to support the sequencing of treatment options or combined approaches, most practitioners advise the initial use of psychological interventions followed by pharmacotherapy when necessary.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is often an effective first line of treatment for social anxiety disorder with response rates as favorable as pharmacotherapy treatments. The main components of CBT are relaxation exercises, cognitive restructuring, exposure to feared situations and reinforcement. In a study done by Albano et al. (73) examining group treatment with CBT for adolescents with social phobia, significant improvement was found on measures of anxiety and depression during a 16-session treatment as well as continued improvement at 1-year post-treatment.
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2925835/

Ahrens-Eipper and Leplow [2004] have developed a cognitive-behavioral training program (‘Mutig werden mit Til Tiger,’ or ‘Be Brave with Til the Tiger’), designed for children aged 5–10 who suffer from social insecurity. In 2 individual sessions and 9 group sessions, socially effective behavior is practiced with the children, step by step. They learn to systematically observe their own behavior and to try out alternative behavior. They also learn a relaxation technique (progressive muscle relaxation) to help them relax in stressful situations. Til, a shy tiger (in the form of a hand puppet), stays with the children as a role model throughout the intervention program. The training leader playfully uses this hand puppet to introduce the individual components of the intervention program. Topics of the intervention program include: making contact with other children; doing something in front of the group; making a legitimate request; saying no/rejecting something; going shopping alone; defending themselves against teasing, without violence. The interventions are made in a playful way and use lively graphics and child-friendly materials. The program was evaluated in a first pilot study of 93 children with social anxiety, from 5 to 10 years of age. Children in the intervention group showed a greater reduction of social insecurity than the control group without intervention. Self-esteem and social skills increased in the intervention group, but not in the control group. The results indicate that the program can be appropriate as an indicated prevention program for children with social anxiety.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/62e7/f8a6aba27ff980efee13d057b504d5766003.pdf

The essential feature of Specific Phobia is marked and persistent fear of clearly discernible, circumscribed objects or situations (Criterion A). Exposure to the phobic stimulus almost invariably provokes an immediate anxiety response (Criterion B). This response may take the form of a situationally bound or situationally predisposed Panic Attack (see p. 394). Although adolescents and adults with this disorder recognize that their fear is excessive or unreasonable (Criterion C), this may not be the case with children. Most often, the phobic stimulus is avoided, although it is sometimes endured with dread (Criterion D).
The individual experiences a marked, persistent, and excessive or unreasonable fear when in the presence of, or when anticipating an encounter with, a specific object or situation. The focus of the fear may be anticipated harm from some aspect of the object or situation (e.g., an individual may fear air travel because of a concern about crashing, may fear dogs because of concerns about being bitten, or may fear driving because of concerns about being hit by other vehicles on the road).
Diagnostic criteria for 300.29 Specific Phobia
A. Marked and persistent fear that is excessive or unreasonable, cued by the presence or anticipation of a specific object or situation (e.g., flying, heights, animals, receiving an injection, seeing blood).
B. Exposure to the phobic stimulus almost invariably provokes an immediate anxiety response, which may take the form of a situationally bound or situationally predisposed Panic Attack. Note: In children, the anxiety may be expressed by crying, tantrums, freezing, or clinging.
C. The person recognizes that the fear is excessive or unreasonable. Note: In children, this feature may be absent.
D. The phobic situation(s) is avoided or else is endured with intense anxiety or distress. E. The avoidance, anxious anticipation, or distress in the feared situation(s) interferes significantly with the person’s normal routine, occupational (or academic) functioning, or social activities or relationships, or there is marked distress about having the phobia. (

One-Session Treatment (OST) is a form of massed exposure therapy for the treatment of specific phobias. OST combines exposure, participant modeling, cognitive challenges, and reinforcement in a single session, maximized to three hours. Clients are gradually exposed to steps of their fear hierarchy using therapist-directed behavioral experiments. Although there are several studies in the literature examining the efficacy of OST, little has been done to summarize this research. In the following review, research on and empirical support for OST are reviewed with an emphasis on the types of stimuli, samples, and methodologies utilized. Research generally supports OST’s efficacy, although replication by independent examiners using adult and child samples is needed using more rigorous comparisons (e.g., psychological placebo or other treatments). Overall, OST continues to be a promising treatment for specific phobias; however, a great deal more investigation is needed to identify mechanisms of change, mediators, and moderators. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18721635
In 2010, the National Institute of Mental Health reported that 16.7 percent of children between the ages of 13 and 14 experience specific phobias. Researchers at the Child Study Center work on assessing, treating, preventing, and understanding the problems in childhood and adolescence. For example, a current project focuses on treating specific phobias like helping a child conquer his or her fear of costumed characters.
The treatment for phobias is based on cognitive-behavioral theory principles in which the parents and the child build skills through education, modeling, and gradual exposure to the phobia. Phobia treatment sessions in the Child Study Center usually take three hours.

In the oppositional youth project, researchers examined two different treatments for children between the ages of eight and 14 with operational defiant disorder. The Collaborative Problem Solving, or CPS, approach was based on teaching parents how to help their child identify and regulate his or her emotions. This type of treatment allowed the parents and child to work together to solve the behavioral problems. In the Parent Management Training approach, or PMT, researchers taught parents how to react consistently to the child’s positive and negative behaviors. The negative behaviors often include temper outbursts, continual stubbornness, opposition to directions, and verbal or physical aggression.
“Although both [treatments] involve the parents, PMT is more parent-focused and CPS is more child-focused,” Ollendick said. “To date, both appear to be working equally well. This is the first clinical trial comparing these two interventions.”( Thomas Ollendick, University Distinguished Professor of Psychology in the College of Science and center director)
The most common phobias are dogs, storms, and the dark,” Ollendick said. “Phobias originate due to negative learning experiences for the most part. Children become petrified of the phobic object and their fears greatly interfere with their development and normal life experiences.”
https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2012/06/061212-dsa-child.html

Researchers at York are evaluating a new type of therapy which aims to help children tackle their worst phobias – in just one session.
Barry Wright, Professor of Child Mental Health at York is leading the trial. He explained that OST is not widely used because there are no large randomised control trials in children and none at all in the UK, so there is no evidence base. The York-led study is filling this gap.
The treatment works by helping children and young people get close to the object or situation they have a fear of.
Exposure therapy
Dogs, spiders or whatever the child is scared of may be brought to the therapy session. The session might start with a dog behind a closed door: the child will be encouraged to get closer to the door, open it and perhaps even touch the dog – a process known as ‘exposure therapy’.
The child’s catastrophic thoughts such as: ‘If I touch this dog it will bite me,’ are explored and challenged – and there’s lots of praise and encouragement throughout the session.
Sometimes the therapist will recreate the feared situation – perhaps showing a video of a thunder storm, or an aircraft flight.
Professor Wright said: “The aim is for children to learn that the object or situation is not frightening – a process known as habituation. They learn new coping strategies.
“Young people can set their own goals, such as being able to remove a spider from the room in a glass jar or being able to sleep in a room even though they know a spider is under the bed.”
Confidence building
After the therapy session, children are encouraged to build their confidence at home by continuing to confront the situations that make them anxious.
The three-hour therapy session is preceded by a one-hour assessment to find out more about the phobia and what may have caused it. Six months after entering the study, there will be follow-up sessions to check if the therapy has been effective.
Professor Wright says phobias are nature’s way of protecting us and helping us survive.
“In some environments, having a phobia of spiders and the shape of spiders may be protective. It may mean we are less likely to be poisoned. The problem is that a phobia like this is less helpful in environments where spiders cause no risk, for example in the UK.”
Life experiences
He says phobias are also caused or made worse by our experiences – being bitten by a dog or stung by a wasp. Sometimes it can be caused by the information we receive, perhaps a child watching news coverage of hurricanes and severe storms.
He added: “We also know that children learn from the behaviour of their parents, for example a parent running away from a mouse.
“Research shows that phobias can be treated successfully with CBT – our trial aims to find out if OST could be an effective alternative option for children.”
The ASPECT trial is recruiting until July 2019. https://www.york.ac.uk/research/themes/child-phobias/

Parental and Peer Predictors of Social Anxiety in Youth
The aim of the current study was to extend etiological models of social anxiety in children by testing the relative importance of parental (i.e., parental anxiety, rejection, and overcontrol) and peer factors (i.e., social acceptance, social support, and friendship quality). Past research has shown that both peer and parental factors are important predictors of social anxiety in youth; however, there is a lack of research investigating the relative importance of these factors. Findings generally revealed that higher levels of parental anxiety, overcontrol, and rejection were associated with higher levels of social anxiety. Social support, acceptance and peer validation were all associated with lower social anxiety. Parental anxiety and validation from a peer were the strongest predictors of independent ratings of child social anxiety. Parental overcontrol and perceived social acceptance were the strongest predictors of child ratings of social anxiety. These findings extend current etiological models by highlighting several potential pathways to elevated social anxiety and suggest that interventions aimed at lowering social anxiety in youth should assess for and address both parental anxiety and peer relationships.
This study was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (K23 MH63427) awarded to Golda S. Ginsburg.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3359646/

Children experience a wide range of emotions, from happiness and excitement to anger and disgust. When children are happy, their caregivers encourage their expression of happiness and often join in to share this emotion with them. Yet when they are angry, afraid or disgusted, often children are encouraged to suppress or change their emotions. This is particularly true of the emotion of fear. While parents and caregivers currently employ a variety of strategies to respond to fear in young children, some of these methods may be positioning children in ways that increase their fears or invalidate their feelings of fear altogether. Well-intentioned parents and caregivers may be unaware of the effect that messages such as ‘there’s nothing to be afraid of’ or ‘don’t worry, you’re safe with me’, could have on children. This article examines a range of adult responses to children’s fears and the effectiveness of these responses.
Parents and caregivers (university-trained teachers, technical and further education [TAFE] trained teachers and untrained employees of the venues) are advised to accept children’s fears (Izard, 1991; Izard & Kobak in Garber & Dodge, 1991) and to strive for secure attachments as children gradually work through their fears (Bowlby, 1973; Harlow & Mears, 1983; Herzog, 1996).
Caregivers are encouraged to provide opportunities for young children to learn about emotions through play and through teaching them to recognise and verbalise emotions (Catron & Allen, 1999). The arts are suggested as a tool for teaching emotions (Dunlop, 1984; Goleman, 1995).

Young children’s ideas about emotions are still formative (Harris & Saarni, 1989), so messages can be misconstrued and fears can be escalated to unmanageable levels (Arthur et al, 1999). Through explicit or implicit messages, some verbal responses seemed to increase the child’s fear or invalidate his/her feelings.
Adults who tell children ‘there’s nothing to be afraid of’ may actually be invalidating their feelings; making it more difficult for them to work through the issues that lead to emotion understanding (Stein & Trabasso, 1989)
Redirecting children who express fear may serve as a ‘stop-gap’ measure, but does not actively address the fear or help children to understand it. Redirecting the child served as a temporary measure only, but is another form of invalidating the child’s fear, which as an unresolved emotion in early childhood holds potential to become a source of anxiety and conflict later in life (Santrock, 1994)
By validating fear and other emotional experiences, adults can encourage children to explore a range of emotions and to develop an understanding of them. Parents and caregivers reported validating children’s fears in a number YOUNG CHILDREN AND FEAR 85 of ways, including empathy and acknowledgement, explanation and discussion, exploration and expression, and taking action against the fear.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2304/ciec.2003.4.1.8

Fearlessness and courage in paratroopers undergoing training
105 recruits to the Parachute Regiment were studied during parachute training. From information given regarding their expectancies and experiences of jumping, three profiles were identified. These were labelled “Courageous”, “Fearless” and “Over-confident”. Two-thirds of the sample belonged to the first category and less than 10% to the last. A number of bodily reactions were frequently associated with anxiety during parachute jumping. These reactions were similar to those reported by veteran soldiers and airmen during combat. They differ from reactions reported by patients suffering from ‘clinical anxiety’, and it is suggested that this contrast might reflect differences in preparation for “fight” or “flight”.
Date: 1988
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223637468_Fearlessness_and_courage_in_paratroopers_undergoing_training

Maybe also:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/systematic-desensitization
https://scholar.google.ro/scholar?q=systematic+desensitization+efficacy&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwitjKyXopnXAhUBmrQKHaRoBvUQgQMIJTAA
https://www.google.ro/search?biw=1280&bih=604&tbs=qdr%3Ay&ei=6pX3WauAO8b6aNKJnvAK&q=systematic+desensitization+efficacy&oq=systematic+desensi+efficacy&gs_l=psy-ab.3.0.0i7i30k1l2.121235.125530.0.126315.22.18.3.0.0.0.383.2302.0j8j3j1.12.0….0…1.1.64.psy-ab..11.11.1499…0i13i30k1j0i13i5i30k1j0i8i13i30k1.0._0lEjVmdbZY

Other research:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2665714/#R12

Another courage training study:
http://www.resuscitationjournal.com/article/S0300-9572(14)00319-0/abstract

Other studies on the topic:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236801046_Psychological_Courage

Maybe also:

Pre-post analyses on data from 31 students demonstrates that students can significantly reduce self-reported music performance anxiety, and significantly improve performance preparation, confidence, courage, focus, concentration, and performance resilience as a result of implementing these techniques.

Topics included channeling performance energy, developing confidence, improving self-talk, learning and memorizing music, mental rehearsal, building courage, recovering from mistakes, dealing with adversity, and becoming mentally tough.
Source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13612-014-001

2. Mindfulness for children or playfully train the Focus-Pocus and play with the ray of attention 🙂
Research:

Practice mindfulness children:
1. Listen to the bell. An easy way for children to practice mindfulness is to focus on paying attention to what they can hear. You can use a singing bowl, a bell, a set of chimes or a phone app that has sounds on it. Tell your children that you will make the sound, and they should listen carefully until they can no longer hear the sound (which is usually 30 seconds to a minute).
2. Practice with a breathing buddy. For young children, an instruction to simply “pay attention to the breath” can be hard to follow. In this Edutopia video, Daniel Goleman describes a 2nd-grade classroom that does a “breathing buddy” exercise: Each student grabs a stuffed animal, and then lies down on their back with their buddy on their belly. They focus their attention on the rise and fall of the stuffed animal as they breathe in and out.
3. Little explorers: we explore new things in the outside world and new sensations in the inner world – Make your walks mindful. One of my children’s favorite things to do in the summer is a “noticing walk.” We stroll through our neighborhood and notice things we haven’t seen before. We’ll designate one minute of the walk where we are completely silent and simply pay attention to all the sounds we can hear — frogs, woodpeckers, a lawnmower. We don’t even call it “mindfulness,” but that’s what it is.
4. Establish a gratitude practice. I believe gratitude is a fundamental component of mindfulness, teaching our children to appreciate the abundance in their lives, as opposed to focusing on all the toys and goodies that they crave. My family does this at dinner when we each share one thing we are thankful for. It is one of my favorite parts of the day.
5. Try the SpiderMan meditation! My 5-year-old son is in to all things superheroes, and this SpiderMan meditation is right up his alley. This meditation teaches children to activate their “spidey-senses” and their ability to focus on all they can smell, taste, and hear in the present moment. Such a clever idea!
6. In Sitting Still Like a Frog, Eline Snel encourages children to “summon the weather report that best describes [their] feelings at the moment.” Sunny, rainy, stormy, calm, windy, tsunami? This activity allows children to observe their present state without overly identifying with their emotions. They can’t change the weather outside, and we can’t change our emotions or feelings either. All we can change is how we relate to them. As Snel describes it, children can recognize, “I am not the downpour, but I notice that it is raining; I am not a scaredy-cat, but I realize that sometimes I have this big scared feeling somewhere near my throat.”
7. Make a Mind Jar. A mind jar is a bit like a snow globe – shake it up and watch the storm! But soon, if we sit and breathe and simply watch the disturbance, it settles. As do our minds.
8. Practice mindful eating. The exercise of mindfully eating a raisin or a piece of chocolate is a staple of mindfulness education, and is a great activity for kids. You can find a script for a seven-minute mindful eating exercise for children here.

Mindfulness as a stress and pain reliever
https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=LWLWWpjwItHbwAKq1KWACg&q=research+children+cancer+mindfulness+meditation+pain&oq=research+children+cancer+mindfulness+meditation+pain&gs_l=psy-ab.3…1284.15844.0.16037.63.52.1.0.0.0.450.6594.0j20j12j0j2.35.0….0…1.1.64.psy-ab..27.24.3676.6..0j46j35i39k1j0i67k1j0i10k1j0i46k1j0i203k1j0i20i263k1j0i22i30k1j0i22i10i30k1.111.YiUkhk5XJLc
and:
A Pilot Study of Mindfulness Meditation for Pediatric Chronic Pain

Participants rated intervention components positively and most teens suggested that the number of sessions be increased. Three case examples illustrate mindfulness meditation effects and precautions. Mindfulness meditation shows promise as a feasible and acceptable intervention for youth with chronic pain. Future research should optimize intervention components and determine treatment efficacy.
Date: 2017
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5447990/

“I Learned to Let Go of My Pain”. The Effects of Mindfulness Meditation on Adolescents with Chronic Pain: An Analysis of Participants’ Treatment Experience
As consistent with the practices taught in mindfulness, participants described gaining skills in pain acceptance, emotion regulation, and present moment awareness. Skills were not only described as improving pain coping, but also generalized to coping with other difficult experiences, such as intense emotions, an impact that is well described in research on MBIs [12].
These findings are consistent with adult literature, which has found MBI programs to be effective in improving depression symptoms and quality of life [32]. Perhaps equally, if not more valued, was the social support provided by offering the mindfulness skills in a group context. Not only did participants feel “less alone”, they also valued learning from peers about implementation of skills (versus being prescribed skills by HCPs. The increased credibility that was derived from group members sharing their use of mindfulness skills with each other and the social support from a group format argues for implementation of mindfulness approaches in a group or peer to peer modality (versus individually with an HCP), though one study showed individual and group modalities to have equal impact on depression, anxiety, and positive well-being [33]. Group formats may be of particular benefit within the adolescent population, when individuals separate from parents and adults in favour of peers [34]. In addition, offering the MBI-A specifically to adolescents with chronic pain and tailoring content for chronic pain was viewed by participants as a benefit. This was in line with feedback from previous MBI-A pilot groups who preferred to be with teens with the same chronic condition (see Ruskin et al. 2015) [23]. This type of pain-related social support has been shown to be a predictor of reduced pain and disability within the adult literature [35].
Given that this meditation can be challenging, modification could include: (a) starting practice with an area that is not the most bothersome (b) not needing to go “all the way in” (c) staying with the breath if things get difficult, and (d) recognizing that this exercise can take practice so that much like going to the gym—one starts slowly and builds up.
suggestion from one group member was that participants voluntarily write their “pain story” on a cue card (anonymously or with their name), and that this be posted at the end of the third session for group members to read. Rather than becoming a component to be discussed formally in the group, participants suggested that they could connect on this socially outside of the group. An advantage of this approach is that it may strengthen the sense of universality among participants while using in-session time for mindfulness practice and processing of skills. In addition to benefitting from learning about peers’ stories, the act of telling one’s own story may confer its own therapeutic benefit, as described in the field of narrative medicine [36,37]. Mindfulness practices, such as that of cognitive defusion [38] (noticing the story rather than getting caught up in it) can also be employed to assist participants in decreasing the importance of the story itself, and increasing flexibility in whether or not they wish to identify with it.
Date: 2017
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5742755/

