Introducing the triadic PNP model of individual wellbeing: psychological balance, neurocognitive efficiency, and physical fitness as core constituents and targets for remote empowerment interventions

In the last years, wellbeing has become a topic of growing and intense debate in public policy and economics, and its improvement is considered a key societal aspiration (Steptoe et al., 2015), as also clearly highlighted by the centrality of the topic in the programmatic document Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development. While a single universal definition of wellbeing is not yet present in literature, multicomponent models typically recognise its multifaceted nature and focus on specific dimensions of being well (Fletcher, 2016). Within the framework of positive psychology, a primary determinant of psychological wellbeing is constituted by hedonic experiences (Deci & Ryan, 2008), connoted by alternating positive and negative affects. Enjoyment and efficient affective regulation are, in turn, valuable means to enhance emotional, social, and cognitive skills in an indirect – even though effective – way (Antonietti et al., 2014). Building on such theoretical framework, we here propose the PNP model, a triadic model in which Psychological balance, together with Neurocognitive efficiency and Physical fitness, constitute three distinct though interdependent pillars supporting individual wellbeing. We also discuss their role as primary targets even in remote empowerment protocols, aimed at proving a sustainable and accessible solution for promoting individual flourishing, preventing psychological distress, and contrasting psychophysical decline along the life span. Consistently, neurocognitive empowerment based on embodied awareness practices and non-invasive neuromodulation devices already proved to modulate neurocognitive efficiency and psychological balance, fostering better self-regulation skills and optimised executive functioning (Balconi et al., 2019; Crivelli et al., 2019; Lopez et al., 2021). Again, psychological balance proved to be specifically and positively affected by nature-based interventions (Song et al., 2022). And finally, combined cognitive-sensorimotor stimulation protocols already showed their potential to affect physical fitness in the lifespan (Bisio et al., 2019, 2021).