The healing power of suggestion. What is the placebo effect?

• The essence of the placebo effect
• Application of the placebo effect
• Proven facts about placebos

This term appeared in the Middle Ages, but clinical studies are still devoted to it. Moreover, it is often the placebo effect that plays a key role in the treatment of complex diseases.

History of the discovery of placebo

This term was discovered at the beginning of the 18th century. But interest in this phenomenon was truly shown during the Second World War, when an American anesthesiologist saw that ordinary saline solution (roughly speaking, water with salt) acts as an anesthetic and subsequently conducted empirical research and even wrote works about it - “Potent placebo.”

Tell me, have you ever turned to traditional healers? Or have you ever wondered how homeopathy and other alternative medicine works, which promises miracle healing in one session? It's still the same effect! This is an amazing ability given to a person for self-healing. I would call this our super power. Thought is material and capable of miracles!

One of the most obvious examples of this effect has been familiar to us since childhood. Although the example is from a fairy tale, it illustrates life very well. Have you read The Wizard of Oz? So there Goodwin gave the Scarecrow straw stuffed with needles, and the scarecrow immediately felt intelligent. The Tin Woodman was able to love with the help of a piece of silk. And Leo became fearless, thanks to the smelling liquid. Classic placebo effect!

Placebo effect: examples and facts

According to research results, it turns out that people deceive themselves, and as a result they recover. This fact confirms the power of human suggestion and programming for a positive outcome. Scientists conducted experiments on animals, introduced new components, and created different conditions for people.

Research into the placebo effect has yielded interesting examples and facts:

Placebo for animals. The studies were carried out on service dogs. Animals suffering from epilepsy were selected and divided into two groups. Dogs taking the drug and dogs taking placebo began to recover. Reverse studies were carried out on rats. They were given at the same time a drug leading to intestinal disease. Then some of the rodents stopped giving the medicine. Regardless, two groups of rats experienced unpleasant symptoms. The placebo effect was observed in hamsters that were given artificial conditions indicating the onset of winter. As a result, physiological changes were triggered: the immune system fell asleep, the rodent stocked up on supplies. Placebo for alcohol consumption. They took a group of people and offered to conduct research on who gets drunk faster. Vodka was used as a drink, which was then replaced with tonic with lemon. People who were sure that they were drinking vodka independently caused a state of intoxication. Tests showed a decrease in intellectual development and incorrect behavior. A similar experiment was conducted on students, replacing beer with a soft drink. The power of the operation. The essence of the experiment was a fake surgical intervention. The person was given anesthesia, an incision was made and stitched up, without correcting the medical problem. Then the condition was observed. The result showed that fake operations work. The patient noted improvements and recovered.

Studies proving the effectiveness of placebos

One such example proving the effectiveness of placebos: an experiment that was conducted in Germany at the end of the 19th century. At a clinic where tuberculosis patients were treated, doctors made announcements that scientists had found a cure for the disease and promised to provide it within 30 days. It is worth noting that this happened 2 centuries ago and, of course, there was no drug then. For two months, patients were fed stories about this miracle drug, but in fact they were given regular aspirin, and surprisingly, during this study, 80% were completely cured.

In general, it was previously believed that placebos only remove symptoms, but do not cure the disease. But it is not so! The placebo effect triggers the same parts of the brain that would be affected by the drug. For example, when replacing a painkiller with a “dummy”, the patient, convinced of the effect of the drug, begins to produce endorphin - our natural painkiller.

And in the USA, Obestalp tablets have recently been released, containing only sugar glucose and intended to “treat children for laziness.” But how the medicine works becomes immediately clear if you read the English name of the drug backwards (platsebo).

How does the placebo effect work?

The placebo effect varies from person to person, and its strength varies from one disease to another.

Below are four factors that are involved in the placebo effect:

1. Expectation and conditioning

Part of the power of a placebo lies in the patient's expectations. It may cause your stress hormones to decrease or make them work a little differently. For example, acute pain may be perceived as an unpleasant tingling sensation.

On the other hand, if a person does not believe that the drug will work or expects side effects, then a placebo may lead to negative results. In these cases, it is called the “ nocebo effect .”

Some scientists believe that classical conditioning may also play a role in the placebo effect. People are used to feeling better after taking medications. Therefore, the act of taking the drug causes a positive response.

