The associations of emotion regulation and dysregulation with the metabolic syndrome factor.

OBJECTIVE Emotion regulation has been associated with good, and dysregulation with poor subjective health; but it is unclear if emotion regulation is related to metabolic syndrome. METHODS Associations between the metabolic syndrome factor (systolic and diastolic blood pressure, waist circumference, high-density lipoprotein, triglycerides, and glucose), emotion regulation (the strategies of repair and maintenance, self-perceived emotion regulation) and dysregulation (emotional ambivalence); and subjective health (self-rated health and psychosomatic symptoms) were studied using a structural equation modelling (SEM) approach. The participants (96 women, 85 men) were drawn from the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development (JYLS). RESULTS High repair was associated directly to the low metabolic syndrome factor, while high maintenance, high self-perceived emotion regulation, and low emotional ambivalence were related indirectly to the low metabolic syndrome factor through good subjective health. CONCLUSIONS Successful emotion regulation may have an association not only with the subjective experience of health, but also with physiological regulation systems, leading to a reduced risk for metabolic syndrome.