Self regulation is tied to both outer and inner distractions. This makes sense, because mental disabilities would then reduce abilities to normally self-regulate. But this isn't reversible- not all people with an inability to correctly self-regulate have mental disabilities. Is the ADD "epidemic" really just an inability to differentiate self-regulation abilities from genuine mental problems?

Self regulation and attention are closely tied.
Self regulation requires attention. Suppression requires attention to the thought being suppressed, and any kind of conscious regulation requires attention to the thing to be regulated.
Attention also requires self regulation. Thoughts must be corralled, kept relevant to the task at hand. Physical motions must also be kept together. In a classroom, this means staying in the seat, focusing on material, not falling asleep. In a car, this means controlling pedal use, steering, signalling, and keeping eyes and thoughts on the road. On a sidewalk, this requires only avoiding other people and maintaining the process of walking forward.

What is the difference between changing education to effectively reach children, especially shortening the length of time for tasks and lessons, and using education to change children, to teach them to concentrate and apply themselves for lengths of time?

Should education serve the child, or is education a tool for making the child serviceable to other people, his society, and his family?

Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
As a child, Walls and her family seem to deal with everything by reappraisal, finding the positive in everything. Is their optimism positive, or excessive? It is easy to judge her parents as incompetent, but are they just exercising tough love? I suppose I'll have to keep reading to find out.

"Attentional Control and Self-Regulation" by Rueda, Posner, and Rothbart

"These findings suggest that a variety of pathologies may be related to deficits in the cognitve network underlying executive control." pg. 295

This makes so much sense. Attention is key to literally every single task we perform, with the possible exception of habit-controlled activities. If we lack attention, in the form of any kind of executive control, it's very logical that pathological illnesses would result.
"If the appropriate methods for training attention in young children can be identified, it is possible that systematic training of attention might be an important addition to preschool education." pg. 296
I find it a little disappointing that this was the final stirring conclusion of this chapter. I hope that these revelations about the relevancy of attention to every aspect of life can apply to more than the manipulation of small children's attention. If it really is as important to executive control as the article was saying earlier, wouldn't it be a necessary component and byproduct of any attempt to educate preschoolers?

Reappraisal seems to be a successful emotional response to stress. But it can also be an avoidance mechanism. In this article, the author, Dr. Riggio, suggests "positive thinking," a fluffier and more obnoxious name for reappraisal of negative emotions, as a response to stress. The danger of positive thinking is the tendency to forget or minimize the honest negative consequences of whatever you're "thinking positively" enough to live with. We think negatively because we have problems we need to fix- can't positive thinking be an easy way to avoid these problems?
Article mentioned earlier: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/201210/don-t-let-life-s-hassles-become-stressors

How exactly would one go about changing self-regulatory ability by improving reappraisal techniques?
Could interpreting events more optimistically decrease the perceived challenge, and allow work to start more easily? Or would it help by making work itself seem better?
Besides that, I don't see how reappraisal would work to increase self-regulatory ability, other than a general improvement of emotional state.
If I seem to fall on the pessimistic side of each aspect of the explanatory theory, is it worthwhile to attempt to improve reappraisal?

"Thinking Makes It So" by Ochsner and Gross
"Neuroscientific data are not special in the sense that they provide a 'magic window' on the mind that tells us what 'really' is going on."
This quote, from one of the sections which defines this as a chapter in a book and not a peer-reviewed article, demonstrates a humility not commonly seen in neuroscientists.
"In this study, we asked 15 female participants...." This seems like extremely few people for a scientific study, and it's curious that they were all female. It was a little odd that this wasn't ever explained.
The second study was more comprehensive than the first, but I am still curious what the results would be if researchers looked into the location of brain activity during the reappraisal of positive thoughts.

Still "Tools of Discovery and Older Brain Structures" because it bothers me.
What if all of neuroscience is just the result of an absent mind acting on the brain in certain places? Is this a practical, necessary to be considered consequence of the "correlation, not causation" theory?
How is it ethical to experiment on domestic cats by stimulating or reducing the stimulus for the amygdala?
If a rat's pleasure pathways are remotely stimulated, is it still an autonomous creature?

"Tools of Discovery and Older Brain Structures"
Is it true that "the mind is what the brain does"?
If the mind is the product of the brain, the presence of the mind will be directly proportional to the amount of brain.
If the presence of the mind is proportional to the physical brain, people who survive brain damage or undergo lobotomies are less "mindful" than others. Does this make them less worthy as people?
Do people exist above or beyond their physical mind? Is there really a human "essence" as there is in the classical view, that makes someone human, gives them mind, beyond what they physically have? Or is consciousness the limit of humanity?

If stress causes the body to respond with adrenaline, and temporarily reduces the ability of other systems to function, and this includes the immune system, then it is possible to literally make yourself sick with stress.
If stress management is a personal choice, then the amount of stress a person has is in their own control.
Therefore, if I am sick, from stress, it is my personal choices that have led me to this point. That's depressing.

Is there anything self regulation doesn't change? 

Areas self regulation is important in:

• academics- learning to keep track of assignments, work when unwilling, turn things in on time, and keep up concentration through a class, semester, and college education
• health- eating, exercising, sleeping the right amounts
• relationships/manners- censoring thoughts from being spoken, regulating the proper amount of communication and socialization, developing closeness at a normal pace
• spirituality/faith- regulating amount of energy spent on figuring out "big questions"
• leisure time- controlling amount of time spent, refraining from harmful hobbies