Conditioning and expectation are separate mechanisms, but they are closely related to each other.

2. The placebo effect and the brain

The placebo effect is associated with increased activity of dopamine and opioid receptors. And they are associated with positive emotions and motivation.

It was also found that nocebo, on the contrary, reduces the activity of dopamine and opioid receptors.

Interestingly, most neurological changes occur in the exact areas of the brain that placebo antidepressants target.

3. Psychoneuroimmunology

Psychoneuroimmunology is a relatively new area of ​​scientific research. She studies the direct influence of brain activity on the immune system.

It has long been known that a positive attitude can prevent or even cure illness. In recent years this has become a scientific fact.

Expectations of improved health can affect the effectiveness of a person's immune system.

The ways in which the brain influences the immune system are not fully understood. It is assumed that this factor is decisive in the placebo effect.

4. Choice of response to stimuli

One explanation for the placebo effect is the human brain's ability to select responses to stimuli.

For example, a fever helps remove bacteria and viruses from the body by raising its temperature. However, since fever symptoms can be costly to the body, the brain may decide to block them.

For example, in late pregnancy or when malnourished, the body does not respond to various infections. A high temperature can harm the baby or use up too much energy (more than a hungry person has).

Thus, the placebo deceives the brain, and it “decides” that certain symptoms are not necessary for the body at this particular moment.

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Who does placebo work for?

Unfortunately, placebos affect everyone differently. The effectiveness of such treatment is influenced by many facts, such as the patient’s self-hypnosis, his character, and faith in medicine. Suspicious people are much more susceptible to self-hypnosis. But even if a person has such strong suggestibility that a simple kiss on the knee can heal him, it can also cause harm. Placebos have the opposite effect and are called Nocebo.

If a doctor, for example, says that a rash may pop up when taking a medicine, then it will definitely pop up in the suggested person. Therefore, doctors should take these factors into account for patients who are susceptible to this mood to choose the right words so as not to harm them further.

One day, a friend of mine told me a story about how her classmate was bitten by a dog, and after reading information on the Internet, she came to the conclusion that she developed rabies, just a couple of hours after the bite. Of course, at the clinic it turned out that she had no obvious symptoms, but they still gave her injections in the stomach for prevention. This is how the reverse effect of suggestion—nocebo—works.

Placebo in medicine

According to candidate of medical sciences Yaroslav Ashikhmin, susceptibility to placebo is characteristic not only of people, but also of animals. The main condition is the presence of a psyche.

In the medical community, when there is a drug with proven effectiveness, the use of homeopathy (placebo is homeopathy) is a gross violation of ethics. It is prohibited to use placebos in the treatment of bacterial infections, heart diseases and various rheumatisms. In other words, you cannot use “dummies” if there is a really working medicine with an active healing component. However, in the treatment of ARVI, the use of placebo is acceptable.

In Russia, placebos are actively used: we believe that observation in the clinic should always be associated with parenteral administration of drugs. As a result, thousands of patients across the country are given IVs of saline, a pure placebo.

Harnessing the power of the placebo effect

Placebo in sports

Have you ever noticed that by believing in victory, you achieved truly tremendous success for yourself? Of course, the opposite can happen, but the attitude is very important.

Almost everyone has experienced this effect anyway! Do you think not? Do you believe in omens? In sports, in work, in life in the end. Still think not? Often in the same sport there is a sign of wearing happy things - this is the same placebo effect. By wearing some lucky thing, a person convinces himself that he will certainly win.

Sometimes coaches give athletes dummy pills and say that it is doping. And indeed the athletes show much better results.

All the experiments show not only the effectiveness of placebos, but also that the human mind is capable of amazing things. Thanks to the power of consciousness, people can control their lives.

Placebo in psychology

One experiment made it possible to use the placebo effect in psychology. The doctors gathered one hundred and twenty people, they gave one an orange pill, which supposedly was supposed to give them a surge of strength, energy and good mood. And for others, on the contrary, blue, which will give them drowsiness, bad mood and depression. And when patients began to be asked how they were feeling, almost everyone felt what they were told.

This made it possible to use placebos in psychiatry; doctors often give patients simply ordinary yellow vitamins instead of antidepressants. Since we subconsciously experience placebo not only from the type of pill (what color and shape it is), haven’t you noticed? It also turns out that the higher the price of a drug, the more we tend to believe in its effect. This has been proven by experiment. Two different groups of people (who had previously been safely shocked) were given the same "pacifiers". Only one group was told that a pill cost ten cents, and the others that it cost two and a half dollars. And people who took expensive medications noticed improvement faster than in the other group.

