Mindset and the mind-body connection

Mindset can be defined as an “implicit theor[y] of intelligence [which] distinguishes people who believe intelligence is unchangeable (i.e., those who have a fixed mind-set) from people who believe intelligence is malleable and can be developed through learning (i.e., those who have a growth mind-set)” (Moser et al., 2011, p. 1484). Further, a “growth mindset is based on the belief that [...]our basic qualities are things [we] can cultivate through [...]our efforts” (Dweck, 2006, p. 7), and our mindset changes “what [we] strive for and what [we] see as success” (p. 12).

What is really interesting is that now mindset is being explored in many more and varied ways than I expected to see on first reading Carol Dweck's book in the mid-noughties. Roll the clock forward almost twenty years, and it is now being proposed that we can "harness [this] mind-body connection", with our mindset enabling us to improve our lives (RNZ, 2022). This works for anti-ageing, for weight loss, for exercise, and for pain management.

From a book on the topic written this year by David Robson (RNZ, 2022), I found the following mindset example, on diet, very interesting:

“Some neuroscientists say the reality we experience is this kind of controlled hallucination because about 90 percent is created from within and then 10 percent of what we’re experiencing is coming from that data hitting our senses.”

For example, our mindset on dieting can also determine how we read the signals from our gut, affect how hungry we feel, and change our hormonal hunger response, he says.

“When we’re on a diet we often ignore every element of what we’re eating apart from the calorie count and we focus so much on the number of calories that we’re missing out.

“This creates this mindset of scarcity, you know, you’re telling your brain that actually you’re going to be really depleted in the important nutrients and energy that you need to get through the day and then that has a physiological effect on the body.”

That’s why cultivating an indulgent attitude to food can help you lose weight, he says.

“If you’re expecting food to have fewer calories, you see higher levels of that crucial hormone [ghrelin] after eating so your body is still expressing the hormone that’s telling it to seek new food because you’ve got this mindset of scarcity.

“What we want to do is to avoid the mindset of scarcity and the best way to do that is to actually stop focusing so heavily on what you’re missing out on your food … so you really want to focus even more than when you weren’t dieting on things like the flavours and textures and making sure they feel really satisfying for you.”

I know people have said we can think ourselves well, but the science appears to be telling us that this aphorism has some truth in it. It will be interesting to see how the science shapes up.

Sam

References:

Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Baltimore Books.

Moser, J. S., Schroder, H. S.; Heeter, C., Moran, T. P. & Lee, Y. (2011). Mind Your Errors: Evidence for a Neural Mechanism Linking Growth Mind-Set to Adaptive Posterror Adjustments. Psychological Science, 2(12), 1484-1489. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611419520

RNZ. (1 May 2022). How your mindset can change your world. Radio New Zealand. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018840130/how-your-mindset-can-change-your-world