Mindset for Health: the Radical Ownership of Your Health
Oct 17, 2022Mindsets are portals between conscious and subconscious processes.
Dr. Alia Crum
What is Mindset
Mindset — are our core beliefs and assumptions that we have about some domain or category of things, that orient us to a particular set of expectations, explanations, and goals.
Mindset is a kind of mental program that determines how we see the world.
The way we see the world determines what we expect.
And our expectations determine what we get in the result.
So positive mindsets are crucial for health and well-being!
Placebo effect
The placebo effect is when a person’s health improves after taking a ‘placebo’ or sham treatment ('sugar pill').
This effect is so widespread and well-studied that all evidence-based medicine is based on comparing the effectiveness of drugs with the effectiveness of a placebo.
If a drug works better than a placebo, then it is considered effective.
According to Dr. Alia Crum, the Placebo effect is made up of three things:
- Social context
- Mindset or beliefs
- Natural physiological processes in the brain and body that can produce the outcomes
The mindsets are triggering the physiological processes, and the mindsets are shaped by the social context.
Social context → Mindset → Natural physiological processes in the brain and body that can produce the outcomes
Neurohacking Mindsets
Mindsets are kind of a portal between conscious and subconscious processes.
They operate as a default setting of the mind.
These settings determine our expectations, explanations, goals, and results.
So by improving our mindsets we can significantly improve the quality of our life!
That's a really great and tremendously powerful biohack that everyone can use for free!
Do Mindsets work? Is this scientifically proven?
Yes. There are many studies confirming the effectiveness of mindsets.
Here are 3 interesting studies showing how our mindset affects our body — both physiological and mental processes.
Hotel Workers Study
84 female room attendants working in 7 different hotels were measured on their physiological health variables affected by exercise [1].
Those in the informed condition were told that the work they do (cleaning hotel rooms) is good exercise and satisfies the Surgeon General's recommendations for an active lifestyle.
Subjects in the control group were not given this information.
Although actual behavior did not change, 4 weeks after the intervention, the informed group perceived themselves to be getting significantly more exercise than before. As a result, compared with the control group, they showed a decrease in weight, blood pressure, body fat, waist-to-hip ratio, and body mass index.
Navy SEALs Candidates
174 Navy SEALs candidates were psychologically tested and divided into two groups according to their mindsets for stressful situations [2].
- In one group, there were those who believed that stress made them stronger (‘stress-is-enhancing mindsets’).
- In another group, there were those who believed that stress made them weaker (‘stress-is-debilitating mindsets’).
As a result, scientists have found that, even in this extreme setting, stress-is-enhancing mindsets predict greater persistence through training, faster obstacle course times, and fewer negative evaluations from peers and instructors!
Milkshakes study
On 2 separate occasions, 46 participants consumed a 380-calorie milkshake under the pretense that it was either a 620-calorie "indulgent" shake or a 140-calorie "sensible" shake [3].
The scientists then measured the levels of ghrelin (hunger hormone) in the participants.
It turned out that those who thought they drank the 620-calorie shake had significantly lower levels of ghrelin (hunger hormone) than those who drank the '140-calorie shake'! (in fact, all shakes were the same - 380 calories).
So hunger hormone levels were affected not by the actual calorie content of cocktails, but by people's belief in how caloric they are!
Why do Mindsets work?
Anxiety reduction
Anxiety reduction plays a large, but indirect, role in the effectiveness of mindsets.
When we think that something we do is harmful to us, or vice versa, that we are not doing enough of something useful for us, anxiety turns on.
Often we live with such anxiety all the time: “I don’t train enough”, “I eat too much junk food and I can’t stop”, or “I often get sick and I have a weak immune system”. Such attitudes drive us to anxiety and negative chronic stress, which open the door to poor mental health and physical health.
So the first reason why positive mindsets work — is reducing anxiety and uncontrolled stress.
Anticipation, Prioritization, Focus
The main effect of positive mindsets comes from the optimization of our mental programs that control the subconscious. Mindsets determine our vision of the life and world, direct our focus, set expectations and goals, and the results that we see in our lives!
Our brain always tries to explain and predict objective reality. In fact, we see the world not as it is, but as our brain has learned to see it. Such filters are mindsets. And mindsets determine how we see our world and how our brain and our body react to certain events.
For example, you can eat healthy and it will be good for you.
But you can also eat the same healthy food, but consider that such food is boring and tasteless. In this case, the positive effect of healthy food will definitely be less.
Or you can don’t believe or don’t understand why healthy food is good for you. In this case, the positive effect will be minimal!
And vice versa, you can eat healthy and reinforce this every time with the mindset that food is healthy, and tasty, and makes your life better, more pleasant, more energetic, and happier. In this case, the benefits of healthy nutrition will be greatly enhanced!
It's the same with everything we do.
At the heart of all biohacks, all of our good habits are the energy and intention that we put behind the action!
It’s the EMBODIMENT of that act that creates change and the ripple effect throughout the other 24 hours after the intervention!