A Mind–Body Approach to Pediatric Pain Management
In terms of overall clinical outcome research, controlled trials of adults suffering from various forms of chronic pain (chronic low back pain, chronic headache/migraine, chronic neck pain, arthritis, cancer, and fibromyalgia) have indeed demonstrated improved pain ratings in regards to multiple dimensions of pain including intensity, acceptance, functional limitations, quality of life, and psychological well-being [62]. Nonetheless, mindfulness as it relates to pain in children has not been extensively studied and although mindfulness meditation has shown to be beneficial in classroom and school settings for improving psychological distress [74–77], more research is required in order to determine whether the same effects can be translated in children and pediatric medicine
Date: 2017
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5483625/
AND: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28632194

Research suggests that many children are exposed to adverse experiences in childhood. Such adverse childhood exposures may result in stress and trauma, which are associated with increased morbidity and mortality into adulthood. In general populations and trauma-exposed adults, mindfulness interventions have demonstrated reduced depression and anxiety, reduced trauma-related symptoms, enhanced coping and mood, and improved quality of life. Studies in children and youth also demonstrate that mindfulness interventions improve mental, behavioral, and physical outcomes. Taken together, this research suggests that high-quality, structured mindfulness instruction may mitigate the negative effects of stress and trauma related to adverse childhood exposures, improving short- and long-term outcomes, and potentially reducing poor health outcomes in adulthood. Future work is needed to optimize implementation of youth-based mindfulness programs and to study long-term outcomes into adulthood.
Date: 2017
Source: http://www.mdpi.com/2227-9067/4/3/16/htm

Furthermore, in individuals with higher anxiety scores, resilience was protective against higher pain affect. This highlights the importance of resilience, a positive psychological factor, in the affective dimension of pain. This study is the first to assess a positive psychological factor and experimental pain affect, and has the potential to improve prediction of and treatment strategies for clinical pain.
Date: 2017
https://www.jpain.org/article/S1526-5900(17)30573-4/fulltext

3. How to work with and recognize emotions and how it helps to develop the capacity to manage your own emotions; what message do these feelings carry, how do we recognize them and what can we do with the energy and message they give; what we feel like doing and examples of situations in which doing what we feel like doing is not necessarily convenient; some games that could help us stop acting on impulse and think about the situation

Research:
Linking situations to emotions:
Awareness of Emotional Stimuli Determines the Behavioral Consequences of Amygdala Activation and Amygdala-Prefrontal Connectivity

Collectively, these results indicate that awareness promotes the function of a critical emotion-regulatory network targeting the amygdala, providing a mechanistic account for the role of awareness in emotion regulation.

In conclusion, we demonstrated that conscious awareness of an emotional stimulus changes the behavioral fate of amygdala responses and amygdala-prefrontal interactions—and that such awareness is particularly beneficial for individuals with greater amygdala-prefrontal structural connectivity. Together, these results pave the way for future studies investigating how therapeutic approaches that rely on conscious awareness of negative events may be tailored to different individuals.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep25826
Date:2016

intergenerational transmission of psychopathology
108 mothers (M age = 30.68 years, SD = 6.06) and their preschool-age children (M age = 3.50 years, SD = 0.52, 61.30% male)
Results indicated that RSA (children’s respiratory sinus arrhythmia) suppression in response to the fear clip moderated the positive association between maternal and child anxious/depressive symptoms, such that higher suppression served a protective-stabilizing function while lower suppression exacerbated children’s risk for internalizing symptoms in the context of higher maternal symptoms. Moderation findings involving RSA suppression in response to a happiness-inducing clip were consistent with biological sensitivity to context; the association between maternal and child symptoms was strongest for children higher in suppression.
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030105111630093X
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27045275
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299771720_Preschoolers’_Psychophysiological_Responses_to_Mood_Induction_Tasks_Moderate_the_Intergenerational_Transmission_of_Internalizing_Problems

Intergenerational Transmission of Abuse Implications for Parenting Interventions From a Neuropsychological Perspective
Despite this, research into the mechanisms behind the intergenerational transmission of abuse fails to acknowledge the contribution of brain development on future parenting ability. A discussion of the cognitive, social, and emotional deficits of child and adult survivors of childhood maltreatment is presented. This is followed by a critical overview of how current parenting interventions fail to take into account the neuropsychological mechanisms behind the intergenerational transmission of abuse. A conceptual model of the neuropsychological transmission of childhood maltreatment is presented. This model will allow child welfare practitioners to gain a greater understanding of the specific deficits of individuals who have experienced childhood maltreatment and how parenting interventions may be enhanced for this population. This represents one step forward in breaking the cycle of the intergenerational transmission of childhood maltreatment.
Date: 2013
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258194248_Intergenerational_Transmission_of_Abuse_Implications_for_Parenting_Interventions_From_a_Neuropsychological_Perspective

The findings show that the Holodomor, a genocide that claimed millions of lives by forced starvation, still exerts substantial effects on generations born decades later. Specifically, thematic analysis of the 45 semi-structured, in-depth interviews, done between July and November 2010, revealed that a constellation of emotions, inner states and trauma-based coping strategies emerged in the survivors during the genocide period and were subsequently transmitted into the second and third generations. This constellation, summarized by participants as living in “survival mode,” included horror, fear, mistrust, sadness, shame, anger, stress and anxiety, decreased self-worth, stockpiling of food, reverence for food, overemphasis on food and overeating, inability to discard unneeded items, an indifference toward others, social hostility and risky health behaviours.
Date: 2015
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953615002294
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25931287
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275664633_Living_in_survival_mode_Intergenerational_transmission_of_trauma_from_the_Holodomor_genocide_of_1932-1933_in_Ukraine

INTERGENERATIONAL TRANSMISSION OF ATTACHMENT IN ABUSED AND NEGLECTED MOTHERS: THE ROLE OF TRAUMA‐SPECIFIC REFLECTIVE FUNCTIONING
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/imhj.21499

More about transmission of emotions through mirror neurons here:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dion_Sommer/publication/251382738_When_Empathic_Care_Is_Obstructed/links/5502caa80cf2d60c0e647f0d/When-Empathic-Care-Is-Obstructed.pdf

Secondary emotions aren’t necessarily problematic. But they can become problematic when they blind us from our primary feelings or serve to reinforce repetitive, unhelpful behaviors, like having angry outbursts or avoiding emotions altogether.

“Maladaptive emotions are those old, familiar feelings that occur repeatedly and do not change” Greenberg explains.“They are feelings, such as a core sense of lonely abandonment, the anxiety of basic insecurity, feelings of wretched worthlessness, or shameful inadequacy that plague one all one’s life.”

So, what can be done to break out these unhelpful emotional patterns? Greenberg suggests that you can’t really leave an emotional space until you arrive there first. In other words, he argues that “maladaptive emotions need to be accessed and regulated to be transformed.” Part of the solution then seems to be getting good at identifying one’s emotions and, at least momentarily, accepting them for what they are, even if they’re unpleasant or unflattering.
For example, in a series of three studies, researchers at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw recently found that people who tended to ‘take the bad with the good’ and integrate positive and negative emotional experiences (rather than experience them as separate or conflicting with one another) had a higher capacity to cope with adversity.

Source: https://lifesparkweekly.com/how-to-understand-your-emotions/understanding-your-feelings-the-difference-between-primary-and-secondary-emotions

More about it here:
The results revealed that secondary mixed emotions predominate over sequential and simultaneous mixed emotional experiences in promoting adaptive coping through fostering the motivational and informative functions of emotions; this is done by providing solution-oriented actions rather than avoidance, faster decisions regarding coping strategies (Study 1), easier access to self-knowledge, and better narrative organization (Study 2). Furthermore, individuals characterized as being prone to feeling secondary mixed emotions were more resilient to stress caused by transitions than those who were characterized as being prone to feeling opposing emotions separately (Study 3). Taken together, the preliminary results indicate that the pattern of secondary mixed emotion provides individuals with a higher capacity to handle adversity than the other two patterns of mixed emotional experience.
Date: 2016
Source: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0103940
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4118988/

4. How to recognize emotions on people’s faces. Facial expression training and cognitive emotion regulation technique – training the habit to stop and think when I feel a strong emotion – and how it helps to improve the social skills

The evidence is accumulating: Good social skills may depend on the ability to decipher facial expressions, particularly expressions in the eye region (DeClerk and Bogart 2008).
Moreover, experiments suggest that people who are better at identifying fearful facial expressions are also more kind and generous towards others (Marsh et al 2007).
Source: http://www.parentingscience.com/facial-expressions-for-kids.html
References:
Declerck CH, Bogaert S. 2008. Social value orientation: related to empathy and the ability to read the mind in the eyes. J Soc Psychol. 148(6):711-26.
Ekman P. 1973. Cross-cultural studies of facial expression. In P. Ekman (ed): Darwin and facial expression: A century of research in review. New York: Academic Press.
Grinspan D, Hemphill A, and Nowicki S Jr. 2003. Improving the ability of elementary school-age children to identify emotion in facial expression. J Genet Psychol. 164(1):88-100.
Marsh AA, Kozak MN, and Ambady N. 2007. Accurate identification of fear facial expressions predicts prosocial behavior. Emotion. 7(2):239-51.
Using fMRI, we demonstrated that the attribution of feelings either to an emotional facial expression or to oneself (in response to a face) recruits brain areas involved in emotion processing, mirror neuron mechanisms, and ToM.
More importantly, we were able to disentangle brain activations related to the self- or the other-perspective in dyadic face-to-face interactions by directly contrasting the self- and other-related attribution of emotions.
Source: ? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17651008

To SEARCH FOR: “”Using fMRI, we demonstrated that the attribution of feelings either to an emotional facial expression or to oneself (in response to a face) recruits brain areas involved in emotion processing, mirror neuron mechanisms, and ToM.”
? http://www.google.ro/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CEwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cogsci.ucsd.edu%2F~pineda%2FCOGS260Mirroring%2Freadings%2FSchulte-Ruther%2520et%2520al.%2520-%2520MNS%2520and%2520TOM.pdf&ei=ZaL6T5TkLMfHswaM97DKBQ&usg=AFQjCNE3R5h_wGcNDQhwKLPan9GdTxnasw

Research demonstrates that viewing facial expressions triggers expressions on one’s own face, even in the absence of conscious recognition of the stimulus (e.g., [14]).
Accumulating evidence suggests that similar neural circuits are stimulated when humans experience
emotions and when they perceive others expressing emotions. For instance, the anterior insula gets
activated in response to the sight of disgusted facial expressions of others as well as by the first-hand
experience of disgust[19]. One fMRI experiment demonstrates that when participants are required to
observe or to imitate facial expressions of various emotions, increased neurodynamic activity is detected
in the superior temporal sulcus, the anterior insula, and the amygdala, as well as in areas of the premotor
cortex corresponding to the representation of faces[20]. Another study showed that the observation of
everyday hand and face actions performed with an emotion recruits regions involved in the perception
and the experience of emotion and/or in communication[21]. The authors of that study speculate that, in
addition to inducing resonance in the motor program necessary to execute an action, watching an action
performed with emotion induces a resonance in the emotional system responsible for the affective
modulation of the motor program. Such a mechanism could also be a key to understanding how the other
person feels and to his or her associated intentions.
14. Dimberg, U., Thunberg, M., and Elmehed, K. (2000) Unconscious facial reactions to emotional facial expressions. Psychol. Sci. 11, 86–89.
19. Wicker, B., Keysers, C., Plailly, J., Royet, J.P., Gallese, V., and Rizzolatti, G. (2003) Both of us disgusted in my insula: the common neural basis of seeing and feeling disgust. Neuron 40, 655–664.
20. Carr, L., Iacoboni, M., Dubeau, M.C., Mazziotta, J.C., and Lenzi, G.L. (2003) Neural mechanisms of empathy in humans: a relay from neural systems for imitation to limbic areas. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 100, 5497–5502.
21. Grosbras, M.H. and Paus, T. (2006) Brain networks involved in viewing angry hands or faces. Cereb. Cortex 16, 1087–1096.
Source: http://www.google.ro/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CEwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cogsci.ucsd.edu%2F~pineda%2FCOGS260Mirroring%2Freadings%2FSchulte-Ruther%2520et%2520al.%2520-%2520MNS%2520and%2520TOM.pdf&ei=QaL6T8HzJoTJswaU3PC4BQ&usg=AFQjCNE3R5h_wGcNDQhwKLPan9GdTxnasw
And don’t forget role playing games. In one experimental study, researchers asked young, healthy medical students to simulate the difficulties of old age. For example, students wore goggles covered with transparent tape to simulate the effects of cataracts. To experience poor motor control, the students wore heavy rubber gloves. After the experiment, the students showed greater empathy towards the elderly (Varkey et al 2006).
Experiments show that simply “going through the motions” of making a facial expression can make us experience the associated emotion.
And it’s not “just our imagination” (whatever that phrase means). When researchers have asked people to imitate certain facial expressions, they have detected changes in brain activity that are characteristic of the corresponding emotions. People also experience changes in heart rate, skin conductance, body temperature (for a concise summary, see Decety and Jackson 2004).
So it seems likely that we can “boost” our empathic powers by imitating the facial expressions of people we want to empathize with.
Pretty cool, huh? And it’s not a new idea. As neuroscientists Jean Decety and Philip L. Jackson point out, this method was suggested by Edgar Allen Poe in his short story the Purloined Letter.
Source: http://www.parentingscience.com/teaching-empathy-tips.html
Our results show that drawings are better recognized than photographs, for sadness, anger, and fear (with no difference for happiness, due to a ceiling effect). And that the difference between the 2 types of stimuli tends to be more important for 5-year-olds compared to 7-year-olds. These results are discussed in view of their implications, both for future research and for practical application.
Date: 2017
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28323534
And: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315508823_Children’s_Recognition_of_Emotional_Facial_Expressions_Through_Photographs_and_Drawings

Our results so far show that children can use the process of elimination to match a word they have never heard before with an expression they have never seen. This might help children learn labels for new expressions as they grow older. This study may help adults better understand how children learn about new emotions.
Date: 201
Source: https://www.mos.org/living-laboratory/explore-our-researcher/92-new-facial-expressions

Accurate identification of fear facial expressions predicts prosocial behavior
In 3 studies, the authors tested the prediction that individuals who recognize fear more accurately will behave more prosocially. In Study 1, participants who identified fear more accurately also donated more money and time to a victim in a classic altruism paradigm. In Studies 2 and 3, participants’ ability to identify the fear expression predicted prosocial behavior in a novel task designed to control for confounding variables. In Study 3, accuracy for recognizing fear proved a better predictor of prosocial behavior than gender, mood, or scores on an empathy scale.
Date: 2007
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17516803

Social adjustment, academic adjustment, and the ability to identify emotion in facial expressions of 7-year-old children.
Teachers rated children’s social and academic behavior using behavioral rating scales. The authors found that children who had more difficulty identifying emotion in faces also were more likely to have more problems overall and, more specifically, with peer relationships among boys and with learning difficulties among girls. Findings suggest that nonverbal receptive skill plays a significant role in children’s social and academic adjustment.
Date: 2009
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19928317

Improving the ability of elementary school-age children to identify emotion in facial expression.

The ability to read emotion in facial expressions significantly improved for the intervention group compared with the control group. Improvement on identifying facial expressions was associated with increased feelings of lower social anxiety and higher self-worth for girls. Boys’ self-concept was negatively related to improvement. On the basis of the results, the authors suggested that structured interventions like the present one could be used to improve students’ nonverbal processing abilities within public school settings, but with some cautions regarding the impact of new learning for boys.
Date: 2003
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12693746

Relationship with the academic results:
Children who performed well academically also tended to be the most accurate in recognizing expressions, and this relationship maintained independently of chronological age. Generally, the findings testify to a well-developed ability to recognize very subtle naturally occurring expressions of emotions.
Date: 2017
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28504585

Relationships among facial mimicry, emotional experience, and emotion recognition
Path analyses showed that the facial EMG activity consistently predicted the valence ratings for the emotions experienced in response to dynamic facial expressions. The experienced valence ratings in turn predicted the recognized valence ratings in Study 2.
Date: 2013
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23536774

The role of emotion knowledge in the links between shyness and children’s socio-emotional functioning at preschool

Among the results, shyness was positively related to anxiety-withdrawal and peer rejection. In addition, emotion recognition was found to significantly moderate the links between shyness and preschool socio-emotional functioning, appearing to serve a buffering role. For example, at lower levels of emotion recognition, shyness was positively associated with both anxiety-withdrawal and rejection by peers, but at higher levels of emotion recognition, these associations were attenuated. Results are discussed in terms of the protective role of emotion recognition in promoting shy children’s positive socio-emotional functioning within the classroom context.
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27111863

The integration of visual context information in facial emotion recognition in 5- to 15-year-olds
The results showed that emotions presented with visual context information were recognized more accurately than those presented in the absence of visual context. The context effect remained steady with age but varied according to the emotion presented and the gender of participants. The findings demonstrated for the first time that children from the age of 5years are able to integrate facial expression and visual context information, and this integration improves facial emotion recognition.
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27367301
Improving Negative Emotion Recognition in Young Offenders Reduces Subsequent Crime.
CONCLUSIONS: The study indicates that emotion recognition can be relatively easily improved in youths who engage in serious antisocial and criminal behavior. The results suggest that improved emotion recognition has the potential to reduce the severity of reoffending.
Date: 2015
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26121148
The results indicate that there is a slow development of sensitivity to the expression of all basic emotions except happy. This slow development may impact children’s social and cognitive development by limiting their sensitivity to subtle expressions of disapproval or disappointment.
Date: 2010
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20542282
These findings suggest that simulation mechanisms and the MNS may indeed be relevant to social functioning in everyday life during typical human development.
Date: 2017
Surce: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811907009548

Fashioning the Face: Sensorimotor Simulation Contributes to Facial Expression Recognition

When we observe a facial expression of emotion, we often mimic it. This automatic mimicry reflects underlying sensorimotor simulation that supports accurate emotion recognition. Why this is so is becoming more obvious: emotions are patterns of expressive, behavioral, physiological, and subjective feeling responses. Activation of one component can therefore automatically activate other components.
When people simulate a perceived facial expression, they partially activate the corresponding emotional state in themselves, which provides a basis for inferring the underlying emotion of the expresser.
We integrate recent evidence in favor of a role for sensorimotor simulation in emotion recognition.
Date: 2015
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661316000164
Facial Expression Training Optimises Viewing Strategy in Children and Adults
The present study revealed that training-related improvements in facial expression categorization (mostly associated with mid-range expression intensity levels) coincided with changes in gaze distribution in face exploration for all three expressions in children and for sad expressions in adults, supporting the assumption that enhancements in expression recognition is facilitated by spontaneous changes in gaze-strategy. Children’s gaze behaviour was characterized by a pronounced shift in focus towards the eyes after training, resulting in more adult-like gaze distributions. Importantly, this focus was not influenced by expression intensity at any stage of training, consistent with previous findings [19], or by the introduction of new faces in session four, suggesting transfer-effects of learning.
Date: 2014
Source: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0105418

