In actuality, the pill contains no medicineit’s only a sugar pill.
You might expect the patient not to see improvements because they weren’t given treatment.
However, sometimes, people who take these “fake” pills or shots dofeel better.
Hiroshi Watanabe / Getty Images
This phenomenon is called the placebo effect.
What Is the Placebo Effect?
A placebo looks like “real” medicine but doesn’t contain any medicinal properties.
In the past, neuroimaging research has monitored participants' whole-brain responses to placebos.
The 20 studies included 603 healthy participants.
To find out, they looked at the participants' brain activity compared to controls.
The pathway from the thalamus to the posterior insula is important in how we recognize and understand pain.
“And that’s something people hadn’t been able to see before.”
What This Means For You
Pain is real and oftentimes can indicate damage that needs medical attention.
But researchers found that you may be able to help ease some pain with mindset shifts.
“I think about the sensory changes as being a small part of placebo effects,” Wager says.
Is Pain “All In Your Head?”
“And that’s actually probably the worst strategy.”
For these cases, strategies that are instigated by the person’s beliefs could help.
“It’s sort of talking to yourself.
It’s sparking a different mindset,” Wager says.
“That this pain is just pain.
It’s not dangerous.
It’s not damaging.”
A new way of thinking about and relating to pain is one of the main takeaways from the study.
“In many ways, it really is about your mindset,” Wager says.
Still, we can’t expect ourselves to change our mindset with the snap of a finger.
“But [the] consistent practice of reappraisal can help to adopt another mindset.”
“Don’t even make a run at ignore it.
“It really does come down to the core belief about what the pain means,” Wager says.
“Is it dangerous?
Is it a sign of damage?
The placebo treatment is just one of the many ways of changing the mindset a little bit.”
We can experience a placebo effect through support and care from other people.
Takedoulas, for example.
2021;12(1).
doi:10.1038/s41467-021-21179-3
Harvard Health Publishing.The power of the placebo effect.
