Emotion regulation processes and middle-aged Japanese women's health

Emotion regulation processes, such as mindfulness, self-compassion, and acceptance, have been discussed as modifiable psychological factors related to middle-aged women's psychological distress and adjustment. Although these emotion regulation factors have been discussed separately, the question remains of which factors reflect the most variance in middle-aged women's health. Therefore, this study aimed to reveal the most relevant explanatory variable for middle-aged women's health: mindfulness, self-compassion, or acceptance.

A total of 200 middle-aged women completed self-reported measures of depressive symptoms, menopausal symptoms, physical quality of life, mental quality of life, and well-being.

Correlation analysis showed that mindfulness, self-compassion, and acceptance were significantly associated with all variables of psychological distress and adjustment. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that acceptance significantly explained the most variance of depressive symptoms, menopausal symptoms, and mental quality of life. On the other hand, self-compassion significantly explained the greatest variance in well-being.

These findings suggest that, for middle-aged women, 'acceptance' is an important explanatory variable of psychological distress and 'self-compassion' is an important variable of psychological adjustment.