Effects of exposure to facial expression variation in face learning and recognition
Date: 2015
Source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00426-014-0627-8

Enhancing children’s decoding of facial expression
Date: 1989
Source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00990297
Role of facial expressions in social interactions
Date: 2009
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781887/

Toward a Unified Treatment for Emotional Disorders – Republished Article
Date: 2016
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309884503_Toward_a_Unified_Treatment_for_Emotional_Disorders_-_Republished_Article

Motor mimicry allows humans to recognize emotions and empathize with others.
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763416306704

Maybe – 3d versus 2d images with facial expressions:
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep45464
Recognition of facial expressions of emotions in school-age children: The intersection of perceptual and semantic categories
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12376757_Recognition_of_facial_expressions_of_emotions_in_school-age_children_The_intersection_of_perceptual_and_semantic_categories

Training the Emotional Brain: Improving Affective Control through Emotional Working Memory Training

Date: 2013
Source: http://www.jneurosci.org/content/33/12/5301

Somatosensory Representations Link the Perception of Emotional Expressions and Sensory Experience

Date: 2016
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4894916/

The neuroscience of understanding the emotions of others
Highlights
•
Emotion understanding consists of detecting cues, inferring emotion categories, and attributing causes.
•
A network of brain structures is involved for each of these.
•
The dmPFC is the most prominent brain regions involved in inferring emotions and causes.
Date: 2017
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28624265
AND: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317622143_The_Neuroscience_of_Understanding_the_Emotions_of_Others

Results demonstrated that participants who received the intervention improved their affect recognition and mentalizing skills, as well as their social skills. These findings suggest that, by targeting face-processing skills, computer-based interventions may produce changes in broader cognitive and social-skills domains in a cost- and time-efficient manner.
Date: 2015
Source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-015-2380-2

Children’s Discrimination of Expressions of Emotions: Relationship With Indices of Social Anxiety and Shyness
These pilot results suggest that a child’s ability to correctly identify other children’s basic emotions is partially associated with his or her level of observed social shyness.
Date: 2004
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/8626285_Children’s_Discrimination_of_Expressions_of_Emotions_Relationship_With_Indices_of_Social_Anxiety_and_Shyness

The experimental studies indicated reduced global (rather than emotion-specific) emotion recognition accuracy and increased interpretation bias (a tendency to perceive anger over happiness) when state anxiety was heightened. The observational study confirmed that higher state anxiety is associated with poorer emotion recognition, and indicated that negative effects of trait anxiety are negated when controlling for state anxiety, suggesting a mediating effect of state anxiety. These findings may have implications for anxiety disorders, which are characterized by increased frequency, intensity or duration of state anxious episodes.
Date: 2017
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5451788/

Facial affect recognition and social anxiety in preschool children
Findings suggest that children with social anxiety may be highly adept at facial affect interpretation in peers. Future research is needed to more clearly elucidate the role of hypervigilance to social cues in development of anxiety.
Date: 2009
Source: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03004430903059318?src=recsys&journalCode=gecd20
The effect of acute social stress on the recognition of facial expression of emotions
First, our results show a systematic increase in the intensity threshold for disgust following stress, meaning that the participants’ performance with this emotion was impaired. We suggest that this may reflect an adaptive coping mechanism where participants attempt to decrease their anxiety and protect themselves from a socio-evaluative threat. Second, our results show a systematic decrease in the intensity threshold for surprise, therefore positively affecting the participants’ performance with that emotion. We suggest that the enhanced perception of surprise following the induction of social stress may be interpreted as an evolutionary adaptation, wherein being in a stressful environment increases the benefits of monitoring signals indicating the presence of a novel or threatening event. An alternative explanation may derive from the opposite nature of the facial expressions of disgust and surprise; the decreased recognition of disgust could therefore have fostered the propensity to perceive surprise
Date: 2017
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28432314

Processing of Emotional Facial Expressions (EFE) in Paediatric Anxiety: Are Child Faces More Noteworthy than Adult Faces?
These results suggest that anxious children paid more attention to their peers’ disapproval, while non-anxious children focused rather on adults’ disapprobation. Further research might examine the role of the social standing and need of social approval in paediatric anxiety.
Date: 2017
Source: http://psychopathology.imedpub.com/processing-of-emotional-facial-expressions-efe-in-paediatric-anxiety-are-child-faces-more-noteworthy-than-adult-faces.php?aid=19711
Face emotion labeling deficits in children with bipolar disorder and severe mood dysregulation
Impaired face labeling correlated with deficient social reciprocity skills in NP-BD youth and dysfunctional family relationships in SMD youth. Compared to controls, patients with NP-BD or SMD require significantly more intense facial emotion before they are able to label the emotion correctly. These deficits are associated with psychosocial impairments. Understanding the neural circuitry associated with face-labeling deficits has the potential to clarify the pathophysiology of these disorders.
Date: 2008
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2669935/

Specificity of facial emotion recognition impairments in patients with multi-episode schizophrenia.
Patients with schizophrenia show impairments in social information processing, such as recognising facial emotions and face identity.
Compared to controls patients with schizophrenia displayed more difficulties in processing of social information compared to non-social information. These results support the hypothesis that facial emotion recognition impairment is a relatively distinct entity within the domain of cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia.
Date: 2015
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29379756

The intervention also increased prosocial responses, including compassion, and affected negative social responses as well. Those who received the training demonstrated a greater ability to recognize facial expressions of emotion—a critical component of compassion—and, when presented with an image of a suffering individual, were more likely than controls to activate a semantic network related to compassion rather than disgust. This automatic form of responding is relevant to the motive to reduce others’ suffering and may be amenable to enhancement through training
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/Kemeny_Contemplative_Emotion_Training.pdf

Oxytocin increases the capacity to read people’s faces:
http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/06/29/scan.nss062.full
http://www.google.ro/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&ved=0CIIBEBYwBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.psychologie.uni-freiburg.de%2Fabteilungen%2Fpsychobio%2Fteam%2Fpublikationen%2FSchulze_2011_PNEC%2Fdownload&ei=z48iUM3-MfLR4QTSh4HoBQ&usg=AFQjCNEkr3kVzn3c7lFODkqmHMRAkHr_aw
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20186397
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0018506X08003206

To look for here: Thus, experiments have shown that if people are able to control their facial expressions during moments of pain, there is less arousal of the autonomic nervous system and an actual diminution of the pain experience.
Source: http://www.mediate.com/articles/cloke8.cfm

Emotion recognition deficits associated with ventromedial prefrontal cortex lesions are improved by gaze manipulation

We found that vmPFC lesion patients are impaired, relative to neurologically healthy adults, at recognizing moderate intensity expressions of anger and that recognition accuracy can be improved by providing instructions of where to fixate. These results suggest that vmPFC may be important for the recognition of facial emotion through a role in guiding visual attention to emotionally salient regions of faces.
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945216301733

By investigating children’s performance in detecting these emotions from a specific face region, we were interested to know whether children would show differences in recognizing these expressions from the upper or lower face, and if any difference between specific facial regions depended on the emotion in question. For this purpose, a group of 6-7 year-old children was selected. Participants were asked to recognize emotions by using a labeling task with three stimulus types (region of the eyes, of the mouth, and full face). The findings seem to indicate that children correctly recognize basic facial expressions when pictures represent the whole face, except for a neutral expression, which was recognized from the mouth, and sadness, which was recognized from the eyes. Children are also able to identify anger from the eyes as well as from the whole face. With respect to gender differences, there is no female advantage in emotional recognition. The results indicate a significant interaction ‘gender x face region’ only for anger and neutral emotions.
Date: 2015
Source: https://ejop.psychopen.eu/article/view/890/html

http://www.google.ro/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CEwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cogsci.ucsd.edu%2F~pineda%2FCOGS260Mirroring%2Freadings%2FSchulte-Ruther%2520et%2520al.%2520-%2520MNS%2520and%2520TOM.pdf&ei=ZaL6T5TkLMfHswaM97DKBQ&usg=AFQjCNE3R5h_wGcNDQhwKLPan9GdTxnasw

Research on Why facial expression recognition is important:
http://www.paulekman.com/micro-expressions/
Recognize and better manage your own emotions
Learning to recognize facial expressions of emotion in others helps you recognize your own emotions. In addition, Dr. Ekman’s research reveals that simply mimicking an emotion by manipulating your own facial expressions will initiate the physiological experience of that emotion – you’ll feel it arise within yourself. When you train yourself to link facial expressions with internal experience, you improve your awareness of your internal emotions, including emotional triggers. This awareness helps you manage the expression of your emotions.
http://jeps.efpsa.org/articles/10.5334/jeps.de/
Mimicry and Emotion Recognition
This connection between facial mimicry and empathy was first proposed by Lipps (1907), who suggested that the replication of another’s facial expression induces the experience of that emotion in the individual themselves, thus allowing the individual to feel how their communication partner is feeling. To date, many studies have been inspired by the Matched Motor Hypothesis (MMH) (Hess & Fischer, 2013) and the Facial Feedback Hypothesis (FFH) (Buck, 1980). MMH proposes that the mere perception of other’s facial expressions will elicit a similar expression in that of the observer (Hess & Fischer, 2013). FFH proposes that facial movement can influence emotional experience (Buck, 1980; Kraut, 1982).

https://www.udemy.com/micro-expressions-training-body-language-lie-detection/
Why should everybody Master Reading Micro Expressions?
1. You will Increase your Emotional Intelligence with an average of 10% (Shown in our presentation at Harvard University)
Others:

Mirror Neurons Fire When Observing and Preforming an Action

Simple facial expressions such as those indicating joy, anger, or disgust also appear to activate mirror neurons.
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep16988
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3442623/It-s-not-just-yawning-smiling-frowning-contagious-mimic-people-s-expressions-empathy.html

5. An episode that showcases situations when emotions come by mistake (like when fears comes and there is no real danger) – how we can send them on a holiday in a wonderful place, thanking them because they came to our help despite being wrong this time around
Research:
Parent-undergraduate concordance in fear of failure was documented for mothers and fathers, controlling for parents’ and undergraduate’s impression management and self-deceptive enhancement response tendencies. Love withdrawal was validated as a mediator of parent-undergraduate concordance in fear of failure for mothers but not for fathers. Mothers’ and fathers’ fear of failure was also a positive predictor of undergraduate’s adoption of performance-avoidance goals in the classroom, and undergraduate’s fear of failure was shown to mediate this relationship. Fathers’ fear of failure was also a negative predictor of undergraduate’s mastery goal adoption, and this relationship was likewise mediated by undergraduate’s fear of failure.
Date: 2004
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15257781
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/8451387_The_Intergenerational_Transmission_of_Fear_of_Failure

INTERGENERATIONAL TRANSMISSION OF ATTACHMENT IN ABUSED AND NEGLECTED MOTHERS: THE ROLE OF TRAUMA‐SPECIFIC REFLECTIVE FUNCTIONING
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/imhj.21499

6. Humor, it’s benefits and how to cultivate it and use it in difficult times – and how it can help us manage difficult emotions or sensations
Research:
What to implement in real-life:

Core characteristics of the effective interventions
The common core of the most effective interventions
(i.e. counting funny things, applying humor, and three
funny things) is that they require the participants to focus
on humor experienced on the present day of the intervention
– a positive focus on the presence. For example,
one needs to notice funny things during one’s day to be
able to count them. This idea resembles studies on the
positive information-processing bias (see Sanchez &
Vazquez, 2014) and its relation to positive mood (see
Sanchez, Vazquez, Gomez, & Joormann, 2014) or the
attentional preference (Peters, Vieler, & Lautenbacher,
2015). Hence, favoring positive over negative information
seems a contributing factor. Wadlinger and
Isaacowitz (2011) describe attentional deployment as a
modifiable strategy of emotion regulation, which could
be used in trainings to enhance the experience of positive
emotions. The interventions might be useful to shift
the attentional focus; in the same line as suggested for
positive psychotherapy by Seligman, Rashid, and Parks
(2006).
One might also argue for a savoring component while
experiencing the positive emotions again that have happened
during the remembered events. This is very much
in the sense of a positive rumination about the funny
things experienced during the day (Quoidbach, Berry,
Hansenne, & Mikolajczak, 2010). Of course, this also
relates to what has been described in the Fredrickson’s
(1998) broaden and build theory of positive emotions.
Overall, we argue in favor of these two mechanisms
(the positive focus on the presence and the savoring
component) as being core to the intervention’s effectiveness.
The savoring component might also play a role in
the collecting funny things intervention, but it seems
more focused on the past than on the present. In contrast,
the intervention to solve stressful situations in a
humorous way requires a focus on the presence, but not
on positive things (rather on stressful situations). To
complete the instructed activity, one needs to focus on
stressful situations during the day to be then able to
solve them in a humorous way. Consequently, this focus
on stressful situations might dampen the effect on wellbeing.
Even if humor has been shown to facilitate
amusement (Ruch, 2001), participants may have selected
an event, which was not fully resolved with the usage of
humor. Therefore, the instruction of the intervention may
be improved by a stronger focus on solving situations in
a humorous way, or just slightly stressful situations,
which might be easier to solve.
The applying humor intervention is based on the
using signature strengths in a new way intervention
(Seligman et al., 2005). A major difference is that in the
signature strengths intervention, participants need to
focus on their highest strengths, but in this variant, they
need to focus on humor irrespective of their own humorousness.
The findings support the notion that applying
humor in a new way in everyday life seems beneficial
for those high or low in humor. One might argue that
simply acting like being a humorous person might
already contribute to one’s well-being (cf. Fordyce,
1977). This is in line with research published by
Fleeson, Malanos, and Achille (2002) who found that
acting extravert (irrespective of one’s expression in
extraversion) is associated with experiencing more positive
affect. Similarly, Proyer, Gander, Wellenzohn, and
Ruch (2015) found that not only signature strengths, but also lesser strengths intervention (i.e. participants were
instructed to apply their lowest strengths – assessed with
the values in action inventory of strengths – in their
daily life) was effective in enhancing happiness and ameliorating
depressive symptoms in a placebo-controlled
online study. Unfortunately, we are not able to control
for baseline levels of humor in the present study, but the
finding may suggest that the intervention could be
equally effective for those low or high in humor. In fact,
Wellenzohn, Proyer, and Ruch (2015) found no moderating
role of the sense of humor (assessed via McGhee’s
Sense of Humor scale, 2010a) for humor-based PPIs.
However, there it was shown that the three funny things
intervention was more effective for extraverts. Thus,
basic personality traits might also moderate the effects
and this warrants attention in future studies.

The findings for the counting funny things intervention
are comparable with findings for the counting kindnesses
intervention (Otake et al., 2006). In fact, the
humor-based variant demonstrated more sustainable
effects for happiness. Keeping the spillover effects in
mind, that Otake et al. (2006) found for the counting
kindnesses intervention (on gratitude and performing acts
of kindness), one might expect similar effects on traits
related to counting funny things such as performing more
humorous acts (e.g. telling jokes, making others laugh).
The consequences of shared humor (e.g. spending more
time with others, strengthening social bonds) might also
support the long-term effects. All interventions were
well-received; the dropout rate (46% after six months)
was smaller than in comparative studies (e.g. up to 69%
at post-test and up to 79% at six months intervals in
Mitchell, Vella-Brodrick, & Klein, 2010).

Date: 2016
Source: PDF paper “WellenzohnProyerRuch_HumorPPI.pdf” and http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2015.1137624

When we design our humor we study humor types and their implications, we just give a few references here:

Three Decades Investigating Humor and Laughter: An Interview With Professor Rod Martin
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4991054/

Longitudinal Associations Between Humor Styles and Psychosocial Adjustment in Adolescence
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4991046/

Children’s humor types and psychosocial adjustment
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283757823_Children’s_humor_types_and_psychosocial_adjustment

The development of a humor styles questionnaire for younger children
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/humr.2016.29.issue-4/humor-2016-0042/humor-2016-0042.xml

This study assessed the concurrent and prospective (fall to spring) associations between peer victimization and four humor styles, two of which are adaptive (affiliative and self-enhancing) and two maladaptive (aggressive and self-defeating). Participants were 1234 adolescents (52 percent female) aged 11–13 years, drawn from six secondary schools in England. Self-reports and peer reports of peer victimization were collected, as were self-reports of humor styles. In cross-sectional analyses, peer victimization was associated with all four humor styles, most strongly with self-defeating and affiliative humor. Across the school year, peer victimization was associated with an increase in self-defeating humor and a decrease in affiliative humor (and vice-versa). These results have implications for models of humor development and how we understand the continuity of peer victimization.
Date: 2014
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268079595_The_Relationship_Between_Peer_Victimization_and_Children’s_Humor_Styles_It’s_No_Laughing_Matter

“Any humor that enhances the self or a group at the expense of others is unhealthy,” she says. “You also don’t want to over-use self-deprecating humor to an extreme because others may not take you seriously or value your opinion as a result.”
Source: https://www.inc.com/marla-tabaka/5-ways-laughter-can-boost-productivity-and-earnings.html
STUDIES:
Humor-based online positive psychology interventions: A randomized placebo-controlled long-term trial, The Journal of Positive Psychology

The results of this study show that, aside from the
already tested three funny things-intervention, the four
newly developed interventions (collecting funny things,
counting funny things, applying humor, and solving
stressful situations in a humorous way) were effective in
enhancing happiness – three funny things, collecting
funny things, and applying humor were the most potent
by showing effects at all follow-up time points. All of
the humor-based interventions were also effective in
ameliorating depressive symptoms; however, only
directly after the intervention and generally with smaller
effects.
The findings for the counting funny things intervention
are comparable with findings for the counting kindnesses
intervention (Otake et al., 2006). In fact, the
humor-based variant demonstrated more sustainable
effects for happiness. Keeping the spillover effects in
mind, that Otake et al. (2006) found for the counting
kindnesses intervention (on gratitude and performing acts
of kindness), one might expect similar effects on traits
related to counting funny things such as performing more
humorous acts (e.g. telling jokes, making others laugh).
The consequences of shared humor (e.g. spending more
time with others, strengthening social bonds) might also
support the long-term effects. All interventions were
well-received; the dropout rate (46% after six months)
was smaller than in comparative studies (e.g. up to 69%
at post-test and up to 79% at six months intervals in
Mitchell, Vella-Brodrick, & Klein, 2010).