But what makes this effect unique is that even belief in the Placebo effect itself leads to the manifestation of the effect itself. Even if the patient was told that he was being given some ascorbic acid, faith in the power of self-hypnosis leads to amazing results. This conclusion was reached after studies conducted at Harvard on 15 patients in 1966.

Placebo in psychosomatics

Many people do not know, but psychosomatics studies the occurrence of diseases due to the influence of the human psyche. And indeed, many diseases are due to psychological factors. For example, sometimes chronic back pain is just the effect of mental suggestion. Everything has been fine with my back for a long time, but the pain still lives in a person’s consciousness and he feels it physically. This is where a placebo can help! Sometimes, in this case, if you convince a person, anything can help him, either a conspiracy or some ordinary ointment made from badger fat, for example. The main thing is to convince him of its effectiveness.

And yet, how does it work?

In psychology, the placebo effect is used not only to adjust personal qualities, but also for training and education, development, and stabilization at any age. The basis of a placebo is suggestion. Properly executed suggestion triggers hidden mechanisms in the human body. This allows you to mobilize your own resources and defeat the disease.

Every doctor knows that there are patients for whom attention from a medical professional is already treatment. People who are suspicious, suggestible, ready to believe in a magic pill, a unique procedure, rejuvenating apples and living-dead water, are easily tempted to be cured with the help of a miracle remedy.

Their body produces substances necessary for treatment, rejects pathological cells, promotes tissue regeneration, because the brain, confident in the effectiveness of treatment, gives the necessary commands.

For this category of patients, a good doctor is the one who will prescribe medications, treat them, and not explain how to do without them. It is in such cases that a placebo promotes treatment and does not harm the body, most likely causing damage only to the wallet.

It has long been known that faith works miracles. Placebo is the belief in the possibility of becoming healthy again despite prognosis and possible negative options.

How the placebo effect affects people's lives beyond medicine

Have you already realized that your brain is capable of many things? It can heal our body, influence destiny and the fulfillment of your desires. It’s not for nothing that many people say that thoughts materialize; if you really want something and think about it, you will get it. But also, if you set yourself up for the bad, then this will most likely become a reality.

Many people believe that intuition and placebo are the same thing. The definition of intuition is a feeling for something. I don't think intuition is a placebo. Rather, sometimes they can be confused. For example, if you convinced yourself that your wife no longer loves you, and you convinced yourself of this for a long time, and then once she stopped loving you, and you decided that your intuition told you this, and I am inclined to believe that this is a placebo. You made up your mind and it happened.

The placebo effect can help a person in self-education based on positive self-hypnosis. Many believe that it not only has a beneficial effect on your health, but also on the course of your life in general.

You need to act like this: make a list of positive attitudes that will help you in life and regularly reflect on them. The main thing is to believe that all the things on the list will come true.

If you become interested in this phenomenon, then I personally recommend watching the 2006 film “The Secret.” The question of the power of human self-conviction is also raised there, but it should be understood that self-hypnosis also has its limits, and the law of karma (the laws of nature and the laws of God) operates in the life of any person. Therefore, a person should not rely on self-hypnosis alone. How the laws of karma influence and why dreams do not come true is the subject of a separate article on my blog.

This is where I want to end the article; I hope you learned something new and interesting about our capabilities. The main thing is not to allow bad thoughts into your life, only positive ones, and you will immediately notice how your life has improved. Remember that your consciousness can do more than you imagined. If you liked this article, then subscribe to my updates so you don’t miss anything, and also recommend my blog to your friends. I would be glad if you tell me in the comments below how the placebo effect has affected your life.

When placebos don't work

The probability of curing a disease with a placebo is not 100%. A lot of people are not suggestible, so they are unable to experience this effect for themselves. Also, the placebo effect ceases to work at the moment when a strong belief in the drug is destroyed by the realization that the pill being dispensed does not contain the necessary components. At such moments, suggestion begins to work in the opposite direction, and distrust of the pharmacological properties of all medications appears. Then real tablets may not have the desired effect on the human body or may act for a longer period.

