198 Don’t Let A nxiety Run Your Life
should entirely overtake your life (that would be counter-
productive and antithetical to the very idea of mindfulness
itself), but we hope that you will find ways to integrate into
your everyday life at least one or two of the skills presented
in this book, at a pace that works well for you.
Outsmarting Anxiety Skill #9:
Learn the integrated model of
emotion regulation and mindf ulness
to successfully overcome your anx iety.In writing this book, we set out to present a unified approach
to managing your anxiety, one that uses both emotion regu-
lation and mindfulness. Each of these approaches has a great
deal of scientific and practical merit in its own right. In com-
bining them to promote greater emotional well- being, it’s
important to remember that emotion regulation strategies
help you know what you can do to manage your emotions—
alter the type, duration, frequency, or context of your emo-
tions—and mindfulness informs how you go about doing
that: with purposeful intention, focused attention, and a
nonjudgmental attitude (Shapiro et al. 2006; Cisler et al.
2010). The idea underlying an integrated framework of
emotion regulation and mindfulness for addressing anxiety
is that mindfulness training not only promotes increased
attention and emotion regulation but also enhances your
overall sense of self and well- being (Bränström and Duncan
2 014).
The skills presented in each chapter are meant to
synthesize and distill the scientific literature on emotion