Date: 2016
Source: PDF paper “WellenzohnProyerRuch_HumorPPI.pdf” and http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2015.1137624

Connection to EQ:
More on the topic:
https://scholar.google.ro/scholar?as_ylo=2014&q=laugh+emotional+intelligence+increase&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1
https://bloch3.umkc.edu/6-tips-to-increase-your-emotional-intelligence/
https://www.inc.com/marla-tabaka/5-ways-laughter-can-boost-productivity-and-earnings.html
https://www.laughterremedy.com/article_pdfs/Emotional%20Intelligence.pdf

Feeling Stressed? It’s a Laughing Matter

We tested the effects of five humor-based activities on happiness and depression in a placebo-controlled, self-administered online positive psychology intervention study (N = 632 adults). All of the five one-week interventions enhanced happiness, three for up to six months (i.e. three funny things, applying humor, and counting funny things), whereas there were only short-term effects on depression (all were effective directly after the intervention)
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292147919_Humor-based_online_positive_psychology_interventions_A_randomized_placebo-controlled_long-term_trial

Eighty children undergoing meatotomy, age 2 to 16 years, were randomised into two groups (40 each)
Our data demonstrated that the use of the medical clown functioning as an integral part of the operating team reduces children pre-operative anxiety and leads to a shortening of the overall time in the hospital thereby reducing the overall medical cost justifying the participation of medical clown as an integral part of the health team in a paediatric urology outpatient surgical unit.
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27289035

CONCLUSIONS:
The cognitive component of the sense of humor is positively associated with survival from mortality related to CVD and infections in women and with infection-related mortality in men. The findings indicate that sense of humor is a health-protecting cognitive coping resource.

Date: 2016
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26569539

CONCLUSIONS: Humor therapy has beneficial effects on stress and cortisol levels in pediatric inpatients. This supports the implementation and reinforcement of these therapies in pediatric hospitals.
Psychological processes may regulate the immune response, and affection, well-being, and self-confidence can be significant factors for recovery and response to treatment, especially in children.1 Disease is an important factor that produces stress, and hospital environments, diagnostic tests, and medical treatments can further increase the overload that a patient experiences.2 This effect is even more pronounced in children,3 who require effective strategies to help them cope with hospitalization and to avoid stress-related disorders.4 The therapeutic value of humor and laughter is recognized in all cultures and latitudes,5 but unfortunately, not enough scientific evidence is available to support these benefits in health care. Berk et al6,7 demonstrated that humorous experiences increase cellular immune responses and decrease the level of stress markers; laughter increases the activity of killer lymphocytes and immunoglobulin levels.8–13 In addition, laughing produces a number of beneficial systemic effects, such as muscle relaxation, increased oxygen saturation in the peripheral blood, decreased postprandial glycemia, and mobilization of respiratory secretions.10,14–17
Date:2017
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311348314_Effects_of_a_Humor_Therapy_Program_on_Stress_Levels_in_Pediatric_Inpatients

Dream Doctors (DDs; professional medical clowns) are expanding their activities in pediatric wards. DDs were introduced as an alternative to sedation among children undergoing kidney imaging after urinary infection.
Results: A total of 142 patients were studied over a 14-month period. The mean age was 2 ± 1.6 years. During the study, in the presence of the DD, only five (3.2%) patients required pharmacologic sedation compared with 100% before the study.
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27028874

reducing pain, crying, and anxiety in children aged 2–10 years old undergoing venous blood drawing—a randomized controlled study

Conclusions: Distraction by a medical clown is helpful in children undergoing blood tests or line insertion. Although pain reduction was better with EMLA, both duration of cry and anxiety were lower with a medical clown. These results strongly encourage and support the utilization of medical clowns while drawing blood in children.
DATE: 2015
Source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00431-015-2652-z

We tested the hypothesis that social laughter elevates pain thresholds both in the laboratory and under naturalistic conditions. In both cases, the results confirmed that when laughter is elicited, pain thresholds are significantly increased, whereas when subjects watched something that does not naturally elicit laughter, pain thresholds do not change (and are often lower). These results can best be explained by the action of endorphins released by laughter.
Date: 2012
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3267132/

CONCLUSION:
Watching funny or unfunny videos reduces the post-surgical pain level.
Date: 2017
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28107847

Analysis of the interviews indicated that the intervention of the clown positively changed the children’s perceptions of the hospital, of experiencing the examination, and of their life narrative. Medical clowns thus appear to be a central, meaningful, and therapeutic source for children undergoing invasive examinations in hospital, as well as for their parents. Therefore, it may be advisable to incorporate medical clowns as an integral part of medical teams performing invasive procedures and to include the clowns in all stages of the hospital visit.
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00981389.2016.1141826

(the next study) … speculate that (1) laughter evolved as an alternative mechanism for reinforcing social bonds in groups beyond those that can be maintained by grooming in primates (Dunbar, 2012) and (2) that this mechanism is mediated by opioid release in a network anchored to the brain structures mentioned above …
Our results show that social laughter triggers endogenous opioid release, which could provide a powerful way for modulating social bonds in groups. Together, these results suggest that the opioid system plays a key role in mammalian prosocial communication and possibly also in social bonding, in addition to the well known oxytocin and vasopressin systems (Young et al., 2001).
Date: 2017
Source: http://www.jneurosci.org/content/37/25/6125?ijkey=418fcc990e3d398718a99d4cd0f96ee507371f79&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha
Study: http://www.jneurosci.org/content/37/36/8581#ref-8

The appropriate use of humour is a valuable asset in nursing practice. Used daily in interactions with patients, humour can help to develop the therapeutic relationship and build resilience. This article discusses how humour can promote physiological and psychological wellbeing, while reducing stress and anxiety. Recommendations for including humour in patient care are outlined.
Date: 2014
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261101472_Using_humour_to_enhance_the_nurse-patient_relationship

A mirror mechanism for smiling in the anterior cingulate cortex.
The same leads exploring pACC showed an increase of gamma band activity (50-100 Hz) during the observation of video-clips depicting actors laughing, relative to video-clips depicting actors crying or producing a neutral expression. These findings indicate that both smile production and recognition are encoded in pACC and further support the role of this region in social cognition.
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27854442?access_num=27854442&link_type=MED&dopt=Abstract

The effect of humor on short-term memory in older adults: a new component for whole-person wellness.
CONCLUSION:
The study’s findings suggest that humor can have clinical benefits and rehabilitative implications and can be implemented in programs that support whole-person wellness for older adults. Learning ability and delayed recall are important to these individuals for a better quality of life–considering mind, body, spirit, social, and economic aspects. Older adults may have age-associated memory deficiencies. However, medical practitioners now can offer positive, enjoyable, and beneficial humor therapies to improve these deficiencies.
Date: 2014
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24682001

https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200011/the-science-laughter
Laughter bonds us through humor and play.
Humor may also help us cope with stress. In a study by Michelle Newman, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at Penn State University, subjects viewed a film about three grisly accidents and had to narrate it either in a humorous or serious style. Those who used the humorous tone had the lowest negative affect and tension.

Other research we studied:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2762283/

Other articles:
Excellent one: https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-health/laughter-is-the-best-medicine.htm
https://www.cancercenter.com/treatments/laughter-therapy/
http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu:8080/reporter/index.html?ID=4030

7. Emotion recognition – naming and matching with situations, how they feel in the body – and how it helps us manage emotions
Research:
Feeling the emotions in the body:
http://www.danielgoleman.info/daniel-goleman-develop-your-inner-radar-to-control-turbulent-emotions/ :
For this it helps to become aware of the gap between the provocation of an emotion, like anger, and our response. The same goes for our more mundane tensions, the ones we all face when whim and impulse contend with obligation and responsibility. A pause can help us sort out when those impulses and whims are just fine to act on and when obligation and responsibility matter more.
“Some people,” Paul Ekman notes, “have a large gap, some small.” Widening that gap makes us better able to manage our destructive emotions, as well as to make better life choices.
“This is not easy,” he adds, “because emotions evolved to make us respond immediately, without conscious thought.”
It can help to tune in to the ways our destructive emotions feel as they build in the body: When we’re getting annoyed, for instance, do we clench our jaw? Do we have certain familiar thoughts? Whatever the signals might be, we can use them in a kind of mental radar.

How well people can sense their heartbeat, in fact, has become a standard way to measure their self-awareness. The better people are at this, the bigger their insula.

http://www.danielgoleman.info/daniel-goleman-how-to-hear-your-inner-voice-2/

Interoception refers to the sensing of internal bodily changes. Interoception interacts with cognition and emotion, making measurement of individual differences in interoceptive ability broadly relevant to neuropsychology. However, inconsistency in how interoception is defined and quantified led to a three-dimensional model. Here, we provide empirical support for dissociation between dimensions of: (1) interoceptive accuracy (performance on objective behavioural tests of heartbeat detection), (2) interoceptive sensibility (self-evaluated assessment of subjective interoception, gauged using interviews/questionnaires) and (3) interoceptive awareness (metacognitive awareness of interoceptive accuracy, e.g. confidence-accuracy correspondence). In a normative sample (N=80), all three dimensions were distinct and dissociable. Interoceptive accuracy was only partly predicted by interoceptive awareness and interoceptive sensibility. Significant correspondence between dimensions emerged only within the sub-group of individuals with greatest interoceptive accuracy. These findings set the context for defining how the relative balance of accuracy, sensibility and awareness dimensions explain cognitive, emotional and clinical associations of interoceptive ability.
Date: 2015
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=25451381

The anterior insular cortex (AIC) is implicated in a wide range of conditions and behaviours, from bowel distension and orgasm, to cigarette craving and maternal love, to decision making and sudden insight. Its function in the re-representation of interoception offers one possible basis for its involvement in all subjective feelings. New findings suggest a fundamental role for the AIC (and the von Economo neurons it contains) in awareness, and thus it needs to be considered as a potential neural correlate of consciousness.
DATE: 2009
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=19096369

A new study suggests that the inner sense of our cardiovascular state, our “interoceptive awareness” of the heart pounding, relies on two independent pathways, contrary to what had been asserted by prominent researchers.
The researchers found that, in addition to a pathway involving the insular cortex of the brain — the target of most recent research on interoception — an additional pathway contributing to feeling your own heartbeat exists. The second pathway goes from fibers in the skin to most likely the somatosensory cortex, a part of the brain involved in mapping the outside of the body and the sense of posture.
Date: 2009
Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091102172041.htm

As humans, we perceive feelings from our bodies that relate our state of well-being, our energy and stress levels, our mood and disposition. How do we have these feelings? What neural processes do they represent? Recent functional anatomical work has detailed an afferent neural system in primates and in humans that represents all aspects of the physiological condition of the physical body. This system constitutes a representation of ‘the material me’, and might provide a foundation for subjective feelings, emotion and self-awareness.
DATE: 2002
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=12154366

Also much more here:
In support of this theory IA (interoceptive awareness) positively correlates with performance in decision-making tasks (Werner et al., 2009; Wolk et al., 2014).
Source: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00993/full

Interoceptive skills, typically assumed to aid intuitive decision making, can have the opposite effect in PD patients who experience interoceptive cues as threatening, and tend to avoid them. This may explain why PD patients frequently have problems with decision making in everyday life. Screening of cardiac perception may help identifying patients who benefit from specifically tailored interventions.
Date: 2014
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=24683516

8. Attention Bias Training and positive outlook in life – how it helps to grow the self-esteem
Research:
Cognitive-bias modification (CBM)
Very important validation for our game of choosing the faces that express joy:

Intervening with clinically anxious children in Britain and Australia
In three studies in Britain and Australia, clinically anxious children who played one of the games four times a week, for three weeks, showed a reduction in symptoms and, in many cases, were no longer diagnosed as anxious

Participants who played one of the games for five minutes:
 No longer had their attention automatically drawn toward frowning faces
 Felt less concerned about rejection
 Reported higher self-esteem (compared to a control condition) after a difficult intellectual task
Date: 2016
Source: https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/407197/
Date: 2015
Source: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/830e/815aef951a9b187870f55c2d2507ea7a6977.pdf
Date: 2012
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878929312000795

Source: http://www.mindhabits.com/how_it_works.php

Cognitive bias modification
Very promissing research, to read more here:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02699931.2016.1169999#

AND: http://baldwinlab.mcgill.ca/labmaterials/bbc/dotprobe/dotprobelearnmore.html
https://www.mcgill.ca/social-intelligence/files/social-intelligence/Cutting_off_stress_at_the_pass.pdf
http://www.mcgill.ca/social-intelligence/publications/specific-publications
http://www.mcgill.ca/social-intelligence/research
http://baldwinlab.mcgill.ca/labmaterials/materials_BBC.html
http://www.rainybrainsunnybrain.com/bbc-horizon/

TO READ MORE ABOUT IT
Cognitive-bias modification (CBM)
appears to be effective after only a few 15-minute sessions, and involves neither drugs nor the discussion of feelings. It does not even need a therapist. All it requires is sitting in front of a computer and using a program that subtly alters harmful thought patterns.
This simple approach has already been shown to work for anxiety and addictions, and is now being tested for alcohol abuse, post-traumatic-stress disorder and several other disturbances of the mind. It is causing great excitement among researchers. As Yair Bar-Haim, a psychologist at Tel Aviv University who has been experimenting with it on patients as diverse as children and soldiers, puts it, “It’s not often that a new evidence-based treatment for a major psychopathology comes around.”

CBM is based on the idea that many psychological problems are caused by automatic, unconscious biases in thinking. People suffering from anxiety, for instance, may have what is known as an attentional bias towards threats: they are drawn irresistibly to things they perceive to be dangerous. Similar biases may affect memory and the interpretation of events. For example, if an acquaintance walks past without saying hello, it might mean either that he has ignored you or that he has not seen you. The anxious, according to the theory behind CBM, have a bias towards assuming the former and reacting accordingly.
The goal of CBM is to alter such biases, and doing so has proved surprisingly easy. A common way of debiasing attention is to show someone two words or pictures—one neutral and the other threatening—on a computer screen. In the case of social anxiety these might be a neutral face and a disgusted face. Presented with this choice, an anxious person instinctively focuses on the disgusted visage. The program, however, prods him to complete tasks involving the neutral picture, such as identifying letters that appear in its place on the screen. Repeating the procedure around a thousand times, over a total of two hours, changes the user’s tendency to focus on the anxious face. That change is then carried into the wider world.

In a recent study of social anxiety by Norman Schmidt of Florida State University and his colleagues, which involved 36 volunteers who had been diagnosed with anxiety, half underwent eight short sessions of CBM and the rest were put in a control group and had no treatment. At the end of the study, a majority of the CBM volunteers no longer seemed anxious, whereas in the control group only 11% had shed their anxiety. Although it was only a small trial, these results compare favourably with those of existing treatments. An examination of standard talk therapy carried out in 2004, for instance, found that half of patients had a clinically significant reduction in symptoms. Trials of medications have similar success rates.

his study, conducted by Reinout Wiers of the University of Amsterdam and his colleagues, attempted to correct the approach bias to alcohol with CBM. The 214 participants received either a standard addiction treatment—a form of talk therapy—or the standard treatment plus four 15-minute sessions of CBM. In the first group, 41% of participants were abstinent a year later; in the second, 54%. That is not a cure for alcoholism, but it is a significant improvement on talk therapy alone.

Many other researchers are now exploring CBM. A team at Harvard, led by Richard McNally, is seeking volunteers for a month-long programme that will use smart-phones to assess the technique’s effect on anxiety. And Dr Bar-Haim and his team are examining possible connections between cognitive biases and post-traumatic-stress disorder in the American and Israeli armies.

Source: https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2011/03/03/therapist-free-therapy

More about it here:
http://www.rainybrainsunnybrain.com/bbc-horizon/
http://baldwinlab.mcgill.ca/labmaterials/materials_BBC.html

9. Changing the meta-emotions by getting in touch with and helping our characters. Children and adults help the characters use the emotions and they get to see how all emotions can be used in their advantages. People of all ages also get to experience gradual desensitization
The present study explores the role of (1) ‘‘experiential avoidance” (being non-accepting towards mental events) and (2) ‘‘mindful awareness” (being attentive in the present moment) in the prediction of wellbeing. These established constructs are newly complemented with (3) ‘‘meta-emotions” (emotional reactions about one’s own emotions) that allow for a meaningful differentiation of processes in experiential avoidance. Psychometric properties of the newly developed Meta-Emotion Scale (MES) are presented. Psychological well-being is strongly predicted by all three facets
In the present study, meta-emotions were found to exert a powerful influence on well-being over and above EA/mindfulness. To maintain well-being, it might be as rewarding to minimize negative meta-emotions and to have an accepting stance towards one’s own emotions (i.e., mindfulness/acceptance and the ‘‘eudaimonic” perspective; Ryan & Deci, 2001) as to minimize negative emotions (the ‘‘hedonic” perspective).
Date: 2008
Source: http://www.edbatista.com/files/2016/When-You-Don’t-Like-What-You-Feel.pdf

In some cases, metaemotional self-regulation involves the regulation of ongoing emotions. For example, if a sudden strike of anxiety triggers negative metaemotional experiences (e.g., being anxious of one’s ongoing anxiety), one may attempt to alleviate the primary emotion by distracting oneself from the object or situation that triggered it, or by mechanisms like reappraisal or suppression. Here, metaemotional strategies involve the application of strategies for the control of current emotion. However metaemotional self-regulation may sometimes occur at a more superordinate level. First, they may relate to the prediction and control of future emotions (e.g., being anxious about one’s future anxiety). Second, they may involve identification of current emotions, monitoring of changes in one’s emotional state, planning of strategies to be applied later, regulating one’s emotions in case they deviate from predicted emotions, and evaluating the outcome of emotional regulation attempts.2
For instance, Mitmansgruber et al. (2009) argue that the quality of metaemotion provides information about regulatory processes operating on the target emotion—for example, being angry about one’s anxiety may influence the experience of the primary anxiety and lead to attempts to alleviate it. This is different from experiencing compassion about anxiety. Here metaemotional experiences (of, e.g., anxiety or compassion) seem to influence the application of metaemotional strategies (e.g., attempting to alleviate anxiety). In addition, both the phenomenal quality of the metaemotion and which regulatory metaemotional strategies are initiated, may be influenced by metacognitive knowledge of, for example, whether it would be appropriate/normal to experience and express anxiety in the given situation. Mendonça (2013) also presents an interesting example where awareness of metaemotion can reduce interpersonal conflict by helping people to shift perspective and take on a more collaborative attitude. This could be seen as a case where introspection on metaemotional experience may generalize or transform to metaemotional knowledge, which in turn influences the person’s metaemotional strategies.
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4820014/

Other research we used:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Eva_Baenninger-Huber/publication/268979201_Looking_into_Meta-Emotions/links/56a09d2808ae4af5254acdb2/Looking-into-Meta-Emotions.pdf
Date: 2014

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232553725_Meta-thoughts_on_the_role_of_meta-emotion_in_children’s_development_Comment
Date: ?

Higher depressive severity was associated with higher likelihood of meta-emotional experiences and specifically negative-negative experiences.

