The placebo effect

[Bendy Demon]

I was reading about the placebo effect and I began to wonder just how prevalent it really is in our society.

For example I had a headache so I mixed some essential oils in a bit of avocado oil and applied it to where it was needed and after about a half hour I noticed some improvements but then I wondered..did it really work or was I somehow deluding myself into thinking that it had?

The reason I used stuff like that is because I did not want to rely on pharmaceuticals and wanted to rely on more "natural" remedies but therein lies the conundrum...maybe just the mere act of wanting to try something else made my body create effects based on what I thought might happen.

After all I did read up on such matters and learned a few basics on what oils did what so perhaps I just imagined that the oils diminished my headache and the oils were really nothing more than an impetus to the placebo effect.

If, from what I am gathering, our minds are supposedly so powerful then what makes us assume that anything we do actually works, maybe when we take an aspirin for pain, it is really our minds that are making the pain go away because we have been told or have read that it will do just that and the pill is nothing more than a glob of useless powders.

If the only reason anything works is because we either believe or disbelieve that something works then maybe all we need to do simply eliminate the belief part and just induce any desired effects without using placebos.

Just a thought.

[Mr Right Wing]

I was reading about the placebo effect and I began to wonder just how prevalent it really is in our society.

For example I had a headache so I mixed some essential oils in a bit of avocado oil and applied it to where it was needed and after about a half hour I noticed some improvements but then I wondered..did it really work or was I somehow deluding myself into thinking that it had?

The reason I used stuff like that is because I did not want to rely on pharmaceuticals and wanted to rely on more "natural" remedies but therein lies the conundrum...maybe just the mere act of wanting to try something else made my body create effects based on what I thought might happen.

After all I did read up on such matters and learned a few basics on what oils did what so perhaps I just imagined that the oils diminished my headache and the oils were really nothing more than an impetus to the placebo effect.

If, from what I am gathering, our minds are supposedly so powerful then what makes us assume that anything we do actually works, maybe when we take an aspirin for pain, it is really our minds that are making the pain go away because we have been told or have read that it will do just that and the pill is nothing more than a glob of useless powders.

If the only reason anything works is because we either believe or disbelieve that something works then maybe all we need to do simply eliminate the belief part and just induce any desired effects without using placebos.

Just a thought.

I think trance gets rid of pain.

I've worked long hours in a shop before which used to make my feet ache real bad. I noticed that whenever I zoned out and then snapped out of it my pain had gone. I also notice at the gym I can be working hard on a treadnill, zone out and when I snap out of it the last few minutes while zoned have been effortless. I've also noticed with toothache that if I can break the constant focus on my tooth by zoning out the pain disappears.

The next part is nuts but I dont believe in colds, hayfever or illness. I think that the symptoms like a running nose, sneezing, coughing are herdal instincts. Just like when someone in a room yawns we all start yawning I think disease is spread the same way. I think that blocking the herdal instincts mentally prevents you getting ill.

[Bendy Demon]

The next part is nuts but I dont believe in colds, hayfever or illness. I think that the symptoms like a running nose, sneezing, coughing are herdal instincts. Just like when someone in a room yawns we all start yawning I think disease is spread the same way. I think that blocking the herdal instincts mentally prevents you getting ill.

Well..in a way I sort of agree. Sometimes we have been conditioned to think that once spring time come that we are supposed to get all sick and everything BUT on the other hand there are times people really do get genuinely ill..not necessarily hayfever but to dismiss someones illness like that seems a bit harsh but I understand it too.

Furthermore sneezing is the body's reaction to a foreign object which it tries to flush out...

But to say ALL illness is caused by herd instinct seems a tad dismissive..like getting sick after eating a taco, that certainly was not on my to-do list but then again I have become wary of fast food places like Taco Bell.

Anyway..thanks for the reply, didn't mean to argue though.