How much power does the mind have to heal the body? (2023)

(Video) Does The Mind Have The Power To Cure? - Sadhguru

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The idea that the mind can exert healing powers on the body is what is most commonly associated with pseudoscience, and usually with good reason. Cancer patients can't do thatthinkyour path to health; Depression doesn't work that way.any.

But on the other hand, consider the placebo effect and the subjective improvement in symptoms.People report after taking counterfeit drugs.Of course, the mind and body work together when it comes to our experience of some physical ailments, but which ones and for what?Renewal?

in a new bookHealing: A journey through the science of mind over bodyScience writer Jo Marchant addresses this question and examines how many scientists are trying to take advantage of the placebo effect to improve patient care. Marchant is a skeptical and evidence-based reporter with a background in microbiology no less, which makes for an intriguing juxtaposition with some of the alternative treatments she discusses. He recently spoke to Science of Us about the very real physiological and biochemical changes that can occur in the brain and body as a result of some completely wrong changes.Offers.

On the one hand, this idea you're talking about, about the mind's ability to actually bring about physical healing in the body, is undeniably fascinating. But at the same time, it sometimes comes uncomfortably close to claims that sound a lot like pseudoscience. What made you decide to tackle this topic?
I think maybeEsThe fact that it was so close to pseudoscience really interested me. On the one hand, it is common sense that mind and body work together. We all know this in many ways: For example, when you are hit by a car, you feel your heart beating. We are constantly experiencing how our mental states affect our physiology - it's a lotNaturally.

But when it comes to health, all these controversial issues suddenly pop up. You get all these claims from alternative therapists that the spirit can heal us and cure cancer or supposedly heal someone's paralysis after they break their neck, you know, those ridiculous claims. And yet, on the other hand, there are skeptics who have dismissed the idea that the mind plays a role in health, who call the wholeCure.

That's why I was interested in why it's so difficult for us to have sensible discussions on this topic. And I was interested in where that came from, so I wanted to take a critical look at the evidence myself, but with an open mind, to see what the evidence really is.Dice.

Do you understand from your research why some of us, perhaps especially those in Western society, tend to think of the mind and body as very separate entities?
There are a lot of things driving this that go back centuries. Many speak of the philosopher Descartes as the creator of this original separation between mind and body. He saw a difference between physical, measurable matter, amenable to scientific study, and immeasurable, transient soul or spirit, which could not be so studied. Well, of course, the idea that we can be influenced by a soul floating in our heads isn't really the world we live in, and many scientists agree with the idea that our bodies are influenced by a specific configuration of neurons can. in ourbrains.

But there still remains the hangover from this kind of considering mind and body as two different things from the mind's thinking, emotions and feelings, from being lessreal, and therefore an unsuitable subject for scientific investigation. You are doing a study where the results are, for example, the patient's self-reports about pain. This is usually not as rigorous as a study that starts with a physically measured parameter orprove.

In addition, we now rely on clinical studies and test drugs and therapies against placebo. It is of course very important to see that our medications and treatments are actually working and that we are not fooled by the placebo effect. But at the same time, it focuses entirely on the direct physical effects of these drugs and treatments. In a way, it overrides the other things, things like our expectations or the social interaction in the treatment. These are things that can affect our performance as patients, but are pushed aside and ignored because we have no way of measuring them.She.

When people speak of a "placebo effect," they often imply that people are being deceived. But you don't say that in your book.
So the term "placebo effect" is often used differently by the public, and I think that's where a lot of this disagreement comes from. So one thing could just be a trial where one group is given a drug and the other group is given a dummy drug, a placebo. The placebo effect simply refers to any improvement you see in this study. And there could be many different reasons for each improvement you see - many of these people could have improved anyway no matter what they did. Or, statistically speaking, people's symptoms canhover.

What scientists have found, however, is that in addition to these non-specific effects, taking a placebo also has real, measurable biological effects on the brain and body, similar to the effects caused by medication. So that's another meaning of "the placebo effect" - it's referring specifically to that.changes.

And that's the amazing thing about these effects: People often think that if they take a placebo to relieve their pain, for example, it's an imagined effect. It's just a change in perception: maybe you just thought you were in pain when you really weren't. But what neuroscientists are discovering are these actual biological changes that can beMeasured.

For example, a placebo pain reliever may trigger the release of endorphins in the brain. And these are actually pain-relieving chemicals; In fact, they are what pain-relieving drugs like morphine are designed to release. So the placebo pain reliever actually works through the same biochemical pathway as the drug. Parkinson's patients have a release of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain when they are given a placebo drug, which is what happens when they take their actual medication. In each of these cases, you are looking at biochemical changes that are actually very similar to the pathways they are using.drugs

So what does this tell us about measuring the effectiveness of drugs versus a placebo? I am thinking here specificallyFlibanserin - you know, "Lady Viagra" -which has been shown in clinical trials to have barely noticeable effects compared to a placebo.
Yes, it gets pretty complicated, doesn't it? Placebo-controlled trials that aim to test the direct effects of a drug or treatment, comparing it to a placebo. Which is great if you're testing a drug. But if you want to test other things like B. how our mind affects our symptoms or our health, these tests are not really that.suitable.