Of the four subtypes of meta-emotional experiences, NN meta-emotional experiences were the most frequently reported. That is, when people reported a meta-emotional experience, they were typically experiencing negative emotions about their own negative emotions. People reported, for example, feeling sad about feeling disappointed; feeling guilty about feeling frustrated; and feeling anxious about feeling angry. PP meta-emotional experiences were the second most commonly reported subtype. These findings support our hypothesis that NN and PP meta-emotional experiences would be most frequently reported, and is in line with the hedonic theory of emotion regulation (Riediger et al., 2009).
…
In agreement with our hypothesis, the data showed that higher depression is associated with higher likelihood of having NN meta-emotional experiences.
…
As noted, existing non-acceptance literature has found that feeling and thinking negatively toward negative emotions is associated with depressive symptoms, supporting the hypothesized relation between NN meta-emotional experiences and depression (Campbell-Sills et al., 2006; Sauer-Zavala et al., 2007).
…
Firstly, these data reinforce that we should focus on negative emotions toward negative emotions in patients with depressive symptoms.
…
Our data might also explain why mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is effective for preventing relapse in patients in remission from MDD (Hofmann, Sawyer, Witt, & Oh, 2010; Piet & Hougaard, 2011): the encouragement of acceptance of negative thoughts and feelings might help patients reduce NN meta-emotional experiences. While patients might still experience negative emotions, they might be less likely to experience a negative secondary emotional reaction.
…
Because our measure does not assess cognitive appraisals of emotions, our findings provide evidence that the meta-emotion aspect of non-acceptance is associated with depression.

Date: 2016
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30080076
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326856427_Meta-Emotions_in_Daily_Life_Associations_With_Emotional_Awareness_and_Depression
Source: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4e8f/2542eb0ebbc5799dfc250af9668b64dfabe6.pdf

Fears of negative emotions in relation to fears of happiness, compassion, alexithymia and psychopathology in a depressed population: A preliminary study
Results: Interestingly fears of negative emotions were not correlated with each other; in other words one can be frightened of one negative emotion but not another. The correlation between the fear of an emotion and the avoidance of that emotion was different for the three negative emotions, with fear of anger being the most strongly linked to its avoidance. Fear of sadness was the only feared ‘negative’ emotion associated with depression. Fear of sadness and fear of anger, but not anxiety also linked to fears of positive emotions and alexithymia. Conclusions: Fears of (so called) negative emotions vary in terms of the degree to which people are fearful of them and avoid them. Importantly it was sadness, a neglected emotion in the studies of emotion avoidance, which accounted for the higher proportion of variance for depression and alexithymia.
Date: 2014
Source: https://derby.openrepository.com/derby/handle/10545/621736
AND: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Fears-of-Negative-Emotions-in-Relation-to-Fears-of-Gilbert-McEwan/516472794a91251fd474d056217a8e043236db09

Emotional coaching and meta-emotions:
This work suggests that PCIT (Parent–child interaction therapy) with parent emotion coaching (PCIT-ECo) may be a promising treatment approach for young children with ADHD. Future research will need to examine this adaptation relative to standard PCIT to determine whether our integration of parent emotion coaching results in added improvement in child ER, internalizing and externalizing problems, and functional impairment.
Date: 2014
Source: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1077722914001266
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjhp.12242/full

te read more – maybe it is not the altruistic behavior but the tendency to care more about others than about the self:
Guilt, fear, submission, and empathy in depression
Results: Depressed patients were significantly higher in survivor guilt, omnipotent responsibility guilt, submissive behavior, fear of negative evaluation, fear of envy, and empathic distress, and lower in social comparison. Limitations: This research was limited in that it was a correlational study. Conclusions: This study suggests that altruistic concern about others may be an important factor in depression and submissive behavior. Evolutionary implications of these findings are discussed.
Date: 2002
Source: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032701004086

It may at first glance appear paradoxical to propose that accepting negative emotions would lead to less negative emotion. However, there are multiple reasons why individuals who accept negative emotions and thoughts would experience less negative emotion: they are less likely to ruminate, which perpetuates negative emotions (Ciesla, Reilly, Dickson, Emanuel, & Updegraff, 2012; Mennin & Fresco, 2013), less likely to try to suppress mental experiences, which can backfire (Masedo & Esteve, 2007; Wegner, Schneider, Carter III, & White, 1987), and less likely to experience negative meta-emotional reactions such as feeling guilty about feeling angry (Mitmansgruber, Beck, Höfer, & Schüßler, 2009). Thus, when people accept (versus judge) their mental experiences, those experiences run their natural – and relatively short-lived – course, rather than being exacerbated (Simons & Gaher, 2005). As a consequence, acceptance should promote overall lower levels of negative emotion (Campbell-Sills et al., 2006; Singer & Dobson, 2007).

Laboratory research has begun to provide support for this idea. Individuals who habitually accept their mental experiences more (vs. less), and who were then exposed to a negative emotion induction, experienced lower levels of negative emotion. This pattern has been observed in the context of completing a physiologically stressful carbon dioxide challenge task (Feldner, Zvolensky, Eifert, & Spira, 2003; Karekla, Forsyth, & Kelly, 2004), working on a frustrating image-tracing task (Feldman, Lavalle, Gildawie, & Greeson, 2016), watching negative film clips (Liverant, Brown, Barlow, & Roemer, 2008; Shallcross, Troy, Boland, & Mauss, 2010), and viewing negative images (Ostafin, Brooks, & Laitem, 2014). Other studies have provided causal evidence, finding that participants who were asked to engage in acceptance (vs. comparison conditions) during a negative emotion induction experienced less negative emotion (Campbell-Sills et al., 2006; Dunn, Billotti, Murphy, & Dalgleish, 2009; Feldner et al., 2003; Huffziger & Kuehner, 2009; Kuehner, Huffziger, & Liebsch, 2009; Levitt, Brown, Orsillo, & Barlow, 2004; Wolgast, Lundh, & Viborg, 2011).

Building upon these laboratory findings, one study found that negative emotional responses to stressors may play a role in the link between acceptance and psychological health: undergraduate students who reported higher habitual acceptance reported less negative emotion in response to several negative images in a laboratory task, which in turn partially accounted for fewer concurrent anxiety symptoms (Ostafin et al., 2014). This investigation represents an important step toward understanding the mechanisms that account for the psychological health benefits of acceptance. As the next step, it is crucial to assess this mechanism as it unfolds in daily life: emotional responses to day-to-day negative contexts (e.g., daily stressors) should reflect the emotional experiences that accumulate to shape psychological health (Almeida, 2005).

To our knowledge, only two investigations have examined whether habitual acceptance predicts emotional responses to daily stressors. First, in a sample of undergraduates who completed seven daily diaries, students higher (vs. lower) in habitual acceptance felt less sad on days when they had more frequent stress-inducing ‘executive functioning lapses’ (e.g., being late for something important) (Feldman et al., 2016). Second, in a sample of adolescents who completed seven daily diaries, youths higher (vs. lower) in habitual acceptance felt less sad on days that were more stressful (Ciesla et al., 2012). These studies begin to suggest that habitual acceptance may play a role in daily emotional responses to stress. However, very little empirical research has examined the underlying mechanisms through which acceptance may be linked with greater psychological health. Next, we describe the limitations of the existing research and how the present investigation addresses them.

The tendency to accept versus judge one’s mental experiences represents a fundamental individual difference that should have key implications for downstream outcomes. Although many ideas remain to be tested, the present studies provide replicated evidence that the psychological health benefits of acceptance are wide-reaching, apply to diverse individuals, are robust to potential confounds, and are at least in part due to the role of acceptance in helping individuals experience less negative emotion in response to stressors.

The Breadth and Generalizability of the Benefits of Acceptance The present investigation provides several types of evidence consistent with the notion that the benefits of accepting mental experiences are relatively broad and generalizable. First, perhaps because acceptance and related phenomena were originally examined within clinical psychology (Baer, 2003; Ma & Teasdale, 2004; Segal, Williams, & Teasdale, 2002), much of the early research on acceptance focused on clinical samples (e.g., individuals with mood or anxiety disorders) and on clinically relevant outcomes (e.g., mood or anxiety disorder symptoms). Our findings show that acceptance may be useful not just for attenuating mood disorder symptoms for individuals with disorders. Rather, acceptance may be beneficial even for healthy individuals and across a broad range of facets of psychological health. Specifically, we found that healthy individuals (both undergraduates and community samples) who were more (vs. less) likely to accept their mental experiences also experienced greater psychological health, whether health was assessed cross-sectionally (Study 1) or longitudinally (Study 3). Given that well-being is not redundant with ill-being (Ryff & Keyes, 1995), it is meaningful to know this pattern was found not only for mood disorder symptoms (e.g., depressive and anxiety symptoms) but also across several facets of positive psychological health, including greater eudaimonic well-being (e.g., sense of purpose in life) and cognitive-evaluative well-being (e.g., satisfaction with life).

To understand the generalizability of the benefits of accepting mental experiences, it was also important to examine whether these benefits were present across diverse participants. This is a particularly relevant question given that some forms of emotion regulation have been shown to be differentially useful for certain groups of people. For example, recent research suggests that reappraisal is less beneficial for individuals from higher compared to lower socioeconomic status (Troy, Ford, McRae, Zarolia, & Mauss, 2016). In the present studies, across four samples and several indices of psychological health, we found that the links between acceptance and both negative emotion and psychological health were not significantly moderated by several key demographic features, including gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Although it is prudent to interpret null results with caution, these results are consistent with acceptance being a relatively versatile approach from which many individuals can benefit.

We also found that the links between acceptance and both negative emotion and psychological health were not significantly moderated by life stress, suggesting that acceptance is beneficial for those experiencing a variety of levels of life stress. This finding is inconsistent with a prior finding that acceptance is more beneficial for individuals experiencing higher (vs. lower) levels of life stress (Shallcross et al., 2010). The difference in findings may be due to a difference in measurement, as Shallcross and colleagues used the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (Hayes et al., 2004), which was designed to assess experiential avoidance (e.g., “I try hard to avoid feeling depressed or anxious”), and may be different from measures that target accepting vs. judging mental experiences (cf. Thompson & Waltz, 2010). Within the present investigation, we found no statistical evidence that life stress moderates the link between acceptance and psychological health across two different kinds of samples (undergraduate females in Study 1 and community males and females in Study 3), two study designs (crosssectional in Study 1 and longitudinal in Study 3), as well as five measures of psychological health (well-being, life satisfaction, depressive symptoms, trait anxiety, and anxiety symptoms, all of which were included in both Study 1 and 3). Overall, the replicated analyses across the present studies suggest that the benefits of acceptance do not hinge on experiencing higher vs. lower levels of stress.
Date: 2017
Source: https://eerlab.berkeley.edu/pdf/papers/Ford_etal_inpress_Acceptance.pdf
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28703602
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318408721_The_Psychological_Health_Benefits_of_Accepting_Negative_Emotions_and_Thoughts_Laboratory_Diary_and_Longitudinal_Evidence

families with anxiety disordered (AD; n = 74) and non-AD (n = 35) children (aged 7 to 15)
Results indicated that compared to parents of non-AD youth, parents of AD youth were less aware of their own emotions and their children’s emotions, and these results varied by emotion type. Parents of AD youth engaged in significantly less emotion coaching than parents of non-AD youth. AD youth were identified as having significantly greater difficulty regulating their emotions when compared to non-AD youth. Implications for the role of parental meta-emotional philosophy and AD youth’s emotion regulation are discussed.
First, the results have highlighted that parents of AD children are less likely than parents of non-AD children to have an emotion coaching philosophy when responding to their children’s emotions. This is a novel finding and may be important for clinical treatments and theoretical advances. Second, AD children were significantly less likely to show emotion regulation than non-AD children. Finally, there was generally agreement across the multiple methods of measurement used in this study. Future research on AD children should consider the role of parents’ meta-emotion philosophies when examining parenting practices and investigate how parents’ beliefs about meta-emotions may drive their emotion coaching behaviours and impact children’s socio-emotional functioning. It may also be worthwhile to extend this study by observing emotion coaching during family discussions that involve both positive and negative emotions.
Date: 2017
Source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10802-016-0180-6
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5355507/
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27370681
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304713659_Parental_Meta-Emotion_Philosophy_and_Emotion_Coaching_in_Families_of_Children_and_Adolescents_with_an_Anxiety_Disorder

Perceived social pressure not to experience negative emotion is linked to selective attention for negative information

Previous research has shown that social expectancies (the perceived social pressure not to feel negative emotion (NE)) exacerbate feelings of sadness.

The findings suggest that, for people who experience many NE’s (perceived social pressure not to feel negative emotion), social expectancies may lead to discrepancies between how they think they ought to feel and the kind of emotional information they pay attention to.

Source: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02699931.2015.1103702

Scale to measure meta-emotions for students:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pits.21910

Teachers meta-emotions are expected to matter:
These are: (a) An emotion-coaching meta-emotion philosophy – for instance an awareness and acceptance of emotions, using emotions as opportunities to learn. (b) A dismissing meta-emotion philosophy – for instance a non-awareness of emotions, but also a view that negative emotions are harmful and should be avoided or minimized (c) A disapproving meta-emotion philosophy – where emotions are seen as mostly negative and where one disapproves of emotions as part of the learning process.
Source: http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A919847&dswid=1896
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312147219_Teachers’_Meta-Emotion_Philosophies_and_Climate_Change_Education

The importance to trust our emotions, trust as a meta-emotions so we can learn to cooperate with our emotions
The aim of this article is to present trust as a meta‐emotion, such that it is an emotion that precedes first‐order emotions. It examines how trust can be considered a meta‐emotion by establishing criteria for identifying trust as a meta‐emotion. How trust plays out differently in aesthetic and ordinary contexts can provide another mode for investigating meta‐emotions. The article illustrates how it is possible to recognize these meta‐emotions in narratives. Finally, it presents one of the aims of trust, sharing knowledge between agents, when someone who provides testimony shares knowledge in an epistemic trust process with others. It shows a relationship construction between subjects and objects thanks to the trust, a meta‐emotion that represents emotional ties between subjects to achieve another emotion.
Date: 2017
Source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/meta.12255

Positive meta-cognitions and meta-emotions facilitate marital adjustment

The positive metacognitions and meta-emotions measured by PMCEQ measures adaptive metacognitive beliefs people hold about their own cognitive and emotional processes. The study aimed to examine the independent and interaction effects of ‘gender’ (men & women) and ‘levels (low & high) of facets of positive metacognitions and meta-emotions’ on marital consensus, affectional expression, marital cohesion, marital satisfaction and overall marital adjustment. For this purpose, 318 spouses (159 husbands & 159 wives) were purposively sampled
…
The findings demonstrated that high level of positive metacognitions and meta-emotions manifest significantly better marital adjustment in married couples.
Date: 2017
Source: https://search.proquest.com/openview/e08d04eed2c9454b3678a6c6e343c3d0/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=2032134

Role of positive meta-cognitions and meta-emotions in satisfaction with life
Objective of this study was to examine the effect of positive meta-cognition and meta-emotions (PMCEQ-H) on satisfaction with life.
The study was conducted on 20 to 50 years old 300 (150 men & 150 women) conveniently sampled participants from the Chowk area of Varanasi city of India.
Post hoc analyses demonstrated significantly higher satisfaction with life in men than in women with respect to PMCEQ-H1 and PMCEQ-H2 facets of positive metacognitions and metaemotions. Moreover, high than low scorer participants on the three facets of PMCEQ-H, displayed significantly higher satisfaction with life. The findings indicated facilitating effects of positive metacognitions and metaemotions on life satisfaction.
Date: 2017
Source: https://search.proquest.com/openview/8af3d5095c3d1cfe177eaa869d203955/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=2032133

Parenting styles and their implications:
In 1997, Gottman published papers after researching the formation of meta-emotions and categorised three types of parental approaches (philosophy). You may recognise how you were raised in these three categories. I think you’ll find a dominant category but don’t be surprised if you see a mix when it came to particular emotions or to different parents (mum or dad)
Dismissive Approach
“Don’t feel like that!”
This is when the parents ignore or deny a child’s raw-emotion, generally their child’s negative emotions (sadness or anger). This is because they believe these emotions could be harmful to the child. So, they do their best to quickly alleviate these negative emotions. Gottman discovered parents who do this “are often unable to provide insight into their child’s emotions and do not view negative emotions as an opportunity for growth or intimacy.”
Disapproving Approach
“Don’t feel!”
These parents simply don’t approve of ANY kind of raw emotional expression – positive or negative. “Stop laughing.” “Stop Crying.” “Don’t get angry!” When children grow up in this household, they start viewing emotions as inappropriate and invalid. This makes regulating emotion very difficult. Gottman adds, “For disapproving parents, negative emotions require a disciplinary response. Some disapproving parents may view their child’s negative emotions as a means by which the child is attempting to manipulate or control the parent.”
Emotional Coach Approach
“Let’s connect and examine this feeling.”
These parents are not only aware of their children’s emotions, they are aware of their own and are able to regulate their own. They can talk to their children about their emotions and help them understand and express them appropriately. Safe connection is central to this approach. Children learn to regulate their negative emotions and understand their impact. “You are allowed to be angry, but hitting your brother because you are angry is going to come with consequences.” I love what Gottman says here: “A crucial aspect of the emotion-coaching philosophy is that the parent utilizes the child’s negative emotions to form an emotional connection with their child, primarily for the reasons of intimacy and teaching.”
I would add a 4th to this approach list as some others have done.
Over Permissive Approach
“Feel and express any way you like.”
This parent simply allows the child to express their emotions with little input. If there is input, it may sound like, “Show the world honey! If your teacher is making you angry, tell them off! If that boy teases you, punch them in the face if you like.” This parent doesn’t give words, frame or validation to any emotion. They want their child to ‘be free’ to express themselves. The result is a child who can’t regulate emotions and manage them in a socially healthy way.

Source: https://www.davidtensen.com/feeling-about-feelings/

Fears of compassion and happiness in relation to alexithymia, mindfulness, and self-criticism.

