Link: https://href.li/?https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200806133509.htm
Ah, yes, the ongoing question on whether or not the Placebo Effect is real. Does it work? Does it not? Is it an illusion in all of our minds or an actual medical effect? Hint: It’s both.
For those of you who have not heard of the placebo effect, it is by definition “a beneficial effect produced by a placebo drug or treatment, which cannot be attributed to the properties of the placebo itself, and must therefore be due to the patient’s belief in that treatment”. Wow, what an unnecessarily difficult definition. Simplified, the placebo effect is the belief that a fake drug or treatment has a benefit simply because the patient decides in his/her mind that it does in fact have a benefit/healing properties.
I say “fake drug” because the drug itself does not have any harmful or beneficial effects on our physical body. It would be as if you ingested a spoonful of sugar or drank some salty water (ew…). This “fake drug” is the placebo drug and has little to no impact on our physical body, but is highly likely to influence our opinion on the effects it has on our body. In other words, the placebo effect is a way to trick our own brain into thinking that the placebo drug we took actually healed us in some way.
This would mean that the placebo effect is actually about “mind over matter,” which means that we could essentially heal ourselves on our own accord. The article states,
The first experiment found that the nondeceptive placebos reduced participants’ self-reported emotional distress. Importantly, the second study showed that nondeceptive placebos reduced electrical brain activity reflecting how much distress someone feels to emotional events, and the reduction in emotional brain activity occurred within just a couple of seconds.
Two test groups presented with emotional images to invoke an emotional response. Both groups knew about the placebo drug. First group was told placebo drug would reduce negative feelings, if they so desired. Second group was told placebo drug would improve the clarity of the physiological readings the researchers were recording.
This means that the first group was affected differently than the second group. The placebo drug for the first group resulted in the participants being less emotionally distressed (less anxious, disgusted, horrified, etc.). The placebo drug for the second group, however, reduced the amount of brain activity that occurred.
The placebo effect was a success because the first group felt less negative emotions, and the second group had slower brain activity (which means that our brain actually slowed itself down in order for the researchers to receive a clearer reading of each participant). The participants minds were performing the chosen direction of the participant himself/herself. This was strictly mind over matter. This was a person saying “this will work because I say it will.”
Mind over matter, and matter undermined (see what I did there?), so simple anyone with consciousness can do it. But if it is so easy, why can we not heal our wounds, fix broken bones (or broken hearts…), or become invincible? Well…believe it or not, we do all of that already, just not instantaneously. When people have strokes, heart attacks, break bones, or anything else, we heal. Slowly, but surely.
The key takeaway is that our minds are capable of doing extraordinary things, whether we realize it or not. All we have to do is trick our mind, believe in what we want to believe in, and hope that we never have to drink salt water (still gross).
Consciously,
E.
#placeboeffect #mindovermatter #believe #psychology #wellbeing #mentalhealth #health #placebopower #healing
thEEsmilE 