Thought on placebos

I'm not sure what you're asking exactly. Are you asking if we feel that people should be given placebos?

If so, in some cases, yes. A few years back I developed an interest in this because it suggested to me that the brain is apparently capable of healing the body more effectively than it does on its own and that this should be studied to find a way for people to more effectively heal at will.

The whole thing originally seemed kind of paranormal to me, like telepathy and telekinesis, purported brain powers not able to be explained by current science. However, healing on some level is something we do anyway, that is explained. The question is why it wouldn't work at 100% without something as strange as the belief that change is coming. Also, unlike telepathy and telekinesis, this effect had actually been observed. I had to know more.

Unfortunately it seems placebos only prevent the brain from making certain choices and sometimes convince it to make others. I'll give some examples. If you sneeze, your brain chose to make you sneeze in response to data it had. When you accomplish something and feel good, your brain chooses to release dopamine and serotonin. When you feel pain, your brain chooses to create the sensation in response to damage. When you see, your brain is choosing to create perception with the photon data it has from your eyes. It doesn't have to do any of this.

All of these things aren't as autonomous as they seem. We, our conscious minds, are slaves to our unconscious minds which also make choices.

So the placebo effect can't cure cancer. If you're experiencing headaches, it can't lead the brain to cure any underlying cause any faster than it could have before, but it can be led not to choose to make your conscious mind feel pain over it. The unconscious mind could put the conscious one to sleep whenever it wants. Sleeping and waking are choices it makes. If you're experiencing insomnia, the placebo effect can help you sleep.

In other words, it seems the placebo effect mostly affects the brain's response to ailments, and as far as experienced symptoms go, sometimes that response is the only thing that feels like an ailment and changing that response can be helpful.

As to why this happens, we're still rather in the dark, but my own personal hypothesis is that the subconscious mind perceives the conscious mind having sought treatment as grounds to stop the signaling to the conscious mind. It's like if you placed your hand on a hot stove burner without looking. The subconscious mind determines damage is being done and produces the pain sensation so that you move your hand.

I suspect that it often interprets taking pills for known problems as "moving your hand" so to speak. The subconscious mind has some difficulties understanding the conscious mind, but as the sublayer it can extrapolate a lot more than vice versa. I actually find it somewhat disturbing to know that something generally concerned with doing things like telling my heart to beat is sufficiently aware of my conscious world to know I sought medication. As the placebo effect goes, if it got wind that the pills don't do anything, it would immediately respond as it did before, prodding me to do something about the problem as it cannot.

The mind is the most powerful medicine ever invented.

Many minor, and a few major, illnesses actually get better just because a person believes they are being treated and it will get better.

Placebos are perfect for certain minor issues where there is no significant risk. They are not appropriate for reoccurring issues.

They are very valuable when testing medications as they allow us to see if a medication makes a real impact or not.

The patient needs to be unaware that they are receiving placebo for them to be effective.

For small things that don't have a risk of getting worse if untreated, I think placebos are nice. You don't have to hide the fact that they're placeboes either; a lot of the time, they'll work even if the patient knows they're not real.

Otherwise though, actual medication should always be used. Especially in the case of spreadable diseases. We don't need another Tuskegee Syphilis study

Placebos are very useful in medicine and definitely have their place.

I think people should learn to not have negative connotations for placebos, yeah. They are what they are-- they can be a tool and are generally harmless when they are applied (?).

A couple of years ago, I watched some BBC TV programme where a medical doctor suggested that when you have a headache, you shouldn't automatically take a tablet, but instead first drink a large glass of water.

I don't often get headaches, but when I have, I've done this and it works far more often than not.

So, is that because headache is often one of the first symptoms of dehydration, or did that authority-figure put an idea in my head that triggers the placebo effect?

The only thing that matters to me is that the pain goes away (although the minimal price of the water cure is also nice).

If you look at the history of medicine, you'll find that some of the "cures" used in ancient times were very weird. While it's true that some substances found in nature can have a very dramatic effect on the human body, there's no way that many of those treatments could have any "real" effect in the sense of affecting the physiological functions of the patient's body or delaying or even reversing the progress of a disease. And yet people were willing to pay doctors to treat them. Contrary to what lots of people want to believe today, people in olden times weren't all completely stupid, so the treatments must have been perceived as having some effect, and the placebo effect is a plausible explanation.

I see you're on the path to learning about the law of attraction and manifesting

Because statistically they work but not as well as drugs that are proven to treat the issue. Thats why they have placebo controlled studies.

The thought of anyone telling another person that they're going to get medication, and then just giving them a sugar pill pisses me off, and reminds me of the evil that was the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. 😡