RESULTS:
The results showed that fears of compassion for self, from others and in particular fear of happiness, were highly linked to different aspects of alexithymia, mindfulness, empathy, self-criticism and depression, anxiety and stress. Especially noteworthy was the very high correlation between fear of happiness and depression (r= .70).
CONCLUSION:
While the development of positive emotions, especially those linked to affiliation and connectedness are increasingly seen as important therapeutic targets, little research has focused on the blocks and fears to positive emotions. This study used newly developed fears of positive affect scales (e.g., compassion and happiness) to explore these aspects and found they were significantly linked to psychopathology variables self-criticism and difficulties such as alexithymia.
Date: 2012
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23080529
AND: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232320943_Fears_of_compassion_and_happiness_in_relation_to_alexithymia_mindfulness_and_self-criticism_Psychology_and_Psychotherapy_Theory_Research_and_Practice_854_374-390

More on the subject:
https://www.uibk.ac.at/philtheol/jaeger/publ/looking-into-meta-emotions-jaeger-final-version-october-30-2014.pdf
https://philpapers.org/rec/JGELIM
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Eva_Baenninger-Huber/publication/268979201_Looking_into_Meta-Emotions/links/56a09d2808ae4af5254acdb2/Looking-into-Meta-Emotions.pdf

10. Oxytocin, it’s effects and how to natural generate it by hugging and other activities, by seeing cute images, movies, stories – and how it can help us cope with fear, pain and anxiety

Research:
Studies in humans have demonstrated pain-relieving effects of OXY, particularly in experimental measures of deep tissue sensation (ischemic pain/muscle pain) or in deep tissue pain disorders (irritable bowel syndrome, migraine).
Date: 2015
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4276444/

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg have now discovered a small population of neurons that coordinate the release of oxytocin into the blood and also stimulate cells in the spinal cord. Stimulation of these cells increases oxytocin levels in the body and also has a pain-relieving effect.
Date: 2017
https://www.mpg.de/10353789/exytocin-pain-relief

Watching movies may help you build empathy
Many scientists have studied the link between storytelling and empathy. A study conducted by Paul Zak (a neuroeconomist who studies human decision-making) and William Casebeer (a nuerobiologist who studies how stories affect the human brain), showed that watching a compelling narrative can alter brain chemistry.
When the study’s participants were shown a film about a father raising a son with terminal cancer, their brains responded by creating two neurochemicals: cortisol and oxytocin. Cortisol focuses attention by triggering a sense of distress, while oxytocin generates empathy by triggering our sense of care.
Date: 2015
Source: https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-10-21/watching-movies-may-help-you-build-empathy

Hugging keeps the cold away:
https://health.usnews.com/health-news/health-wellness/articles/2016-02-03/the-health-benefits-of-hugging

Those subjects receiving oxytocin had increased activity in the prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain responsible for getting fear under control—and decreased amygdala responsiveness when exposed to the now-benign images that subjects had been conditioned to find frightening. Physical manifestations of fear, namely sweating, were also decreased in the treated group. The results, published October 29 in Biological Psychiatry, suggest that just a single dose of oxytocin may effectively enhance extinction-based therapies for fear and anxiety conditions.
“It would be far too early to give recommendations for a clinical use of oxytocin,” Eckstein cautions. “However, there is a large body of research suggesting a potential therapeutic role in various disorders in the future.” Though results were based on observation rather than fMRI findings, a smaller study published last year by Acheson and colleagues reported that intranasal oxytocin facilitates fear extinction in humans. Oxytocin also attenuates hyperactive amygdalas in social anxiety disorder and is being explored as a potential treatment for PTSD.
“In our previous work, it was found that a single-dose administration of OXT potentiates episodic encoding of aversive events (Striepens et al, 2012) as well as the extinction of conditioned fear (Eckstein et al, 2014b) by amplifying activity in extra-amygdalar regions, including insular cortex, precuneus, and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. In the present study, OXT enhanced pMCC responses to social stimuli during fear conditioning, which is consistent with findings in mice suggesting that OXT specifically facilitates social fear conditioning (Zoicas et al, 2014). Taken together with previous research (Eckstein et al, 2014a; Striepens et al, 2012), this study presents a model of OXT as an enhancer of adaptation in social contexts.
”
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4748433/

Date: 2014
Source: http://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223%2814%2900795-1/abstract

Date: 2014
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24659430
Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-fear-be-erased/

Date: 2015
Surce: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25542304

“In summary, there is profound evidence for an important role of the OXT system in general anxiety and social fear, in addition to its many prosocial effects.“
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006322315004783

19) Oxytocin
Oxytocin increases vagal nerve activity from the brain to the gut (in the brain and orally ingested) (R), which induces relaxation and decreases appetite.
Mice who had their vagus taken out didn’t have the appetite-reducing effects of oxytocin (R).

“Oxytocin actually reinforces extinction: Under its influence, the expectation of recurrent fear subsequently abates to a greater extent than without this messenger,” says study director Prof. Hurlemann, summarizing the result.
Source: https://www.uni-bonn.de/Press-releases/oxytocin-helps-to-better-overcome-fear

Among its many functions, the wonder hormone (oxytocin) plays a role in your orgasm, eases your anxiety, and allows you to be cool in front of strangers, says Zak. And although the exact mechanism for why this chemical is released may be unclear, Zak explains that it’s released when there is an appropriate social stimulus (which is stimulation provided by people and interactions).
Craving some extra “O”? Throw on a drama. “Oxytocin allows us to connect at an emotional level, so naturally watching emotional movies triggers its release,” Zak says. Need some inspiration? Check out our list of 10 guy-friendly romantic movies.
Source: http://news.menshealth.com/unleash-your-brains-happy-chemical/2012/03/07/

Thus, experiments have shown that if people are able to control their facial expressions during moments of pain, there is less arousal of the autonomic nervous system and an actual diminution of the pain experience.
Source: http://www.mediate.com/articles/cloke8.cfm

An interesting experiment suggests that higher levels of oxytocin can help people better “decode” the emotional meanings of facial expressions. Researchers had 30 young adult males inhale oxytocin (the “cuddle” hormone) and then examine photographs of other people’s eyes. Compared to men given a placebo, the oxytocin men were better at interpreting the emotions of the people in the photographs (Domes et al 2006).
So perhaps kids will find it easier to understand the emotional signals of others if they are well-supplied with their own, naturally-produced oxytocin. Oxytocin is released when people experience pleasant touching (like hugs and massage). It’s also produced when people engage in pleasant social interactions (Uvnäs-Moberg 2003).
http://www.parentingscience.com/teaching-empathy-tips.html

What is this molecule:
http://io9.com/5925206/10-reasons-why-oxytocin-is-the-most-amazing-molecule-in-the-world
http://www.moralmolecule.com/The-Moral-Molecule/Ways-to-Raise-Oxytocin.html?range1=allafter&range2=2012-01-01

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/02/25/the-bonding-hormone-that-might-cure-autism.html

Another article about Oxytocin, the Empathy Hormone. “10 Reasons Why Oxytocin Is The Most Amazing Molecule In The World: New research is suggesting that oxytocin plays a crucial part in enabling us to not just forge and strengthen our social relations, but in helping us to stave off a number of psychological and physiological problems as well….. Here are ten reasons why oxytocin is simply the most incredible molecule on the planet:

1. It’s easy to get…
2. A love potion that’s built right in…
3. It helps mom to be mom…
4. Reduces social fears…
5. Healing and pain relief..
6. A diet aid…
7. An antidepressant…
8. Stress relief…
9. Increases generosity…
10. It’s what makes us human…”

• Give someone a hug
• Introduce yourself to someone new
• Make someone smile by being silly
• Share a meal
• Dance
• Make music with someone
• Join a choir
• Kiss
• Give someone a massage

Other research on the topic:

Love Hormone Oxytocin Relieves Pain

Something about social support and oxytocin – mostly about “The Relationship Between Self-Labeling Child Abuse, Disclosure, Social Support, and Posttraumatic Symptoms in an Inpatient Sample”
https://search.proquest.com/openview/5841a3ffcd97c4e8bbf215c7bc2b7ff3/1.pdf?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y

https://www.google.com/search?q=Oxytocin,+Trauma+Disclosure+and+Intrusions&source=lnt&tbs=qdr:y&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjG5pzI-sXaAhXLa1AKHXATBs4QpwUIIA&biw=1280&bih=653
https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=mFHYWtP_CYyRsAeXxhU&q=research+bonn+hospital+oxytocin+fear&oq=research+bonn+hospital+oxytocin+fear&gs_l=psy-ab.3..33i160k1l2.836.9394.0.9578.37.36.0.0.0.0.132.3207.31j5.36.0….0…1.1.64.psy-ab..1.32.2838.0..0j46j35i39k1j0i46k1j0i203k1j0i10k1j0i22i30k1j33i21k1j33i22i29i30k1.0.AHEBbav8rd8
https://www.uni-bonn.de/Press-releases/oxytocin-helps-to-better-overcome-fear
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4445577/
https://scholar.google.ro/scholar?q=oxytocin+fear+response&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjQ3_iJ38TaAhVC3KQKHeS9BRoQgQMIJjAA
https://scholar.google.ro/scholar?as_ylo=2014&q=oxytocin+fear+response&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1
http://www.psyneuen-journal.com/article/S0306-4530(13)00336-3/abstract
https://scholar.google.ro/scholar?q=smiling+increases+one%27s+oxytocin+levels&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjouqXY3MTaAhVNzqQKHfgKBfYQgQMIJjAA
https://www.hindustantimes.com/fitness/oxytocin-plays-crucial-role-in-helping-us-understand-social-cues/story-NOGloxAY3cYLhmGdwPBSrN.html
https://www.hindustantimes.com/fitness/oxytocin-plays-crucial-role-in-helping-us-understand-social-cues/story-NOGloxAY3cYLhmGdwPBSrN.html
https://www.deccanchronicle.com/lifestyle/health-and-wellbeing/220118/oxytocin-the-love-hormone-helps-brain-process-social-signals-study.html
https://engagenow.biz/blog/2018/2/1/3v2mjb652k92xb8tsj0kzi2rw2hh7j
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/the-strange-thing-that-happens-in-you-brain-when-you-hear-a-good-story-and-how-to-use-it-to-your-advantage
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerdooley/2013/02/26/fake-smile/#3b0af7eb3676
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/275795.php
https://www.google.com/search?q=research+smile+oxytocin&ei=gLTXWpiqM8m4kwXX1ruADg&start=10&sa=N&biw=1280&bih=653
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312143934_The_analgesic_effects_of_oxytocin_in_the_peripheral_and_central_nervous_system
https://www.practicalpainmanagement.com/treatments/oxytocin-opioid-alternative-ready-regular-clinical-use-manage-chronic-pain
https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=bqfXWra9FY20sAf9iJe4Ag&q=pain-relieving+effect+of+oxytocin&oq=pain-relieving+effect+of+oxytocin&gs_l=psy-ab.3..33i22i29i30k1.1926.1926.0.2088.2.1.0.0.0.0.116.116.0j1.1.0….0…1.1.64.psy-ab..1.1.116.0…0.XfahbkKWCZ0

Love Hormone Oxytocin Relieves Pain

https://www.nature.com/articles/mp2014132
https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04504.x
https://scholar.google.ro/scholar?start=10&q=oxytocin+neuroscience+children+cancer&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4445577/
https://www.google.ro/search?biw=1280&bih=653&ei=d48WWrKNOoGTsAfIz6KgBQ&q=oxytocin+helps+fear+processing&oq=oxytocin+helps+fear+processing&gs_l=psy-ab.3…30840.33775.0.33963.11.11.0.0.0.0.111.1016.9j2.11.0….0…1.1.64.psy-ab..0.8.734…33i22i29i30k1j33i160k1j33i21k1.0.g-MZGsFa39Y
https://www.uni-bonn.de/Press-releases/oxytocin-helps-to-better-overcome-fear
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5400019/
https://www.nature.com/articles/npp2010123
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627308003279
https://scholar.google.ro/scholar?q=oxytocin+helps+fear+processing&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwixu9yFrNTXAhWBGuwKHch3B-sQgQMIJTAA
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-fear-be-erased/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201507/cortisol-and-oxytocin-hardwire-fear-based-memories

To see the source:
What generates oxytocin:
Random Acts of Kindness
Watch a Movie
Eat — Sure, most of us eat from time to time, but are you really eating? I mean, are you really paying attention to what you’re putting in your mouth? Taking the time to taste your food can release oxytocin, and sharing a meal with someone increases that likelihood.

11. Emotional Coaching – and how it can help us enhance our capacity to manage emotions – episode for adults and children together
Research:
The Introduction of Emotion Coaching as a Whole School Approach in a Primary Specialist Social Emotional and Mental Health Setting: Positive Outcomes for All
Perspectives from pupils, staff, and families were gained via interviews and structured questionnaires alongside quantitative measures of pupil academic progress and staff and pupil behavior. Results: Results indicate that Emotion Coaching improved the pupil’s ability to regulate their feelings and had a positive effect upon teacher-pupil relationships. Family-school relationships were supported by the school’s use of and modeling of Emotion Coaching with families and the ethos of attunement and non-judgemental interactions implicit in Emotion Coaching. Emotion Coaching promoted an increase in shared emotional language and trust. Shared emotional language and trust were key in the development of both teacher-pupil and family-school relationships. There was an improvement in well-being in that: rates of pupil restraint decreased, pupils made better than expected academic progress, staff absenteeism reduced, and families reported improved family life. Conclusion: We conclude that Emotion Coaching contributes to the promotion of sustainable, holistic improvement in wellbeing for pupils, school staff, and families.
Date: 2017
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320450155_The_Introduction_of_Emotion_Coaching_as_a_Whole_School_Approach_in_a_Primary_Specialist_Social_Emotional_and_Mental_Health_Setting_Positive_Outcomes_for_All

Emotion Coaching: A universal strategy for supporting and promoting sustainable emotional and behavioural well-being

This paper positions Emotion Coaching as a universal strategy for supporting sustainable emotional and behavioural well-being within community and educational contexts. It offers Emotion Coaching as an effective strategy that promotes resiliency skills and locates it within the broader social agenda. The paper will address the key elements of Emotion Coaching which reflect a bio-psycho-social model for universal well-being and are informed by theory and research from neuro-science, interpersonal neurobiology, developmental psychology and attachment theory. The paper will review the growing international evidence base for Emotion Coaching and its multi-disciplinary application to a range of professional and personal contexts. Emotion Coaching helps to create nurturing relationships that scaffold the development of effective stress management skills, develop capacities to promote emotional and behavioural self-regulation and support pro-social behaviours. We argue that Emotion Coaching is a simple, cost-effective, empowering and universal tool that can harness wel

It is the qualities of interpersonal relationships between children and key adults that is considered significant and integral to this discussion.
This paper proposes that Emotion Coaching can be both a technique (or tool) and a philosophical approach to emotions (Gilbert, 2013). Emotion Coaching supports the relationship between children and key adults, with the goal of improving children’s competencies to manage difficult feelings. It can be used as an ‘in the moment’ technique to manage and guide a child whose behavioural response may be inappropriate or unproductive for their own and others’ wellbeing, as well as an integrative tool to develop relationships with children and improve their emotional well-being. It is a multi-disciplinary approach that can be used in any community and educational context.
Date: 2015
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Janet_Rose5/publication/275041216_Emotion_Coaching_A_universal_strategy_for_supporting_and_promoting_sustainable_emotional_and_behavioural_well-being/links/556d9be408aefcb861d87bad/Emotion-Coaching-A-universal-strategy-for-supporting-and-promoting-sustainable-emotional-and-behavioural-well-being.pdf

12. Showing How Mental States And Illusions Affects Beliefs
Research:
Mental state language and Illusions in learning about beliefs
Learning to talk about the difference between appearances and reality
If you are trying to work out another person’s perspective, it helps to have a good vocabulary for discussing mental and emotional states. Heidemarie Lohman and Michael Tomasello tested this idea by introducing 3-year-olds to “deceptive” objects, like a pen that takes the shape of a plastic flower.
First, researchers measured each kid’s understanding of false beliefs. Could these kids grasp that other people sometimes believe things that aren’t true? Then kids were divided into two groups. One group received training in the language of mental states. An adult talked to them about the deceptive nature of the objects, using terms like “think” and “know.” For example, the adult might ask “What do you think this is?…You thought it was a flower….”
Kids in the other group experienced similar sessions, but the adult didn’t use mental state terms (“What’s this?…It’s a flower…”)
After these training sessions, the researchers re-tested kids’ grasp of false beliefs. The results supported the idea that mental state language helps kids learn. Kids trained with mental state language performed better on a false belief task. They also showed a better understanding of the distinction between appearance and reality.
This experiment didn’t involve the children’s parents at all, so it suggests that exposure to language about mental states is intrinsically helpful.
Source: http://www.parentingscience.com/mind-minded-parenting.html

13. Meet with our emotions, remember they are not our truth but they issue warnings or messages that may or may not be the truth, think about our values, decide what to do together with own emotions and values and use the courage and maybe the emotion’s energy to do what we decide to do (Susan David’s method for children)
RESEARCH:

TREATMENT: ACCEPTANCE AND COMMITMENT THERAPY FOR DEPRESSION
• Basic premise: Clients learn to re-conceptualize avoided or feared thoughts, feelings, memories, and physical sensations in an adaptive manner.
• Essence of therapy: The use of acceptance and mindfulness strategies help clients to be fully present in the moment and to accept otherwise negative emotions. Commitment and behavior change strategies help clients to change or persist in behaviors more in line with their own values. Used together these strategies increase client’s psychological flexibility.
Other information, including studies regarding efficacity:

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Depression

14. How – and what for – to use compassion for self and others and how it helps in managing emotions and changing the undesired behaviors (and how it helps to enhance kindness)
Research:
Compassion seems to have evolutionary roots but can be limited due to inherited blocks and fears. Compassion is however trainable and can potentially bypass certain evolutionary-based biases. CT results in various significant psychological effects, most notably positive affect, increased (self) compassion, and mindfulness. Evidence is however inconsistent, especially in relation to active controls. Neural effects are significant yet inconsistent across different experimental conditions. CT without a concurrent task activates (1) the right somatosensory cortices (2) the parieto-occipital sulcus, and (3) the right anterior insula. In relation to the socio-affective video task, CT activates medial orbitofrontal cortex, ventral striatum/nucleus accumbens, putamen, and anterior parts of anterior cingulate cortex; regions related to positive affect, motivational reward and affiliation. These findings converge with the reviewed psychological literature. CT also results in increased altruistic and compassionate behavior towards others, even when it’s costly to the self and under no-reciprocity conditions. Behavioral effects are mostly demonstrated in game-settings against active controls but also in one real-life situation. Together, the results suggest that CT is beneficial to individuals as well as inter-group relationships.
Date: 2018
Source: http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1223989&dswid=20

Psychologists: Testing an Emotion Regulation Model of Self-Compassion Using Structural Equation Modeling
Self-compassion significantly negatively predicted emotion regulation difficulties and stress symptoms. Support was also found for our preliminary explanatory model of self-compassion, which demonstrates the mediating role of emotion regulation difficulties in the self-compassion-stress relationship. The final self-compassion model accounted for 26.2% of variance in stress symptoms. Implications of the findings and limitations of the study are discussed.
Date: 2015
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4514830/

Trait Self-Compassion Reflects Emotional Flexibility Through an Association with High Vagally Mediated Heart Rate Variability

53 students
Controlling for potential covariates (including age, gender, and BMI), the results confirmed our hypotheses, showing that higher levels of trait self-compassion predicted higher vmHRV. These results were validated with a 24-h measure of vmHRV, acquired from a subsample of the participants (n = 26, 16 female, mean age = 23.85), confirming the positive correlation between high trait self-compassion and higher vmHRV. The relation between trait self-compassion, vmHRV, self-reported trait anxiety (the trait scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory; STAI) and self-reported rumination (the Rumination subscale of the Rumination-Reflection Questionnaire; RRQ-Rum) was also investigated. Higher levels of trait anxiety and rumination were highly correlated with low levels of trait self-compassion. Trait anxiety, but not rumination, correlated marginally significantly with the level of vmHRV. The findings of the present study indicate that trait self-compassion predicts a better ability to physiologically and psychologically adapt emotional responses. Possible implications and limitations of the study are discussed.
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5010618/

Procrastination and Stress: Exploring the Role of Self-compassion

Across four samples (145 undergraduates, 339 undergraduates, 190 undergraduates, and 94 community adults) trait procrastination was associated with lower levels of self-compassion and higher levels of stress. A meta-analysis of these effects revealed a moderate negative association of procrastination with self-compassion. In all four samples, self-compassion mediated the relationship between stress and procrastination. These findings suggest that lower levels of self-compassion may explain some of the stress experienced by procrastinators and interventions that promote self-compassion could therefore be beneficial for these individuals.
Date: 2012
Source: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15298868.2013.763404
AND: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/91791/1/Procrastination%7B8dce7e36dfb59368210c2dd073c220cfb42db043b047d38509e9b56b7bd89738%7D20and%7B8dce7e36dfb59368210c2dd073c220cfb42db043b047d38509e9b56b7bd89738%7D20self%7B8dce7e36dfb59368210c2dd073c220cfb42db043b047d38509e9b56b7bd89738%7D20compassion%7B8dce7e36dfb59368210c2dd073c220cfb42db043b047d38509e9b56b7bd89738%7D20rev2%7B8dce7e36dfb59368210c2dd073c220cfb42db043b047d38509e9b56b7bd89738%7D20FINAL.pdf

Self-compassion—treating oneself with kindness, care, and concern in the face of negative life events—may promote the successful self-regulation of health-related behaviors. Self-compassion can promote self-regulation by lowering defensiveness, reducing the emotional states and self-blame that interfere with self-regulation, and increasing compliance with medical recommendations. Furthermore, because they cope better with stressful events, people high in self-compassion may be less depleted by illness and injury and, thus, have greater self-regulatory resources to devote to self-care. Framing medical problems and their treatment in ways that foster self-compassion may enhance people’s ability to manage their health-related behavior and deal with medical problems.
Self-compassion, self-regulation, and health (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232968819_Self-compassion_self-regulation_and_health [accessed Feb 28 2018].

