In his book, ‘Suggestible You: The Curious Science of Your Brain’s Ability to Deceive, Transform, and Heal’ author Erik Vance explores placebos, hypnosis, and how beliefs influence bodily responses to pain.
“Placebos and beliefs generally is so much a part of our lives,” he tells Kishore Hari on a recent episode of the Inquiring Minds podcast. “It has an amazing power to change our bodies.”
Read the article here, or listen to the Podcast!
‘Cognitive enhancers’? Oh, do us a favour. Highly hyped and highly price energy drinks like Red Bull are all about the sugar and the caffeine, that’s all. Lots of sugar and caffeine. So why pay the premium, the enormous mark-up? It’s marketing, probably one of the shiniest examples of the placebo effect in marketing. Some science on this over here.
‘VR Placebo interventions’ …! We do indeed live in a time of wonders. Research is being undertaken into the value of the emerging Virtual Reality technologies in treatment of mental illness. It’s early days, but the results so far are promising. Read more here.
An excellent article in The Guardian on the placebo effect.
‘There is now evidence showing some people, known as “placebo responders”, do feel or get better after unwittingly, or even wittingly, taking a placebo – and it’s not just psychosomatic. Several studies are pointing to a biological basis for the placebo effect, with the latest research focused on a region of the brain known as the mid-frontal gyrus, which runs along the frontal lobes just above the eyes.’
Placebo treatments seem to have an effect on pets … but is the effect on the pets themselves, or ‘second hand’ through a placebo effect on pet owners? Find out here.
Interesting CNN article and video on the real -and growing – effects of fake pills. It concludes:
‘As most of us would guess, the placebo perceived by patients to be more expensive worked better than its seemingly lower-cost equivalent … Perceptions of cost are capable of altering the placebo response,.
Image: James Merry
It seems that using an esteemed name-brand piece of sporting equipment actually generates stronger results.
“Our results indicate that strong performance brands can cause an effect that is akin to a placebo effect,” researcher Frank Germann of the Department of Marketing at the University of Notre Dame said in a press release. “Our results also suggest that the use of a strong performance brand causes participants to feel better about themselves when undertaking a task—that is, to have greater task-specific self-esteem. This higher self-esteem lowers their performance anxiety which, in turn, leads to the better performance outcomes.”
Read more here. And here.
Set in the world of a spoofed prescription drug commercial, Nature Rx offers a hearty dose of laughs and the outdoors – two timeless prescriptions for whatever ails you. Side effects may include confidence, authenticity, remembering you have a body, and being in a good mood for no apparent reason.