12 Mar Study suggests humor could be an emotion regulation strategy for depression
via PsyPost by Eric Dolan
Humor can help decrease negative emotional reactions in people vulnerable to depression, according to new research published in the journal Brain and Behavior. The findings offer preliminary evidence that humor could be an effective emotion regulation strategy.
“I spent many years working with depressed patients and this made me realize important it is to provide vulnerable people with evidence-based tools for dealing with negative emotional experiences. Indeed, in some vulnerable people, even a slightly lowered mood can escalate into clinical depression, and the main factor that underlies this process is impaired ability to regulate negative emotions,” explained study author Anna Braniecka, an assistant professor at SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Poland.
“The use of adaptive emotion regulation strategies in people at risk of depression should boost their resilience against depressogenic experiences, however, there is still not enough scientific knowledge to determine which strategies are particularly beneficial in this respect. We decided to fill this gap by investigating one of the most promising, and at the same time the least studied strategy — humor.”
…keep reading the full & original article HERE