For example acupuncture. If you compare acupuncture to sham acupuncture, where the needles are placed in the wrong places and don't penetrate the skin properly, there's usually no significant difference between the two things. This is often used to show that acupuncture doesn't workuseless.

But there was a very interesting study in Germany on over a thousand patients with chronic back pain. And there were two groups: one received acupuncture and the other received sham acupuncture. But then there was a third group who received conventional treatment for their pain: a combination of painkillers, physical therapy, and exercise. And those patients who have received conventional treatment poorlyhalfas well as those who have received acupuncture. Although acupuncture was no better than placebo, it was much better than placebo.drugs

And that's because all these other components go into the treatment: the ritual, the hope, the expectations, the social interaction. Because of all of these things, it can really mean that even if something has no real effect, like acupuncture, it's still better than acupuncture in some way for patients.drugs

So I think in some cases we really need to think about how we design these tests to make sure we're really capturing all theseEffects

But there are certain types of conditions that respond to placebo treatments and types that don't. Can you give some examples?
Of course, if you have a life-threatening condition like cancer, wishful thinking will not cure your cancer. You need conventional treatment. It can help you deal with the symptoms; Therapy can help someone maintain their chemotherapy regimen, which can be very difficult. So I think the mind can play a role even in these serious and life threatening conditions. But it won't heal your base statIllness.

And there are a few other examples, things like taking statins for high cholesterol. As far as I know, taking a placebo statin has no effect on cholesterol levels. Or the blood sugar level: we cannot influence that with oursRescue.

But one area where we see these dramatic and immediate effects is in the subjective symptoms we experience such as pain, fatigue, nausea, depression. And there are many conditions where these symptoms pose a real problem for people, from arthritis to childbirth, from multiple sclerosis to cancer. I think people have this idea of ​​how symptoms work like pain, that it's about physical injuries to the body. And that's important, but oursExperiencethis violation is created and controlled by theBrain.

So when we feel stressed or are stressed, some kind of warning signal is amplified in the brain and we experience it as pain, nausea, or other of the symptoms I mentioned. But when we feel supported and cared for, the brain shines that the crisis is over and we don't need much then the warning signs. And thus relieves our symptoms. In a way, this explains why placebos work so well in these conditions. Because taking a placebo—something you think is an effective medical treatment—tells the brain that the seizure is over; there is not as much need for this warning sign as there wasCreate

But there are other examples where a placebo can affect some of the physical progression of symptoms. The immune response is one of them, things like allergies and autoimmune diseases. Our conscious expectation of just thinking we've taken the drug doesn't actually affect the immune response. But there is another avenue called biological conditioning, where we learn a connection between a drug and a physical effect. And it affects the immune system.Answer

For example, if you sometimes take a drug that suppresses the immune system, your body learns the connection between that drug and the suppressed immune response. And if you keep taking a placebo pill, your body automatically responds with the same suppressed immune system response. And it happens automatically, no matter what you believe about the drug you're taking.take.

Does this possibly mean you could treat patients by alternating a placebo with real drugs?
Right, and it could help reduce drug addiction in everyone from organ transplant patients to people with autoimmune diseases. And this will be very important to reduce the side effects of drug toxicity in these patients, as well as thecost.

But the question of integration into medical practice is, isn't it?TheEssentially misleading patients? How does ethics navigate there?
That's always the trap with using a placebo: the idea that you're misleading patients into thinking they're getting a real drug. But there has been some interesting research recently that suggests there are actually many ways to take advantage of placebo responses without having to cheat.any.

There are now studies that suggest that if you take a placebo andZobelIt's a placebo that might still work. It doesn't necessarily work as well as a real drug, but it can provide significant benefits. There are studies in irritable bowel syndrome, depression andADD TODemonstrationThe.

This may be because taking medication makes people feel safer, more supported, and their condition improves. With any drug you take, the benefit you get is partly due to the direct effect of that drug and partly due to the placebo effect. And some cases like the ones I've mentioned (statins for cholesterol or chemotherapy for cancer) will have primarily or entirely a direct chemical effect. The placebo effect will be very small. But there are symptoms, such as pain or depression, where responses to placebo are very large. In these cases, understanding how to maximize placebo responses will help patients respond better to the drugs actually used.take.

And as for the conditioning I mentioned, the idea of ​​alternating drugs with placebos. This learned association occurs automatically. It is similar to imagining biting into a lemon and you begin to feel the tingling in the salivary glands at the back of your mouth. It's an automatic thing that happens. It doesn't matter if you're not planning on biting a lemon, justHappens.

It is the same as the reaction to immunosuppressive drugs. You can know for a fact that it's a placebo, and with all the testing that's being done, people know exactly what's happening. In this way you avoid ethical problems. It's just a way to get those benefits, but with a smaller dose of the actual drug. And most patients are perfectly fine with that because they want to break their drug addiction.reduced.

And what these studies have found is that the experience you have after taking a placebo can't fool you. These are actual biological changes underlying these differences in your symptoms.Performance.