Health:
Self-compassion, affect, and health-promoting behaviors.
Fifteen independent samples (N = 3,252) with correlations of self-compassion with the frequency of self-reported health-promoting behaviors (eating habits, exercise, sleep behaviors, and stress management) were meta-analyzed. Eight of these samples completed measures of positive and negative affect. Results: Self-compassion was positively associated with the practice of health-promoting behaviors across all 15 samples. The meta-analysis revealed a small effect size (average r = .25; p < .001) of self-compassion and health behaviors, with low variability. Tests of the indirect effects of self-compassion on health behaviors through positive and negative affect with multiple mediator analyses revealed small effects for each. Separate meta-analyses of the indirect effects (IE) were significant for positive (average IE = .08; p < .001) and negative affect (average IE = .06; p < .001), and their combined indirect effects (average IE = .15; p < .0001). Conclusion: Self-compassion may be an important quality to cultivate for promoting positive health behaviors, due in part to its association with adaptive emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
Date: 2015
Source: http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2014-38834-001

Why Does Positive Mental Health Buffer Against Psychopathology? An Exploratory Study on Self-Compassion as a Resilience Mechanism and Adaptive Emotion Regulation Strategy

Participants from the general population (n = 349) provided measures at one time-point on positive mental health (MHC-SF), self-compassion (SCS-SF), psychopathology (HADS) and negative affect (mDES). Self-compassion significantly mediated the negative relationship between positive mental health and psychopathology. Furthermore, higher levels of self-compassion attenuated the relationship between state negative affect and psychopathology. Findings suggest that especially individuals with high levels of positive mental health possess self-compassion skills that promote resilience against psychopathology. These might function as an adaptive emotion regulation strategy and protect against the activation of schema related to psychopathology following state negative affective experiences. Enhancing self-compassion is a promising positive intervention for clinical practice. It will not only impact psychopathology through reducing factors like rumination and self-criticism, but also improve positive mental health by enhancing factors such as kindness and positive emotions. This may reduce the future risk of psychopathology.
Date: 2017
Source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10608-016-9774-0

A Protective Factor Against Mental Health Problems in Youths? A Critical Note on the Assessment of Self-Compassion
Date: 2016
Source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10826-015-0315-3

Self-compassion and physical health: Exploring the roles of perceived stress and health-promoting behaviors
Self-compassion had an indirect effect on physical health via both mediators and through the sequential pathway, suggesting that taking a kind, accepting and mindful stance toward one’s flaws and failures may have benefits for reducing stress and promoting health behaviors.
Date: 2017
Source: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2055102917729542

Self-compassion, self-regulation, and health

Date: 2011
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232968819_Self-compassion_self-regulation_and_health

Compassion involves sensitivity to the experience of suffering, coupled with a deep desire to alleviate that suffering (Goetz, Keltner, &Simon-Thomas, 2010). This means that in order to experience compassion,you must first acknowledge the presence of pain.

A study by Raes (2010) found that rumination mediated theassociation between self-compassionand depression and anxiety, suggesting that reduce drumination is one of the key benefits of self-compassion.

Gilbert and Irons (2005) suggest that self-compassion deactivates the threat system (associated with feelings of insecure attachment, defensiveness and autonomicarousal) and activates the self-soothing system (associated with feelings of secure attachment,safety, and the oxytocin-opiate system). In support of this proposition,Rockcliff, Gilbert,McEwan, Lightman,andGlover (2008)found that giving individuals a brief self-compassionexercise(this involved generating a visual image of an ideally compassionate figure sendingoneself unconditional love an acceptance)lowered their levels ofthe stress hormone cortisol. Italso increased heart-rate variability, which is associated with a greater ability to self-soothe whenstressed (Porges, 2007).

Self-compassion hasalsobeen shown tomitigatethe effectof negative life events onemotional functioningin general. For instance, a series of studies by Leary, Tate, Adams, Allen,andHancock (2007)investigated the way that self-compassionate people deal with negative self-relevant thoughts or life events. One study used experience-sampling techniques, askingparticipants to report about any difficulties they were having over a 20-day period.Individualswith higher levels of self-compassion had more perspective on their problems and were lesslikely to feel isolated by them, e.g.,they were more likely to feel that their struggles weren’t anyworse than what lots of other people go through. The researchers also found that priming self-compassion helped participants to take responsibility for theirrole in past negative eventswithout experiencingas much negative affect as those in a control condition.

While self-compassion helps lessen the hold of negativity, it’s important to rememberthat self-compassion does not push negative emotions away inan aversive manner.Self-compassionate individualsare less likelyto suppress unwanted thoughts and emotions than thosewho lack self-compassion (Neff, 2003a), andmore likelytoacknowledge that their emotions arevalid and important (Leary et al, 2007; Neff, Hseih, Dejitterat, 2005; Neffet al.,2007).Withself-compassion,instead of replacing negative feelings with positive ones, positive emotions aregenerated byembracingthe negative ones.For this reason, it is perhaps unsurprisingthat self-compassion is associated with positive psychological strengths.For example, self-compassion isassociated withemotional intelligence, wisdom, life satisfaction, andfeelings of socialconnectedness—important elements of a meaningful life (Neff, 2003a; Neff, Pisitsungkagarn, &Hseih, 2008). People high in trait self-compassion or who are induced to be in a self-compassionate frame of mindalsotend to experience more happiness, optimism, curiosity,creativity, and positive emotions such as enthusiasm, inspiration, and excitement than those whoare self-critical (Hollis-Walker & Colosimo, 2011;Neff et al.,2007). Shapira and Mongrain(2010) conducted an experiment in which individuals were asked to write a self-compassionateletter to themselves every day for seven days, and found that the brief intervention increased happiness levels compared to a control group who wrote about early memories for the sameperiod. Moreover, this increasedhappiness was maintained at one month, three months, and sixmonths follow-up.By wrapping one’s pain in the warm embrace of self-compassion, positivefeelingsare generated that help balance the negative ones, allowing for more joyous states of mind.

People feel self-compassion because they are humanbeings, not becausethey are special or above average, so that interconnection rather thanseparateness is emphasized.This means that with self-compassion, youdo nothave to feel betterthan others to feel good about yourself.It also offers more emotional stability than self-esteembecause it is always there for you—when you’re on top of the world and when you fall flat onyour face.

Leary et al. (2007) found that when considering hypothetical scenarios involving failureor embarrassment (e.g., being responsible for losing an athletic competition for their team),participants with greater self-compassion reported less negative affect (e.g., sadness orhumiliation) and more emotional equanimity (e.g., remaining calm and unflustered)

In another study, participants were asked to give a brief introduction ofthemselves on video (describing interests, future plans, etc.), and were then given positiveornegative feedback about the introduction that was ostensibly made by an observer. Participants’reactions to the feedback were then assessed, including their attributions for the observer’sfeedback. Individuals with low self-compassion gave defensiveattributions–they were morelikely to attribute the observer’s feedback to their own personality when the feedback waspositive rather than negative. High self-compassion individuals, however, were equally likely toattribute the feedback to their personality regardless of whether the feedback was positive ornegative. An opposite pattern was found for self-esteem. Low self-esteem individuals wereequally likely to attribute the feedback to their personality when feedback was positive ornegative, buthigh self-esteem participants were more likely to attribute the feedback to their own personality when the feedback was positive rather than negative. This suggests that self-compassion enables people to admit and accept that there are negative as well aspositive aspectsof their personality. The maintenance of high self-esteem is more dependent on positive self-evaluations, and therefore may lead to cognitive distortions in order to preserve positive self-views (Swann, 1996).

In a survey involving a large community sample in the Netherlands, self-compassion wasshown to be a stronger predictor of healthy functioning than self-esteem (Neff & Vonk, 2009).Self-compassion was associated with more stability in state feelings of self-worth over an eightmonthperiod (assessed 12 different times) than trait self-esteem. This may be related to the factthat self-compassion was also found to be less contingent on things like physical attractiveness orsuccessful performances than self-esteem. Results indicated that self-compassion was associatedwith lower levels of social comparison, public self-consciousness, self-rumination, anger, andneed for cognitive closure, than self-esteem. Also,self-esteem had a robust association withnarcissism while self-compassionhad no association with narcissism. These findingssuggest thatin contrast to those with high self-esteem, self-compassionate people are less focused onevaluating themselves, feeling superior to others, worrying about whether or not others areevaluatingthem, defending their viewpoints, or angrily reacting against those who disagree withthem. In sum, self-compassion is a healthier way of feeling good about oneself than self-esteemthat is based on the need to feel better than others.

Self-Compassion and Motivation
With self-compassion, we strive to achieve for a very different reason—because we care.If we truly want to be kind to ourselves anddo notwant to suffer, we’ll dothings to help us be happy, such as taking on challenging new projects or learning new skills.And because self-compassion gives us the safety needed to acknowledge our weaknesses, we’rein a better position to change them for the better.

Research supports thisidea.In a series offourexperimentalstudies, Breines andChen(2012) usedmoodinductionsto engender feelings of self-compassion for personal weaknesses,failures, and past moral transgressions.When compared to a self-esteem induction (e.g. “thinkabout your positive qualities”) or a positive mood distractor (e.g. “think about a hobby youenjoy”),self-compassionresulted in moremotivation to change for the better, try harder to learn,and avoid repeating past mistakes.Other research has shown self-compassion to be linked topersonal initiative, perceived self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation(Neff et al., 2005;Neff et al.,2007).Self-compassionate peoplehave less fear of failure, but when they dofail they’re morelikely to try again (Neely, Schallert,Mohammed, Roberts, &Chen, 2009).Self-compassionalsopromoteshealth-related behaviors such as sticking to one’s diet (Adams & Leary, 2007),reducingsmoking (Kelly, Zuroff, Foa, &Gilbert, 2009),seeking medical treatment when needed(Terry & Leary, 2011)and exercising(Magnus, Kowalski, &McHugh, 2010).

Self-Compassion and Coping
Self-compassion can be seen as an effective way to cope with difficult emotionalexperiences.
For instance,Sbarra,Smith andMehl (2012)found that self-compassion was key inhelping people adjustafterdivorce. Researchersaskeddivorcing adultstocomplete a 4-minute14stream-of-consciousness recording about their separation experience, and independentjudgesrated how self-compassionate their dialogues were.Those who displayed greater self-compassion whentalkingabout their break-up not only evidenced better psychologicaladjustment at the time, butthis effect persisted over nine months. Findings were significant evenafter accounting fora number ofcompeting predictorssuch as self-esteem.Researchalsoindicates that self-compassionhelps people cope withearlychildhood traumas.In a youthsample,Vettese, Dyer, Li, and Wekerle (2011) found thatself-reported levels of self-compassionmediatedthelinkbetweenchildhood maltreatment andlater emotional dysregulation.Thissuggeststhatpeople with traumahistorieswho have compassion forthemselvesare better able todealwith upsetting eventsina productive manner.Self-compassion also appears to help peoplecope with chronicphysicalpain(Costa & Pinto-Gouveia, 2011).

Self-Compassion and Interpersonal Relationships
In addition to intrapersonal benefits, self-compassion appears to enhanceinterpersonalfunctioning. Neff and Beretvas (2012) found that self-compassionate individuals were describedby their partners as being more emotionally connected, accepting,and autonomy-supportingwhile being less detached, controlling, and verbally or physically aggressive than those lackingself-compassion.Similarly,a study ofrelationshipsbetween college roommates (Crocker &Canevello, 2008) found thatself-compassionate students provided moresocial support andencouragedinterpersonal trustwith roommatescompared to those lackinginself-compassion.

An interesting question concerns whether self-compassionate people arealsomorecompassionate towards others. There is some evidence that self-compassion stimulates parts ofthe brain associated withcompassion in general.Using fMRI technology,Longe et al. (2009)found that instructing individuals to be self-compassionate was associated with neuronal activity15similar to what occurs when feelings of empathy for others are evoked.This would suggest thatthe tendency to respond to suffering with caring concern is a broad process applied to bothselfand others. While researchfocused directlyon this topic is new,findings suggest that thelinkbetween self-compassion andother-compassionexists butissomewhat complex.

Neff and Pommier (2012) examined the link between self-compassion and compassionfor others, empathetic concern, altruism, personal distress, and forgiveness. Participants includedcollege undergraduates, an older community sample, andindividuals practicing Buddhistmeditation.Inall three groups, self-compassionate people were less likely to experience personaldistress, meaning they were more able to confrontothers’suffering without being overwhelmed.In addition, self-compassion was significantly associated with forgiveness.Forgiving othersrequires understanding the vast web of causes and conditions that lead people to act as they do.The ability to forgive and accept one’s flawed humanity, therefore, appears toalso apply toothers. Self-compassion was significantlybut weaklylinked to compassion for others,empathetic concern, and altruism among the community and Buddhist samples.This associationis probably notasrobustas might be expectedbecause of the fact that most people report beingmuch kinder to others than themselves (Neff, 2003a),attenuatingtheassociation.

Interestingly, there was nolinkfoundbetween self-compassion and other-focusedconcern(i.e., compassion, empathetic concern and altruism)among undergraduates. This may bebecause young adults often struggle to recognize the shared aspects of their life experience,overestimating their distinctiveness from others (Lapsley, FitzGerald,Rice, &Jackson, 1989).Theirschemasfor why they are deserving of care and why others are deserving of carearethereforelikely tobe poorly integrated.Thelink betweenself-compassion and other-focusedconcernwas strongestamong meditators, whichmay be the result ofpracticeslike loving-16kindness meditation thatare designed tointentionally cultivate compassion for both self andothers(Hofmann, Grossman, &Hinton, 2011)

While pre-existing trait levels of self-compassion have their origins, at least in part, inearly childhood experiences, skills of self-compassioncan also be taught0. Paul Gilbert hasdeveloped a group-based therapy interventionfor clinical populations called Compassionate Mind Training(CMT). CMT is designed to help people develop skills of self-compassion, especially when their more habitual form of self-to-self relating involves self-attack. In a pilot study of CMT involving hospital day patients with intense shame and self-criticism, significant decreases in depression, self-attacking, shame, and feelings of inferiority were reported after participation in the CMT program (Gilbert & Procter, 2006). Moreover, almost all of theparticipants felt ready to be discharged from their hospital program at the end of the study.

References can be found here: Mindfulness_and_SC_chapter_in_press.pdf

Date: 2012
Source: http://self-compassion.org/wp-content/uploads/publications/Mindfulness_and_SC_chapter_in_press.pdf

15. How to stimulate the vagus nerve and increase proprioception – by meditation – listening to heart beats and listening to sensations in the body – and how can help us improve self-regulation skills
Research:
Vagus nerve:
2) Singing or Chanting
Singing increases Heart Rate Variability (HRV) (R).
Humming, mantra chanting, hymn singing, and upbeat energetic singing all increase HRV in slightly different ways (R).
I do Om chanting in my infrared sauna (R).
Singing initiates the work of a vagal pump, sending relaxing waves through the choir (R).
Singing at the top of your lungs works the muscles in the back of the throat to activate the vagus.
Energetic singing activates your sympathetic nervous system and vagus nerve and conducts towards getting in a flow state (R).
Singing in unison, which is often done in churches and synagogues, also increases HRV and vagus function (R).
Singing has been found to increase oxytocin (R).

4) Meditation
There are two types of meditation that can stimulate the vagus nerve.
Loving-kindness meditation increases vagal tone, as measured by heart rate variability (R).
Also, Om chanting stimulates the vagus nerve (R, R2).

7) Laughter
As the saying goes, laughter is the best medicine. Many studies show the health benefits of laughing (R).
It seems like laughter is capable of stimulating the vagus nerve.

