Mindfulness-based Emotional Acceptance in Combination with Neurofeedback for Improving Emotion Self-Regulation: a Pilot Study

A feasibility of Mindfulness-based emotional acceptance in combination with neurofeedback for improving emotion selfregulation is presented. This represents, to our knowledge, an unexplored approach in the emotion regulation literature. The study was performed using a low-cost wearable system designed to perform electroencephalography (EEG) outside the clinical setting. The focused EEG feature is the beta-band Power Spectral Density along the midline (FCz-CPz electrodes). Four subjects new to the practice of mindfulness were involved in the experiments. A comparison between two neurofeedback conditions (in a within-subject design) is performed: a) cognitive reappraisal task; b) emotional acceptance task. In both cases the expected decrement of power spectral density in high-beta band linked to the neurofeedback training was found. Emotional acceptance in combination with neurofeedback emerged as a promising emotional regulation strategy.