Although on the surface, it might simply occur as a passive way of registering experience, there is evidence that this strategy can significantly facilitate the regulation of negative emotions. Neuroscientific studies have shown AZD9291 molecular weight that the labeling of affective states activates a top-down regulatory mechanism in which limbic activity is inhibited through activation of prefrontal areas of the brain and that this effect is increased in individuals with high levels of dispositional mindfulness (Creswell, Way, Eisenberger, & Lieberman, 2007). The current

results point towards the possibility that the verbal labeling of experience and the conscious noting and recognizing of mental and bodily events that comes with it may be at the heart of the PS-341 mw decentering mechanisms through which mindfulness is assumed to exert its effects (Teasdale, 1999). At what levels of dispositional mindfulness do such protective effects become evident? Probing the interaction between neuroticism and mindfulness, we found that the significance of the relation between neuroticism and current depressive symptoms turned at an FFMQ sumscore

of 145.5, which within our sample was located at the 90th percentile of the distribution. The negative effects of neuroticism thus seem to become offset only at relatively high levels of dispositional mindfulness, a finding that may also speak to why the effects observed here were relatively small. Interestingly, the level at which the moderating effect of mindfulness occurred is almost identical to the mean mindfulness score previous validation research has reported for longterm meditators (Baer et al., 2008) suggesting that in order to reach levels of mindfulness that have protective effects most individuals would indeed have to engage in sustained training of meditation. The current research is relevant to treating Sitaxentan the emotional disorders. It is well known that emotional disorders share common symptoms and variance (Krueger, 1999), and this common variance strongly overlaps with neuroticism (Griffith et al., 2010). It has been suggested that the mental skills reflected by the construct of mindfulness may help to counter global

vulnerabilities for emotional disorders (Williams, 2008). Protocol-driven interventions that focus on core emotional symptoms have emerged and are currently being studied and used in clinical settings (e.g. Allen, McHugh, & Barlow, 2008), and the inclusion of mindfulness training in these protocols has the potential to further enhance treatment outcome. The current findings support the therapeutic potential of mindfulness. They suggest that high levels of dispositional mindfulness can protect against the negative effects of neuroticism. The ability to describe and label inner experience is likely to be a particularly important skill in this context. Further research will have to demonstrate similar effects for negative emotional outcomes other than depression.