You Are The Placebo
When we hear the word placebo, the first thing that might pop into our head is doctors handing out sugar pill to half of the clients in a clinical trial and giving the other half the real medication. Studying Dr. Joe Dispenza’s work gave me a whole new outlook on what a placebo is and how powerful our thoughts are in our ability to self heal.
Dr. Dispenza gives several examples of clinical trials and self healing journeys where people really put their minds over matter. In his novel “You are the Placebo” he writes about a lady diagnosed with celiac’s disease and colitis who struggled with digestive distress fro years. She finally had blood tests done which were negative for these diagnoses. Once she realized she was normal the digestive problems were gone.
He writes about a surgical trial where half of a group is given a certain heart procedure. The procedure involves cutting and ligating damages arteries to the heart with the expectation that new vascular channels would develop to supply the heart with blood (this is an older procedure and has been replaced with coronary artery by-pass grafts). The other half of the group had incisions as if the procedure was done but did not receive the procedure. The results were amazing! 67% of the group that received the procedure improved while 83% of the group that did not receive the procedure improved!
We’ve all experienced something similar to a placebo effect to some extant. For every thought we have there is some physiological reaction. Have you ever felt a know in your stomach and/or nausea thinking
about confronting someone to resolve a conflict? What about getting a headache or migraine when you’re worried about a test or project at work? When you’re happy and energetic you will usually have more color in your face and our eyes will appear brighter. Your facial expressions and hand gestures change with your thoughts and feelings. Have you noticed that pain or discomfort will go away if you focus on something else? A new mom might tell you that her fatigue is hardly noticeable as her thoughts are so focused on caring for her baby.
The term, placebo, is usually used in medical trial situations when someone is thinking they are getting a treatment that they are not but sill experiences the outcomes expected from the treatment. The placebo is that what they think will work, works! We can apply this concept to anything. Take out the middleman, the face treatment, and start making your thoughts and beliefs count towards feeling better!
Check out all of Dr. Joe Dispenza’s work. The boundaries of your mind will be changed forever and you will find you will have so much more control over the outcomes in your life!
