An emotion regulation intervention increases long-term well-being among education workers

There is an urgent need for scalable mental health interventions, particularly for workers in under-resourced settings who experience high stress and limited access to mental health resources. One promising approach is empowering workers’ emotion regulation skills. This study evaluates a brief, cost-effective, and scalable intervention that teaches reappraisal—an emotion regulation strategy that alters how individuals interpret challenging situations. Despite its potential, the long-term effectiveness of reappraisal in workplace contexts remains uncertain. We tested this intervention among early education workers in a non-profit organization serving low-income families—one of the most underpaid and stressful professions in the U.S. Study 1 (n = 1,967), a pre-registered field survey, found positive correlations between reappraisal use, emotional well-being, and job performance. Study 2, a pre-registered longitudinal field experiment (n = 4,054), found lasting improvements in some emotional well-being and workplace outcomes from the reappraisal intervention (vs. active control) six months later, including reduced stress, a greater sense of control over stressors, more frequent action-taking to solve problems, increased self-reported job performance, and stronger intentions to stay in the current organization. Furthermore, reappraisal engagement during the intervention significantly mediated these effects. These studies advance understanding of emotion regulation’s effectiveness, durability, and mechanisms in real-world settings, providing a scalable solution to improve well-being in high-stress professions. This research also provides a template for tailoring emotion regulation interventions to novel contexts and extending their benefits to diverse populations.