Have you ever taken a pill and as soon as you took it, you feel it working
and that you feel better already?
This goes to show how powerful your mind is.
Your thoughts are so powerful and can even change you physically.
It’s Your Unlocked Potential, and let’s go!
INTRO
In the past weeks, I talked about the benefits
of positive thinking, the dangers of positive thinking, and how important it is to achieve
balance as with everything else in your life.
That’s why in this video, I want to talk about how your thoughts can affect you in
physical form and manifest in reality.
So, what is placebo?
The placebo effect is a therapeutic outcome that comes from an inert treatment.
What does that mean?
An inert treatment is anything that doesn’t have (to do with) a treatment effect.
It can be a sugar pill, a saline solution, a pretend surgery, or positive thoughts.
With placebo, when believing a treatment or procedure will work, your mind helps your
body to become better with no proper treatment.
There are many studies that are still trying to understand how placebos work scientifically,
but placebo is one of the many things that science has yet to explain.
In fact, the coolest thing about placebo is that even when you know it’s a placebo,
it will have a positive effect on your body.
A 2014 study published in science translational medicine found that when patients took a sugar
pill labelled “placebo”, the group that took placebo was still 50% as effective as
the actual drug.
So, where in the brain is placebo responsible?
A 2016 study published in PLOS biology used MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) to find where
in the brain is most active when patients took a placebo.
The researchers found that the middle frontal gyrus brain region, which makes up about one-third
of the frontal lobe, showed greater activity compared to the rest of the brain.
So, positive thoughts can treat diseases or relieve pain.
But, of course, this does not mean we will neglect actual treatment.
Like I said before, a placebo was only 50% as effective as the actual drug in one study.
This means the actual drug or treatment still has more benefits than just placebo.
In fact, in studies regarding cancer where doctors are looking at whether a tumor shrinks,
placebos have very little, if any, effect.
Bonus information!
Number one Did you know that humans are not the only
ones that benefit from placebo?
Research has shown several animals can also experience a placebo effect for certain treatments.
Most notably, 2010 study published in the journal of veterinary internal medicine showed
a placebo effect for canines treated for epilepsy.
Number two The color and size of a tablet, the frequency,
and brand names can alter the effectiveness of the placebo effect.
Larger pills induce a stronger effect than smaller pills.
Red pills cause the patient to be more alert and awake, while yellow placebo pills are
the most effective at treating depression.
White pills help to soothe stomach issues such as ulcers and green pills help ease anxiety.
Pills that have a “brand name” stamped on them also work better than pills that have
nothing written on them.
Lastly, the more placebo pills taken, the stronger the effect, with those taken four
times a day more effective than those taken twice daily.
Number three You can make yourself drunk through placebo.
Researchers have found that those who believe they have been drinking vodka (which was actually
just tonic water and lime) had impaired judgement.
They did worse on simple tests, and their IQ became lower.
So, placebo has an actual effect on your physical body.
Imagine if you think more positively, what could be the result?
And if you smash that like button and hit the subscribe button with the bell, you can
become a better version of yourself.
New videos are posted on self-development every Wednesday and Sunday.
I promise this isn’t a placebo.
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It means a lot to me.
OK, getting back to topic.
The opposite is true, however, with negative thinking.
When the placebo that gives you a negative effect, it’s call a nocebo.
A nocebo effect is when the patient expects the treatment will have more negative effect
than it does.
For example, when you expect a side effect to happen when you take a pill, you may experience
a side effect without it being an actual side effect.
But simply because you're expecting the side effect (to feel bad)
A very interesting and well-done study published in 2013 in the Journal gastroenterology found
that gluten containing diets caused gastrointestinal distress in people without celiac disease.
They called this “non-celiac gluten sensitivity”.
To give a brief background on the science, gluten is a general name given to proteins
found in wheat.
Gluten helps food to maintain their shape, like a glue, and make some food chewy.
Individuals with celiac disease cannot eat gluten because it damages their small intestine.
Celiac disease affects about 1% of the world’s population.
But recently, more and more adults are changing their diets to be gluten-free.
And more individuals have identified themselves as “gluten sensitive”.
Anyway, the participants ate three types of diets in the study.
The researchers gave them diets containing high gluten, low gluten, and no gluten, without
knowing which one is which.
In the end, all the diets gave the participants pain, nausea or dizziness, gas, and bloating
all to a similar degree.
It didn’t matter if the diet contained gluten or not.
It was their mind and their thinking that gave their body a physical result.
Now, this video isn't to talk about whether people should have gluten-free diet even if
they don’t have celiac disease.
It is their choice.
This video is to bring light how
This study is a perfect example of the nocebo effect.
People think they will feel worse eating the food.
And so they did.
The same way placebo effect has a positive impact on your body, the nocebo effect has
a negative impact on yours.
So, this begs the question, where can you use placebo to your benefit?
And how can you prevent nocebo?
Well, you can start by believing in yourself.
Believe that you are in good health.
Believe that you can feel happier.
Believing you can achieve that next goal and visualize it happening.
This might sound like a cliché, but now it's backed by science.
When you use placebo effect and compound it with activities like
exercise, changing and improving yourself, healthy eating,
and doing the things you love, you can achieve so much.
And nocebo?
Perhaps we should not over-worry about some negative aspects of life and not dwell on
the mistakes we have made.
Or even mistakes that haven’t even happened yet.
While we should be careful and minimize any bad things that may happen to us, thinking
too negatively will definitely hold us back.
With that, I thank you so much for watching this video until the end.
But don’t click off just yet.
If you enjoyed this video, please like and subscribe with the notification bell on.
It takes many hours of research and countless nights editing to make these videos possible, so if you found
it helpful, please support me with likes and comments.
And if you didn’t enjoy it, please let me know what I can do to improve.
If you found the information useful, share with your family and friends.
They will get to know about the benefits of placebo and how they may change their life
for the better.
Let me know in the comment section down below, have you ever experienced the placebo or nocebo
effect?
I look forward to hearing your story.
Embrace the positivity and continue to have your potential unlocked.
Keep on improving and keep learning.
I will see you all next Wednesday.
Cheers!
OUTRO MUSIC