What I believe shapes my reality — placebo and nocebo effects
The power is within us.
You may have heard about the placebo effect in the context of medical studies. The researchers want to know whether a certain drug A has a curing effect. In order to verify it they create two groups of patients: some people get the actual drug A (treatment group) and a control group with other patients which get a drug without any effective substances (the placebo). However, they are told that the pills are the real drug so they “know” it is the drug that cures the disease (placebo group). And guess what. Often, very often, there is a curing effect in the placebo group although the patients got the pills without the effective substance. So, there is no direct physiological cause for the curing effect. Logically it is impossible being cured by that pill. But yet, the positive effects occur. Why? The only answer is that the perception or belief of those people play the key role in achieving the positive effect. And it gets even more interesting: The placebo effect is also present if the people are told before taking those fake pills that they are taking a placebo. Our mind is the most powerful tool on Earth known to date and it is possible to affect it in a way that can be very beneficial to the respective individual, or even humanity as a whole. The question to me is: if the placebo effect is so evident even in people who know they are taking the fake pill, can we also skip the pill and just use our minds in the positive direction? To me there is a clear YES. However, in our materialistic world people seem to cling to some physical thing in order to project their beliefs onto. Furthermore, our social circle influences us as well and as long as we are surrounded by people with a certain belief it is of course more difficult to live contrary to that belief. I further believe that we can transfer that placebo effect from medical research to every field we want to. Because the only limit that there seems to be is our mind, or more precise: our beliefs or programs.
Yet, there is another side to the coin, as in most cases. While placebos have positive or beneficial effects, as described above, nocebos have the opposite outcoming (the nocebo effect): the results are negative or even deadly in extreme cases. Similar scenario as above: we have a treatment group of patients with the actual drug A and a control group with the fake pills (i.e. no effective substances in them). But in addition to tell the patients from that control group that they are taking the actual drug (which they do not) we additionally tell them about the side effects of the drug. Well, many of them develop those side effects that have been described to them, for example headaches, aching stomach, nausea etc. Interesting, right? Here the sheer belief in a negative result creates exactly this: the negative result. Many advertisements use exactly this trick. Politics apply those principles as well. In order to create insecurities or even fears that result more often than not in real damage if deployed over long periods. Just take a look on the daily news. We are bombarded the whole day with negative news from all over the world about: climate change, wars, terrorists, weather catastrophes, recession, murder, gangs, lesser crimes, raping, dangerous animals, accidents, epidemics and so on. This creates the belief of constant threat in almost every area of live and Earth. People live under constant distress from perceived danger. Sometimes the stuff is subtle, sometimes it comes in big headlines. Some of them suggest a direct negative effect on your health. The “best” thing is that many of those news are pure lies or many of those events are known to be orchestrated so they get into the news. And this in order to manipulate our minds and got achieve a nice nocebo effect. Sometime we do harming selftalk before a certain action. For example: “Oh man, its cold outside and it is raining. I do not want to go out for jogging. I surely will get ill.”
Knowing about the placebo and nocebo effects has helped me to deal with different stuff in life. I do not need the placebo pill at all, I just do empowering self-talk and the most “issues” at least do not appear that severe any more to me. And life is easier. Why should I complicate things proactively when I can do them nicer? Why should I believe all the media crap? Does it help me? I observe myself and continue on my journey without giving too much attention those distractions that serve other people purposes but not mine.
I hope that helps you to put some stuff into perspective.
Cheers, Wito
Etymology
Placebo (Latin) = I shall please, future indicative of placere = to please
Nocebo (Latin) = I shall harm, future indicative of nocere = to harm
Suggested reading (Amazon affiliate links, I get a small percentage from Amazon, but for you it is not more expensive):
English:
Dispenza, J. 2014. You are the placebo — Making your mind matter https://amzn.to/4cV4gKP
Deutsch:
Dispenza, J. 2014. Du bist das Placebo — Bewusstsein wird Materie https://amzn.to/43YCPeU