Personality disorder

Personality disorder is a mental illness in which the patient has a low level of self-control, instability of the emotional state, anxiety, and desocialization. Research shows that placebos do not work for patients diagnosed with a personality disorder. This may be due to their low level of trust in other people, paranoid thoughts, etc. It is difficult for psychiatrists to establish emotional contact with such patients.

Psychosomatic illnesses

In diseases of a psychosomatic nature, placebo shows a high percentage of positive dynamics. The fact is that brain activity has a strong influence on a person’s physical condition. Therefore, there is an opinion that diseases appear from nervous experiences. It should be noted that diseases in people are not always real. If a person looks for some abnormalities in his body for a long time, then sooner or later the brain will create them. This effect works in reverse and is called nocebo. In this case, receiving a pacifier will help improve the person’s condition and bring him to peace of mind, provided that only positive facts are told about this pill.

The brain will make you believe in a sick body

Mental trauma

In case of mental trauma, the placebo effect is not always effective. If the patient who is diagnosed with mental trauma is an extrovert, then the likelihood of a placebo effect increases several times. Such people are usually dependent and gullible. Therefore, it is quite easy for doctors to convince them of the action of the pacifier. If a person is introverted, withdrawn, suspicious, distrustful, then it is more difficult to establish contact with him. Accordingly, the placebo will not have the expected effect.

Destructive training for personal growth

People who conduct destructive personal growth training have a good understanding of how the human psyche works. They have a specific plan to instill an idea in a person. People who have slightly low self-esteem usually go to trainings due to failures in some aspect of life. Accordingly, they are quite suggestible.

Initially, a speaker teaching a course on personal growth must put a person in a state of stress. Stress arises against the backdrop of helplessness that is imposed in the first 15 minutes of the event.

Next, the trainer moves on to the second stage of the course, which should consist of instilling in the person self-confidence. Against this background, various manias very often develop.

Note! A mentor, exalting his student, puts himself in the place of a guru, with whose help one can achieve any goals and realize any desires. At this moment the person gains confidence in the coach.

Next, games with consciousness begin using various techniques:

1. Meditation;
2. Visualizations;
3. Confession, etc.

During these techniques, the trainer tries to subjugate people's consciousness. Throughout the destructive training, a person is instilled with the idea that he can do anything in this world, that he has found his calling. This is called the placebo method. Even a negative person can perk up and believe in himself. In this way, the sick consciousness is healed. This means the placebo has started to work.

Important! The trainer must be very experienced and have a good understanding of people, since at such events not everyone is affected by the placebo effect. Sometimes, in rare cases, they can turn into a ready-made schizophrenic with manic-depressive psychosis.

What does the placebo effect depend on?

The placebo effect is not only used to test new drugs or in severe cases. Studying the phenomenon helps improve effective medications and find an approach to patients.

A number of studies have shown what the placebo effect depends on:

Box size and color. Tablets from one manufacturer, released in bright packaging and large sizes, work better than faded, tiny pills. Manufacturer. Promoted brands are more readily purchased by patients than their domestically produced counterparts. Human psychology comes into play: the more expensive the drug, the better and more effective it is. Doctor's authority. The medicine prescribed by the local doctor will not produce the desired result. It’s another matter if the treatment is prescribed by a professor with gray hair at the temples, a Ph.D., or a foreign doctor. The level of trust increases by 2–3 times. Type of medication. Injections are recognized as effective drugs. Such statements have been ingrained since childhood. If the temperature is high, parents call an ambulance. The result is a trip to the hospital or an injection. There is less trust in pills, especially for serious illnesses. Color. People who are depressed react to yellow tablets. Children recover when taking red pills. The bright color also adds cheerfulness. Feelings of anxiety are relieved with green capsules. White tablets cure stomach and intestinal problems. Quantity. The person believes that treatment requires frequent medications. People were divided into two groups and given different amounts of placebo. Patients taking 4 tablets per day reported improved health. The subjects who consumed 2 times less did not notice significant changes.

Placebo medications

These include tablets, which must look beautiful and impressive and be relatively expensive, injections, exercise, and even surgery. The only important thing is that the patient trusts the doctor.

American surgeon B. Mosley operated on 10 patients with complaints of knee pain: five underwent real surgery, the rest underwent imitation. Six months later, all ten reported that the pain had gone away or bothered them much less frequently.

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