Sharpen Your Mind: Placebo Effect

Posted by Jerry Lopper Dec 9, 2006

The placebo effect demonstrates the power of mind and faith. When given a treatment intended to heal an ailment, some finite number of people will feel better even though the treatment given was a neutral substance, a placebo.

With respect to treating pain, the placebo effect may be partially explained by brain chemistry. When the brain experiences pain it releases endorphins-chemicals that naturally act like morphine to relieve pain. Brain imaging studies show that the brain of a person taking a placebo for pain experiences that same endorphin release. Simply thinking pain would be relieved accomplished the relief!

There is also a negative placebo effect. Often, when people are told they are going to experience a negative effect from a drug, they do, even if the drug was a placebo with no medical basis for the negative effect. Again, thinking it made it so.

Interesting related fact: Painful injections may have more therapeutic value than ones that hurt less. The assumption here is that the more severe the treatment, the greater benefit.

Source: Adapted from The Intellectual Devotional by David S. Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim