The Role of Physiological Regulation and Mindfulness in Youths' Mental Health

In a world where life keeps going faster and faster, mental health is becoming a key problem in society, especially in adolescents. The present study addresses this issue and investigates the correlation between mental health, emotion regulation as cardiac vagal tone (CVT), and mindfulness trait in pre-adolescents. Previous research shows the impact that emotion regulation, more specifically CVT has on mental health, but not much is known about the connection with mindfulness trait especially in pre-adolescents. This study tries to fill this gap with the aim to provide better understanding of how these correlations are established, the pre-adolescents’ emotional awareness, and the interactions between these variables. The study was conducted in a middle school in Italy (11-13 years old), emotion regulation as CVT was measured using heart rate variability, mental health using the SDQ and mindfulness trait with the CAMM joined with a qualitative measure. Results showed that pre-adolescents’ emotional awareness was low; moreover, a negative correlation was found between mindfulness trait and emotional problems and CVT at rest and emotional problems. No correlation was found between mindfulness trait and CVT at rest. A gender difference was also found in CVT at rest and mental health, while no difference in mindfulness trait. Finally, a three-way interaction was found between CVT at rest, mindfulness trait and gender. In conclusion, these findings fill a gap in literature by focusing on pre-adolescents, and measuring their mindfulness trait, CVT, mental health, and their relationships, all in one study. Moreover, it can contribute to research with the results on gender difference and with the used methods like heart rate variability as physiological measure for emotion regulation, and both quantitative and qualitative measures of mindfulness.