Felt hunger, cardiac autonomic activity, mood and subjective appraisal of interoceptive sensations were assessed before and after fasting. Results show that short-term fasting intensifies interoceptive awareness, not restricted to food cues, via changes of autonomic cardiac and/or cardiodynamic activity. The increase of interoceptive awareness was positively related to felt hunger. Additionally, the results demonstrate the role of cardiac vagal activity as a potential index of emotion related self-regulation, for hunger, mood and the affective appraisal of interoceptive signals during acute fasting.
Date: 2012
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=21958594
Vagus nerve research:

Stimuation:
https://www.mokshamantra.com/natural-ways-stimulate-vagus-buddha-nerve/
http://theheartysoul.com/6-ways-to-instantly-stimulate-your-vagus-nerve-to-relieve-inflammation-depression-migraines-and-more/
http://www.optimallivingdynamics.com/blog/how-to-stimulate-your-vagus-nerve-for-better-mental-health-brain-vns-ways-treatment-activate-natural-foods-depression-anxiety-stress-heart-rate-variability-yoga-massage-vagal-tone-dysfunction

Vagus nerve and the regulation of emotion:
Search here: https://scholar.google.ro/scholar?start=20&q=Vagal+tone+and+the+regulation+of+emotion&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_ylo=2017&as_vis=1

Title: Vagal tone and the physiological regulation of emotion.
A review of research indicates that baseline levels of cardiac vagal tone and vagal tone reactivity abilities are associated with behavioral measures of reactivity, the expression of emotion, and self-regulation skills. Thus, we propose that cardiac vagal tone can serve as an index of emotion regulation. Historically, the vagus and other components of the parasympathetic nervous system have not been incorporated in theories of emotion. Recent developments in methodology have enabled us to define and accurately quantify cardiac vagal tone. Theories relating the parasympathetic nervous system to the expression and regulation of emotion are now being tested in several laboratories.
Date: 1994
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7984159

Title: From the heart to the mind: cardiac vagal tone modulates top-down and bottom-up visual perception and attention to emotional stimuli
The current review presented evidence of an underlying interaction between individual differences in cardiac vagal tone and top-down and bottom-up cognitive processing of emotional stimuli, which promotes further regulatory behaviors and autonomic flexibility. To further dissociate top-down and bottom-up mechanisms, we utilized stimuli with different spatial frequency ranges designed to tap into either top-down or bottom-up neural mechanisms of emotional processing. These studies provide evidence that higher resting HRV is associated with flexible and adaptive top-down and bottom-up cognitive processing, which facilitates effective emotion regulation. In contrast, lower resting HRV is associated with hyper-vigilant and maladaptive bottom-up and impaired top-down cognitive response to emotional stimuli, which is detrimental to emotion regulation. The results of these studies raise the possibility that maladaptive cognitive processing of emotional stimuli observed in people with lower HRV may be detrimental to emotional and physical health, which explains why people with a wide range of psychopathologies and health issues exhibit lower HRV.
Date: 2014
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4013470/

Title: Cardiac vagal tone is associated with social engagement and self-regulation
cardiac vagal tone (CVT)
CVT was positively associated with engagement coping and social well-being. ► Higher CVT predicted less use of disengagement strategies in regulating negative emotions. ► Higher VT predicted more use of socially adaptive emotion-regulation strategies. ► Higher CVT predicted more reported episodes of negative emotions.
Date: 2013
Source: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301051113000641

Title: Resting heart rate variability predicts self-reported difficulties in emotion regulation: a focus on different facets of emotion regulation.
Resting vmHRV was collected during a 5-min resting baseline period, and everyday difficulties in emotion regulation were assessed using the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). Controlling for potential covariates (including both trait anxiety and rumination), results revealed a negative relationship between resting vmHRV and DERS such that lower resting vmHRV was associated with greater difficulties in emotional regulation, especially a lack of emotional clarity and impulse control, as indicated by the respective subscales of the DERS. These findings provide further evidence for the Neurovisceral Integration Model, suggesting that emotion regulation and autonomic regulation share neural networks within the brain. Moreover, the present study extends prior research by highlighting two distinct facets of emotion regulation (impulse control and emotional clarity) that should be of particular interest when investigating the link between emotion regulation, resting vmHRV, and related health outcomes including morbidity and mortality.
Date: 2015
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4354240/ and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25806017

Title: Getting to the Heart of Emotion Regulation in Youth: The Role of Interoceptive Sensitivity, Heart Rate Variability, and Parental Psychopathology
This study investigated the relationship between self-reported habitual emotion regulation strategies and HRV at rest as well as interoceptive sensitivity in forty-six youngsters (27 female; age: M = 13.00, SD = 2.13). Secondly, the association between these autonomic correlates and parental psychopathology was also studied. Whereas better interoceptive sensitivity was related to reduced maladaptive emotion regulation, specifically rumination, high HRV was related to more use of external emotion regulation strategies (i.e., support seeking). In addition, increased HRV and decreased interoceptive sensitivity were associated with maternal internalizing and there was evidence for a possible mediation effect of HRV in the relationship between maternal internalizing and child external emotion regulation. This study elucidates the link between cognitive emotion regulation strategies and underlying physiological regulation in adolescents but also indicates a putative influence of maternal internalizing symptoms on emotion regulation in their offspring.
Date: 2016
Source: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0164615

Title: Moderate baseline vagal tone predicts greater prosociality in children
The authors found consistent evidence for a quadratic relation between vagal tone and prosociality across 3 samples of children using 6 different measures. Compared to low and high vagal tone, moderate vagal tone in early childhood concurrently predicted greater self-reported prosociality (Study 1), observed empathic concern in response to the distress of others and greater generosity toward less fortunate peers (Study 2), and longitudinally predicted greater self-, mother-, and teacher-reported prosociality 5.5 years later in middle childhood (Study 3). Taken together, the findings suggest that moderate vagal tone at rest represents a physiological preparedness or tendency to engage in different forms of prosociality across different contexts. Early moderate vagal tone may reflect an optimal balance of regulation and arousal that helps prepare children to sympathize, comfort, and share with others. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)
Date: 2017
Source: http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-53571-001

Title: Culture and cardiac vagal tone independently influence emotional expressiveness
cardiac vagal tone (CVT)
Our results suggest that cultural group and CVT contribute additively to emotional expressiveness, and that CVT, which is associated with emotion regulation capacity, may predispose bicultural individuals toward adopting particular cultural values. These findings should be of interest to researchers investigating cultural and CVT relations to health.
Date: 2017
Source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40167-017-0048-9

The vagus nerve is constantly sending updated sensory information about the state of the body’s organs “upstream” to your brain via afferent nerves. In fact, 80-90% of the nerve fibers in the vagus nerve are dedicated to communicating the state of your viscera up to your brain.
Visceral feelings and gut instincts are literally emotional intuitions transferred up to your brain via the vagus nerve. In previous studies, signals from the vagus nerve traveling from the gut to the brain have been linked to modulating mood and distinctive types of fear and anxiety.
As with any mind-body feedback loop, messages also travel “downstream” from your conscious mind through the vagus nerve (via efferent nerves) signaling your organs to create an inner-calm so you can “rest-and-digest” during times of safety, or to prepare your body for “fight-or-flight” in dangerous situations.
Healthy vagus nerve communication between your gut and your brain helps to slow you down like the brakes on your car by using neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine and GABA. These neurotransmitters literally lower heart rate, blood pressure, and help your heart and organs slow down so that you can rest-and-digest.
However, without the two-way communcation of the vagus nerve between the brain and gut the rats showed a lower level of innate fear, but a longer retention of learned fear. From this discovery the researchers concluded that an innate response to fear appears to be influenced significantly by “gut instinct” signals sent from the stomach to the brain. This confirms the importance of healthy vagal tone to maintain grace under pressure and to overcome fear conditioning.
When the researchers switched from a negative to a neutral stimulus, the rats without gut instincts coming up to the brain via the vagus nerve required significantly longer to re-associate the sound with the new, “safe” and neutral situation. The researchers point out that this finding is congruent with other recently published studies which found that stimulation of the vagus nerve can facilitate learning.
From: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201405/how-does-the-vagus-nerve-convey-gut-instincts-the-brain
Source:
Title: Gut Vagal Afferents Differentially Modulate Innate Anxiety and Learned Fear
In addition to its role in ingestive behavior, vagal afferent signaling has been implicated modulating mood and affect, including distinct forms of anxiety and fear. Here, we used a rat model of subdiaphragmatic vagal deafferentation (SDA), the most complete and selective vagal deafferentation method existing to date, to study the consequences of complete disconnection of abdominal vagal afferents on innate anxiety, conditioned fear, and neurochemical parameters in the limbic system. We found that compared with Sham controls, SDA rats consistently displayed reduced innate anxiety-like behavior in three procedures commonly used in preclinical rodent models of anxiety, namely the elevated plus maze test, open field test, and food neophobia test. On the other hand, SDA rats exhibited increased expression of auditory-cued fear conditioning, which specifically emerged as attenuated extinction of conditioned fear during the tone re-exposure test. The behavioral manifestations in SDA rats were associated with region-dependent changes in noradrenaline and GABA levels in key areas of the limbic system, but not with functional alterations in the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal grand stress. Our study demonstrates that innate anxiety and learned fear are both subjected to visceral modulation through abdominal vagal afferents, possibly via changing limbic neurotransmitter systems. These data add further weight to theories emphasizing an important role of afferent visceral signals in the regulation of emotional behavior.
Date: 2014
Source: http://www.jneurosci.org/content/34/21/7067

Title: The Association between Resting Cardiac Vagal Tone and Rumination: Gender as a Moderating Factor
Group analyses indicated that individuals with lower resting vmHRV reported higher trait rumination (including
each of the three subtypes) compared to those with higher resting vmHRV (p < .01). Apart from BMI (p < .01), there were no significant group differences between men and women. Controlling for BMI, respiration, and age, gender did not significantly moderate the relationship between vmHRV and total rumination, depressive rumination, or brooding rumination (each p > .1). However, gender significantly moderated the association
between vmHRV and reflective rumination (ΔR2 = .01, F(1, 280) = 4.08, B = -1.63 (SE = .81), [-3.22, -.04],
rpartial = -.120, p = .044). Conditional analyses showed a significant negative association between vmHRV and
reflective rumination in women (B = -1.58 (SE = .51), [-2.57, -.58], p = .002), but not men (B = .16 (SE = .61), [-
1.05, 1.05], p = .79).
Date: >2016
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/DeWayne_Williams/publication/315706739_The_Association_between_Resting_Cardiac_Vagal_Tone_and_Rumination_Gender_as_a_Moderating_Factor/links/58dd6f9192851cd2d3e36cdd/The-Association-between-Resting-Cardiac-Vagal-Tone-and-Rumination-Gender-as-a-Moderating-Factor.pdf

Resting vagally-mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV) is recognized as an indicator of emotion regulation (ER) abilities, such that those with lower resting vmHRV show more difficulties in ER compared to individuals with higher resting vmHRV. [1]
[1] Thayer, J. F., Åhs, F., Fredrikson, M., Sollers, J. J., & Wager, T. D. (2012). A meta-analysis of heart rate variability and neuroimaging studies: implications for heart rate variability as a marker of stress and health. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 36(2), 747-756.
FROM
Title: A meta-analysis of heart rate variability and neuroimaging studies: implications for heart rate variability as a marker of stress and health.
Specifically, we performed a meta-analysis of recent neuroimaging studies on the relationship between heart rate variability and regional cerebral blood flow. We identified a number of regions, including the amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex, in which significant associations across studies were found. We further propose that the default response to uncertainty is the threat response and may be related to the well known negativity bias. Heart rate variability may provide an index of how strongly ‘top-down’ appraisals, mediated by cortical-subcortical pathways, shape brainstem activity and autonomic responses in the body. If the default response to uncertainty is the threat response, as we propose here, contextual information represented in ‘appraisal’ systems may be necessary to overcome this bias during daily life. Thus, HRV may serve as a proxy for ‘vertical integration’ of the brain mechanisms that guide flexible control over behavior with peripheral physiology, and as such provides an important window into unde
Date: 2012
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22178086

Title: Perceived Positive Social Connections Account for the Upward Spiral Between Positive Emotions and Vagal Tone
Participants in the intervention group increased in positive emotions relative to those in the control group, an effect moderated by baseline vagal tone, a proxy index of physical health. Increased positive emotions, in turn, produced increases in vagal tone, an effect mediated by increased perceptions of social connections. This experimental evidence identifies one mechanism—perceptions of social connections—through which positive emotions build physical health, indexed as vagal tone. Results suggest that positive emotions, positive social connections, and physical health influence one another in a self-sustaining upward-spiral dynamic.
Date: 2013
Source: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797612470827

Higher resting heart rate variability predicts skill in expressing some emotions: Heart rate variability and expressive skill
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/307142290_Higher_resting_heart_rate_variability_predicts_skill_in_expressing_some_emotions_Heart_rate_variability_and_expressive_skill

16. How and why to cultivate the emotion of AWE
Research (not complete) :
Self-Transcendent Emotions and Their Social Functions: Compassion, Gratitude, and Awe Bind Us to Others Through Prosociality
Source: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1754073916684557

In 2015, Paul Piff and colleagues from the University of California, Irvine reported that experiencing a sense of awe promotes altruism, loving-kindness, and magnanimous behavior. The study, “Awe, the Small Self, and Prosocial Behavior,” was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Piff and colleagues described awe as “that sense of wonder we feel in the presence of something vast that transcends our understanding of the world.” They point out that people commonly experience awe in nature, but also feel a sense of awe in response to religion, art, music, etc.
Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201705/the-psychophysiology-flow-and-your-vagus-nerve
And: http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-pspi0000018.pdf

More about it:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201705/awe-engages-your-vagus-nerve-and-can-combat-narcissism

17. Relaxing or Meditation techniques for children and how it helps to improve the quality of living

Research: (not completed)
Slow breathing calms the mind
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2017/03/31/science-illuminates-why-slow-breathing-calms-the-mind/#478c91ac7df6

Floatation-REST (Reduced Environmental Stimulation Therapy), an intervention that attenuates exteroceptive sensory input to the nervous system, has recently been found to reduce state anxiety across a diverse clinical sample with high levels of anxiety sensitivity (AS). …
The data further suggest that Floatation-REST may help bolster self-regulation and the reduction of anxiety and distress through sustained attentional focus on present moment body sensations (Figure 6), highlighting the conducive nature of the float environment for facilitating the learning of core skills involved in the training of mindfulness
Date: 2018
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2451902218300491

18. Stress inoculation training for children
Research:
Results indicated that stress inoculation training was an effective means for
reducing performance anxiety, reducing state anxiety, and enhancing performance under stress. Furthermore, the examination of
moderators such as the experience of the trainer, the type of setting in which training was implemented and the type of trainee
population revealed no significant limitations on the application of stress inoculation training to normal training environments.

https://emcrit.org/emcrit/on-stress-inoculation-training/

Results indicated that stress inoculation training was an effective means for
reducing performance anxiety, reducing state anxiety, and enhancing performance under stress. Furthermore, the examination of
moderators such as the experience of the trainer, the type of setting in which training was implemented and the type of trainee
population revealed no significant limitations on the application of stress inoculation training to normal training environments.

https://scholar.google.ro/scholar?q=stress+inoculation+training+through+sounds&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi1rvrLgu7UAhWF6xoKHcgEBt8QgQMIIDAA

Stress innoculation may help other emotional regulation
https://www.google.ro/search?q=study+shows+stress+inoculation+helps+other+emotional+regulation&spell=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjti5yAhKzVAhWlHJoKHcslA9QQvwUIIygA&biw=1280&bih=653

Other research:
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4684-2496-6_6
https://books.google.ro/books?hl=en&lr=&id=0-QwHHPMh2sC&oi=fnd&pg=PA50&dq=stress+inoculation+training+through+sounds&ots=GNmfTq9mou&sig=F06fT-IMXdKJ1hq9iXl6wqoG9BM&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Giuseppe_Riva/publication/282312678_From_virtual_to_real_body_Virtual_reality_as_embodied_technology/links/5616e54d08ae90469c611e13/From-virtual-to-real-body-Virtual-reality-as-embodied-technology.pdf#page=23
https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/ttu-ir/bitstream/handle/2346/13490/31295003935185.pdf?sequence
https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/stress-inoculation-therapy/

19. Coping with pain via “selective attentional bias, conscious awareness and the fear of pain” – and how it helps to overcome fear
NOTE: we suggest working with the courage first so we lower the fear and then we can apply this technique
Research:
Selective attentional bias, conscious awareness and the fear of pain
Together, these findings suggest that the ability to orient away from pain-related stimuli may be under conscious control in low fearful people, whereas such a mechanism does not seem to exist in those high in the fear of pain.
Date: 2003
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/10667237_Selective_attentional_bias_conscious_awareness_and_the_fear_of_pain

20. The tears come from a wedding or because losing a loved dog? – increase the gap between emotion and action
http://www.danielgoleman.info/daniel-goleman-develop-your-inner-radar-to-control-turbulent-emotions/
Are such feelings familiar? Are you ruminating? If so, we would do well to gain more control over those self-defeating habits of mind.
This approach takes advantage of an effect studied by Kevin Ochsner, a neuroscientist at Columbia University. Volunteers’ brains were scanned as they saw photos of people’s faces showing emotions ranging from a woman in tears to a baby laughing. Their emotional centers immediately activated the circuitry for whichever feeling those faces expressed.
But then Ochsner asked the volunteers to rethink what might be going on in the more disturbing photos in a less alarming way: Perhaps that woman was crying at a wedding, not a funeral. With that rethink, there was a striking shift in the brain: The emotional centers lost energy, as circuits higher in the prefrontal cortex—those for pondering—activated.
[Additional reading: Seek Experiences That Positively Reshape Your Brain]
As the Columbia research showed, this strategy seems to arouse circuitry in the prefrontal areas that can resist more-primal limbic signals for strong negative emotions. That circuitry appears to be at play in a wide variety of methods, including reasoning with yourself about negative impulses and feelings.
Not everyone takes to reasoning to handle rocky feelings. Bad habits are usually all too quick to step in to lend a not-so-helpful hand. But there is a vast range of approaches we might try—ranging from mindfulness to various psychotherapies. Whatever method we find is fine, so long as it helps us lessen the power of our destructive emotions.

For better or for worse: neural systems supporting the cognitive down- and up-regulation of negative emotion.
These data suggest that both common and distinct neural systems support various forms of reappraisal and that which particular prefrontal systems modulate the amygdala in different ways depends on the regulatory goal and strategy employed.
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15488398

21. How and why to stop and think when feeling an emotion and a strong impulse to do something now
Research: (not completed)
http://www.danielgoleman.info/free-wont-the-marshmallow-test-revisited/:
Roger Weissberg’s (connected on linkedin) method:
• Red light – stop, calm down, and think before you act.
• Yellow light – think of a range of things you should do (not just your first impulse)
• Green light – pick the best one and try it out.

22. Express emotions trough art and movement (kinetic therapy) – and how it helps to express and release emotions
Research: (not completed)
Does the ability to express different emotions predict different indices of physical health? A skill-based study of physical symptoms and heart rate variability
Findings suggest that the ability to regulate expressions of both sadness and joy is associated with health indices even when controlling for trait affect and potential confounds. The present findings offer early evidence that individual differences in the ability to regulate the outward expression of emotion may be relevant to health and suggest that expressive regulatory skills offer a novel avenue for research and intervention.
Date: 2017
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28452399
AND: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjhp.12242/full
AND: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316571278_Does_the_ability_to_express_different_emotions_predict_different_indices_of_physical_health_A_skill-based_study_of_physical_symptoms_and_heart_rate_variability

23. How to talk to oneself – a way to increase our emotional intelligence – and how it can help us build resilience
Research (not complete):
Goleman: resilience through talking to ourselves and minfulness meditation
http://www.danielgoleman.info/resilience-for-the-rest-of-us/ :
https://hbr.org/2011/04/resilience-for-the-rest-of-us
There are two ways to become more resilient: one by talking to yourself, the other by retraining your brain.
If you’ve suffered a major failure, take the sage advice given by psychologist Martin Seligman in the HBR article “Building Resilience.” Talk to yourself. Give yourself a cognitive intervention and counter defeatist thinking with an optimistic attitude. Challenge your downbeat thinking and replace it with a positive outlook.

24. How to say NO firmly but with love to some emotions – and to some people
Research:( not completed)

25. Visualization of bodily sensations or emotions – and how it helps to detect and cope with powerful emotions
Research: (not completed)

26. Nature and sport benefits – and how it helps to relax the mind and release emotion’s energy
Research: (not completed)

27. Muscular relaxation and body scanning – how it can help us identify sensations and release emotions
Research: (not completed)

28. Why and how to bring harmony in our relations and how to communicate assertive
Research: (not completed)

29. Gratitude diary and how to play with “Thanky-Smiley” 🙂 and how it helps us
Research: (not completed)

30. Sleeping better helps you increase the quality of life
Research: (not completed)

31. Mistakes as learning experiences and the growth mindset
Research: (not completed)