Your Mind Body and Soul

Why 35-45% of People Can Cure Themselves of Illness – The Power of the Placebo Effect

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

By Curtis Chappell

How Powerful is the Placebo Effect?

One of the most confounding things for modern, medical science to explain is called the ‘placebo effect‘. A placebo is a sugar pill administered to a test patient who believes it’s an actual drug. This power behind concept has been used by doctors for centuries because it works.

The placebo effect is baffling because it impacts on average between 35-45% of the population when tested, and up to 75% in some control groups! There have been 1000’s of experiments where patients were duped by a placebo, yet were later unexplainably cured.

They were cured because they believed it to be true!

In one study, sufferers of Parkinson’s disease were told they would receive an injection of stem cells to assist with the reduction of tremors associated with this disease, while the control group actually received a saline solution (salt water) injection.

The outcome was astounding. The neural activity which caused the tremors was reduced, and the patients in the control group actually produced dopamine in their brains; where previously the production of this chemical had been lacking.

There are several aspects of a human trial which are required for the placebo effect to have an effect. These included the following:

* An unequivocal belief that the person doing the diagnosing and delivering the treatments were indeed real doctors in real treatment situations.
* That the proposed treatment was proven to work The administration of the treatment was exactly the same as a real treatment
* The results were because they expected, and believed, that real medication had been given to them, and that it would have the desired effect.

This is the important lesson! I do have to add though, that there is a big difference between expectation and intent.

Intention vs. Expectation

So if the placebo effect works because you truly believe something, the power of the mind should be obvious! If you can intend your body to affect actual physical responses and changes, then you can intend for something to happen in your life as well. But if you truly expect the opposite to occur, by speaking and thinking about the opposite all the time, which outcome do you think will be your experience?

There are many other examples of how your expectation of what you will experience does have an effect on what you do experience. This is quantum physics at work in your life.

If you continually focus on anything intently for long periods of time while also taking outward actions to achieve whatever that thing or goal is, the particles making up our current universe will begin to collapse in directions which allow your focus have an effect on your experience.

Learn to focus your expectation only on what you want to experience, and it will slowly begin to unfold before your eyes. It does take time, so be patient while you learn to make your intentions match your expectations.

May 30th, 2010 Posted by Colleen Lilly | Main | one comment