164 Don’t Let A nxiety Run Your Life
attention on a day- to- day basis (in contrast to a moment- to-
moment basis or mindfulness that is more trait- like), helps
buffer the negative effects of negative emotions (see, for
example, Arch and Craske 2010; Hill and Updegraff 2012).
Specifically, dispositional mindfulness reduces the ten-
dency to use suppression as an emotion management strat-
egy by fostering a greater willingness to engage with
emotionally negative thoughts. Mindfulness also promotes
sustained contact with aversive emotions and increases
your capacity to nonjudgmentally accept your emotional
experience(s). In turn, this leads to more effective moment-
to- moment processing of emotions and decreased use of
maladaptive regulation processes, such as rumination,
worry, and avoidance.
Mindfulness has also been shown to increase tolerance
of negative emotions. In one study, participants were
shown pictures containing negative (objectionable and
explicit) content. Participants who were instructed to
breathe mindfully while viewing the pictures ultimately
reported experiencing less negative emotion and were
more willing to view additional content (Arch and Craske
2006). Another study found that emotion regulation sta-
tistically accounted for the relationship between mindful-
ness and psychological distress. This means that emotion
regulation helps explain why those with higher levels of
mindfulness have lower levels of psychological distress
(from anxiety, depression, and other disorders; Coffey and
Hartmann 2008). Together, these studies suggest that
greater tolerance of negative emotions as a result of mind-
fulness may facilitate reduced cognitive and emotional
reactivity and increased ability to work through negative
emotions (Erisman and Roemer 2010).