Washington, May 13 (ANI): The way an individual regulates their emotions, in bad times and in good, can influence whether - or how much -they suffer from anxiety, a new research has suggested.
Researchers asked 179 healthy men and women in a series of questionnaires about how they managed their emotions and how anxious they felt in various situations then the team analyzed the results to see if different emotional strategies were associated with more or less anxiety.
The findings revealed that people who engage in an emotional regulation strategy called reappraisal tend to also have less social anxiety and less anxiety in general than those who avoid expressing their feelings.
University of Illinois graduate student Nicole Llewellyn, who led the research with psychology professor Florin Dolcos, an affiliate of the Beckman Institute at Illinois, said reappraisal involves looking at a problem in a new way.
She said that when something happens, people think about it in a more positive light, "a glass half full instead of half empty."
Participants who regularly used this approach reported less severe anxiety than those who tended to suppress their emotions.
Dolcos said that low-level anxiety may help people maintain the kind of focus that gets things done while suppressing or putting a lid on the emotions can be a good strategy in a short-term situation, like when your boss yells at you.
He said that similarly, an always-positive attitude can be dangerous, causing an individual to ignore health problems, for example, or to engage in risky behaviour.
The study has been published in the journal Emotion. (ANI)
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