The Placebo effect
When I was doing my A levels I took a psychology class there I
learnt about the placebo effect at the time I was unaware of how powerful a placebo could be but today it is the one thing that cures helplessness for me. So what is this magical Placebo effect that completely alters your mood? It is a response to a placebo --
a fake treatment, an inactive substance like sugar, distilled water, or saline
solution which can sometimes improve a someone's condition simply because the
person has the expectation that it will be helpful.
What? Shut up! So, Sugar cures my helpless? Girl you cray! No, no
hear me out. Maybe what you need is not
substances like sugar, although we all have to agree sugar is pretty darn good.
Maybe not exactly sugar but you may need your own mental placebos. A cure for helplessness?
How the Mental Placebo works?
Let me tell you a story from a book I read by Richard Brandler’s the creator of neuro linguistic programming.
This story was about a patient
Mr Richard’s friend was handling, for the sake of this post let us call him
Peter.
Peter had a tumor in his brain, his family was told that he
had no chances of survival and to take him home to make him "comfortable".
However, something strange happened after coming home Peter changed and for the
better he showed visible signs of recovery, he was even better than he had been
in years. Peter started laughing, talking more and spent his days tending to his garden. Days and
weeks past and the dreaded day never followed, instead the sick man was now feeling
more alive than ever. Concerned family members took Peter back to the hospital, upon
tests it was found that Peter had made a spontaneous recovery.
The family members were shocked but Peter simply said this “ I thought I was sent home cause they cured me”. You see, Peter thought the reason for him coming home was because he had gotten better, not because he was dying and hence acted accordingly. The placebo effect here was Peter becoming more healthy because he simply believed that he was. But, there were no sugar pills, distilled water or an experiment going on here so what was his Placebo? His thoughts, he believed and so he became and although perhaps in this story realistically Peter’s medical reports were misread and maybe wrongly diagnosed, he initially did come to the doctor thinking he had a sickness and feeling sick, but then left with the placebo of thinking he was better, resulting in the effect of him actually acting better.
The family members were shocked but Peter simply said this “ I thought I was sent home cause they cured me”. You see, Peter thought the reason for him coming home was because he had gotten better, not because he was dying and hence acted accordingly. The placebo effect here was Peter becoming more healthy because he simply believed that he was. But, there were no sugar pills, distilled water or an experiment going on here so what was his Placebo? His thoughts, he believed and so he became and although perhaps in this story realistically Peter’s medical reports were misread and maybe wrongly diagnosed, he initially did come to the doctor thinking he had a sickness and feeling sick, but then left with the placebo of thinking he was better, resulting in the effect of him actually acting better.
Create your own
placebo effect:
So, now let me give you every day scenarios, let’s say you are dealing with a tough
situation that is making you feel helpless…
One day because you think you can solve the problem, you
react positively, feel blessed and are happy and if not neutral.
But, then you have
days where you react the exact opposite to the same problems, you fret,
complain, feel helpless, alone.
Why?
Same situation, same you then why is it that you get such
different days? Because of your placebo,
because one day your placebo is thoughts of hopefulness and the other day it is
the thought of helplessness.
Hence, what will it be? Which placebo will you
be taking today ?
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