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Worry is a central process in a wide range of psychopathological and somatic conditions. Three studies (N = 856) were used to test whether a subscale composed of five items of the most commonly used trait anxiety questionnaire, Spielberger's State Trait Anxiety Inventory-Trait version (STAI-T), is appropriate to measure worry. Results showed that the subscale, named the Brief Worry Scale (BWS), had excellent internal consistency and temporal stability. Convergent and divergent validity were supported by correlation analyses using worry questionnaires and measures of anxious arousal and depression. The BWS was a particularly good predictor of the pathogenic aspects of worry, including worry perseveration in daily life (study 1), measures of clinical worry (study 2) and the uncontrollability of experimentally induced worry (study 3). Taken together, these studies demonstrate that the BWS might be a valuable scale for pathological worry, for which many researchers already have data., Author(s): Bart Verkuil [sup.1] , Briana N. Brownlow [sup.2] , Michael W. Vasey [sup.2] , Jos F. Brosschot [sup.3] , Julian F. Thayer [sup.2] [sup.4] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.5132.5, 0000 [...]

Worry is an important mediator in the relation between stressors and health. This pilot study examined whether a smartphone-based in time worry-reduction training was feasible and improved physiological health (i.e. increased heart rate variability [HRV]). A total of 26 high-worriers were randomised to an experimental or active-control condition (EC and CC respectively). Participants in both conditions registered emotions 5 times daily for a month. The EC additionally received worry-reduction training with mindfulness exercises. Primary outcomes were feasibility and HRV measured at baseline, after 2 weeks (halfway), and at 4 weeks (post-intervention). Both training conditions were feasible and well received. HRV increased in the EC and CC, but this increase did not differ between conditions. Preliminary findings suggest that both training conditions are feasible and might improve HRV, which is an important predictor of cardiovascular disease. This pilot study only provided preliminary evidence, but it laid the groundwork for future randomised controlled trials that ought to include more participants and a waitlist control group in order to get more definitive evidence of the effectiveness of the intervention.

The Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS) is a well-validated performance measure of trait emotional awareness (EA), which is associated with psychological and physical problems. EA is, however, expected to vary over time and we aimed to adapt the LEAS to permit the measurement of EA in daily life as a function of momentary state. Twenty-five students completed 12 ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) of EA across 2 days. The correlation between the mean EMAs of EA and trait EA, and the change over time in EA, was also examined. Findings revealed a significant positive correlation between state and trait EA. The within-person reliability was substantial, suggesting that EMAs can reliably assess EA over time across individuals. Importantly, latent state-trait analysis showed that about 50% of EA variability was due to state variance whereas only 2% of EA variability was due to trait variance. Preliminary psychometric properties suggest that the developed method allows for the measurement of EA in daily life and supports the claim that EA can be measured using both hypothetical (as in the LEAS) and real-life (using EMAs) scenarios., Author(s): Anke Versluis [sup.1] , Bart Verkuil [sup.2] , Richard D. Lane [sup.3] [sup.4] [sup.5] , Dirk Hagemann [sup.6] , Julian F. Thayer [sup.7] , Jos F. Brosschot [sup.1] Author [...]

Chronic stress has been linked to hypertension, but the underlying mechanisms remain poorly specified. We suggest that chronic stress poses a risk for hypertension through repeated occurrence of acute stressors (often stemming from the chronic stress context) that cause activation of stress-mediating physiological systems. Previous models have often focused on the magnitude of the acute physiological response as a risk factor; we attempt to extend this to address the issue of duration of exposure. Key to our model is the notion that these acute stressors can emerge not only in response to stressors present in the environment, but also to mental representations of those (or other) stressors. Consequently, although the experience of any given stressor may be brief, a stressor often results in a constellation of negative cognitions and emotions that form a mental representation of the stressor. Ruminating about this mental representation of the stressful event can cause autonomic activation similar to that observed in response to the original incident, and may occur and persist long after the event itself has ended. Thus, rumination helps explain how chronic stress causes repeated (acute) activation of one's stress-mediating physiological systems, the effects of which accumulate over time, resulting in hypertension risk.