Critical Thinking is a Health and Wellness Tool -Not an Academic Exercise

Health and wellness need little introduction, at least conceptually.  The business of wellness is booming, by 2030 the annual spend on feeling good is expected to hit 1$1.5T (USD) with an average annual growth rate of 10% per annum.  It’s a divisive concept one that is typically linked to identity, you are either “wholly health-minded” “partially health minded” or “not at all.”  Your daily regimen or lack thereof is a measure of where you fit on the spectrum.  All of us to some degree, even the “not at all” engage in the concept of wellness on some level.  The wellness industry is defined by its four core pillars: fitness, nutrition, sleep, and mindfulness. Less prominent groupings have emerged such as time in nature, the importance of grounding and the need for sunlight exposure, especially first thing in the morning.  All three are accompaniments to the leading four rather than independent pillars.   Yet I argue there is a missing pillar, or at very least a need to dramatically overhaul an existing one.  Oddly absent from the wellness community, is critical thinking, or more aptly “the art or practice of critical thinking.”    There is a case to be made that it surreptitiously sits within the mindfulness corridor. Whilst the act of being mindful is a form of thinking critically, this is rarely acknowledged or substantially linked.  I have yet to open a meditation app, and it usher me through my daily critical thinking exercises. But why, is critical thinking a health and wellness issue?   Let’s first define what critical thinking is.

What is Critical Thinking?

Seriously, what is critical thinking?  For such a simple pairing of words, its definition is confused.   Ironically, and a wholly true statement, critical thinking has no formal definition. Yet despite the absence of a uniformed definition, its importance is nearly universally understood. The Reboot Foundation, a Paris based organisation focused on democratising critical thinking conducted a survey in the early 2020s, in both France, and the United States. They took to the streets and asked the “everyday” person what they thought about critical thinking.  Averaged across the two geographies, 92% of people felt critical thinking was highly important, 86% felt that society lacked such skills, and only 60% recall being taught critical thinking in school, or engaging with it, in the last five years. The criticalthinking.org, run by Dr. Linda Elders, an Educational Psychologist and a preeminent leader in the topic, conducted an observational study on university professors. They found that 86% of professors identified as being an adept critical thinkers.  Just 9% of these professors were successfully able to incorporate it into their lessons. The kicker, all of them thought they had.  Critical thinking is widely seen as something we should be doing, but no one seems to be clear on what it actually is, and thinks they are doing it, when they actually aren’t.

So, what is it?

In its most simplistic form, to think critically is to examine your own thoughts and logic, hence the link to mindfulness. This includes the identification of your own bias, and societal conditioning patterns and how these influence the logic you espouse and even how you perceive your own sense of self.  It also allows you to recognise this in others. This tends to enhance the quality of decisions made, depersonalises conflict, enables greater levels of agency and self-empowerment. This is represented across a multitude of spheres from those commonly attributed to critical thinking such as:  how you handle a complex problem at work, or how you perform academically, through to less common, such as the quality of  life you lead, your mental health, social cohorts,  life partners, how you raise your children, whether you decide not to have children, and how you choose to spend every moment you have on this planet.  Somewhere along the way, human beings made the mistake of relegating thinking critically to a highly attuned academic exercise, rather than a pertinent life skill.

Critical thinking as a wellness pillar

Let’s start with the basics, critical thinking promotes self-agency, greater levels of independent thought, and increased levels of authenticity. Plainly, it enables you to be clear on who you are, and what you want.   This matters, because we live in an increasingly complex and uncertain world. The increased level of complexity is largely driven by things outside of our control such as: a growing population base, and the rapid evolvement of technology, and its widespread influences on how we live our lives.  If we overlay this complexity onto the human condition, one for which is not wired for rapid evolution and change. It does not take long for complexity and uncertainty to become threatening. 

Emerging evidence shows that there is a direct correlation between critical thinking skills and improved mental health and clarity. Two independent university studies found when students demonstrated critical thinking skills, they were 25% - 30% less likely to suffer from depression and other mental health conditions during their university career. A study conducted by the Mayo Clinic on diabetic patients found those that exhibited greater levels of self-agency and critical thinking skills, improved health outcomes by as much as 68%, compared to those that were reliant solely on the input from their medical practitioners.  Self-agency is good for your health, whether mental or physical.

Most sociologist and psychologist agree that critical thinking is a vital tool in managing uncertainty. It’s highly effective in hijacking the brains preference towards 2heuristic based decisioning. It dramatically alters the perspective of “this is being happening to me” and switches the internal narrative to “what do I want to do about the situation I find myself in?”  Even asking yourself the question “what do I want to do?” gives you agency, that can dramatically improve your position, state of mind, and options available in a matter of seconds.  

Here are four ways critical thinking is a health and wellness tool and should be incorporated into any health wellness regimen:  

1.     Optimised mental health & acuity:  Your mental image of the world creates your life, your emotions and the experiences you have.  A poor mental image can inflict significant damage, and a positive one can change worlds. Critical thinking is one of the few tools that can permanently bridge the gap between “poor” and “positive.” It dramatically improves quality of thought and implements a more well-rounded view of the way the world is actually working.

2.     Enables Self-agency and empowerment: It’s astounding how easily we can lose self -agency and a sense of self.  Despite being unique individuals, we are wired to fit in, we are easily programmable and take in the world as it’s given to us.  To remain in this default setting takes little after.  The problem with this, is you live, or execute on someone else’s, or a grouping of “someone else’s” template for life rather than your own.  Independent thought, enables self-agency and empowerment, ensuring you remain in the driver’s seat of your own life.  There is no “best version of you” without it.

3.     Fosters a commitment to self-evolution & continuous improvement:  The only constant in life is change, it’s inevitable.  Critical thinking dilutes your need for “things to stay the same.”  This enables a greater desire to embrace self-evolution, and a perennial focus on improvement.   

4.     Promotes greater levels of empathy and compassion:  When you understand that you are a complex being just trying to figure things out, you understand that others are doing the same.  Opinions, views and ways of being are impermanent, when you recognise this in yourself, there is far less haste and superiority, which tends to result in higher levels of empathy and compassion for those around you.  

1 McKinsey 2021, Digital Health Trends

2 Decisions made by default rather than with purpose.