It’s the state that we create and then translate into our life, by living in that state!
The potency of all good habits and biohacks we do can be significantly enhanced by believing in and understanding that potency!
It’s a great way to manage your health and actually take the radical ownership of your health!
What Mindsets to change?
Health
To be a healthy person, you need to have a health mindset of a healthy person!
Focus on your health and well-being, rather than disease and cure.
Focus on the fact that being healthy is easy, pleasant, and normal, rather than it is hard and unachievable!
Stress
Usually, people think that stress is harmful. At the same time, each of us daily faces lots of stressful triggers. Therefore, the stress mindset is on of the first to optimize!
Stress is neither good nor bad, it is just a non-specific response of our body to powerful or unexpected stimuli.
And it is in our power to benefit from stress, direct stress in the right direction, and use stress in order to achieve our goals!
Here is a great step-by-step toolkit on how to rebuild a stress mindset from the mindset experts from Stanford University
Nutrition
Ideally, you need to strengthen your mindset about the positive impact of healthy food. And weaken the mindset about the dangers of bad food if you still eat it.
By reminding ourselves of all the positive effects of healthy foods, we tell our brain what we expect from eating this food. So the brain and body can work in the right direction!
Physical activity
Often people engage in regular physical activity but constantly reproach themselves that they don’t do enough. That is the wrong approach!
It’s right to think “I do sports enough and even more”. In this case, the brain will expect to see the positive effects of your training and will stimulate the necessary physiological processes for your health and well-being! Of course, you still need to really do enough training to expect positive effects.
Sleep
Very often people say that they do not sleep well, do not get enough sleep, and that the quality of sleep is very poor. Yes, this is often true.
But it is important to understand that if you repeat this to yourself regularly, then the brain learns such a mindset for sleep, and then, even using the most effective sleep biohacks, it will be difficult to achieve deep and restorative sleep.
Therefore, you need to think like “Sleep is a wonderful restoration of energy. After sleep, I feel great and full of energy!”
What new Mindsets to learn?
Gratitude
There are many studies confirming the great positive impact of gratitude on our well-being [4, 5].
A genuinely Gratitude Mindset can reduce anxiety and fear, increase motivation and pursuit, and decrease inflammation.
Abundance
The Abundance Mindset is a great mindset for a truly happy life!
It allows you to see more opportunities, benefits, and resources, instead of constantly being in survival mode with a scarcity mindset.
Belief in an abundant world and life helps you constantly learn new things, meet new people, and pursue extraordinary opportunities that you wouldn't even think of when you were in a scarcity mindset!
Longevity
The future is now! We live in an era of exponential growth in technology and science.
Already today we can literally rejuvenate our body by several biological years every year.
Then what will happen in 5-10 years?..
Curiosity
Curiosity Mindset will allow you to discover new passions and purposes in your life. And constantly enjoy your current passions.
Stay curious, stay child!
Play
Humans, like other animals, are built to play. We have neural circuits for play throughout all our life!
Play is the most powerful portal to neuroplasticity [6].
Play mindset is an exploration in contingencies. It is about fun, joy, growth, and fun again!
How to change your mindset?
Mindsets are just simplified core assumptions about things.
Dr. Alia Crum
3 steps to change your Mindset:
- Realize that you have mindsets. To realize that your beliefs about the world, are not unmitigated reflections of reality as it objectively is. They are filtered through our interpretations, expectations, and simplifications of that reality.
- Start thinking about what the effects of those mindsets are on your life: how is that making me feel? What is that leading me to do? Is this mindset helpful or harmful?
- Change or upgrade your mindset. In order to do that you need:
- Mindfulness and understanding of the purpose of changing the mindset.
- Verbal expression of the mindset, like “the world is full of great possibilities”
- Repetition, better with emotional context!
Bonus
🔥 Here you can find product codes with discounts up to $500 for some great biohacking products that can help you stay healthy and happy! Here are some for enhancing your Mindsets:
- AmpCoil ($99 off)
- BrainTap (Free 15-day Gift)
- Re-Origon Neuro Retraining (Save 10%)
- Womens Biohacking Course (Adds quality of life!)
⭐ And here are some amazing Beautifully Broken Podcast Episodes related to this topic:
- #130 A Nudge Towards Healing, Energy, and Better Sex (Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify)
- #126 Spiritual Bypassing, Biometrics, and the of power N=1 with the Biohacker Babes (Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify)
- #125 The Limbic Brain and Maximizing JOY (Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify)
- #113 The YES and Energy Solution (Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify)
- #98 Breathwork, Biohacking, and Warrior Woman Mode (Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify)
- #46 Gratitude Free Flow (Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify)
- #44 Forgive into Love (Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify)
- #24 The Busy Bee Syndrome-Taking control of your time (Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify)
- #22 Tory Dube on Overcoming Anxiety to a 6-Figure Life (Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify)
- #12 Will you accept victory or defeat? (Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify)