Embodied Models of Health: How attention, beliefs, and expectations interact to shape health over time

Abstract

This paper explores the concept of health mindsets and their effect on physiological outcomes, proposing an Embodied Models of Health (EMH) framework to explain these effects. Current theories, such as the Health Belief Model and the Theory of Planned Behavior, are insufficient for understanding how mindsets shape physiology independently of behavior or affect as, for example, seen in our paper on perceived time and physical healing. The EMH framework focuses on the interplay between attention, beliefs, and expectations, showing how these factors influence physiological processes. Attention plays a key role in updating beliefs and shaping expectations, which in turn affect bodily processes, as seen in studies on placebo effects and genetic feedback. The paper concludes by emphasizing the importance of attention in health mindset research and proposing actionable interventions to leverage the Embodied Models of Health framework to improve health outcomes.