Doctors wanted to investigate if a patient's belief in a drug could actually made a difference in bringing out the effectiveness in helping and curing the patient.
So in one experiment, they gave patients pills in which the medical contents were replaced with sugar. In other words, the medicine had no active ingredients. It was just simply a sugar pill. This is also called a placebo.
Doctors then told the patients that the medicine will be so powerful in curing their flus and headaches. To their surprise, when the patients took the medicine, the sugar pills brought about the same level of relief as compared to the actual drugs.
Placebo effect studies show that our beliefs can literally create the chemicals in our body that are necessary to bring about the cure. In fact, a later study showed that our beliefs could even override the actual effect of chemicals already present in your body.
In another second stage experiment, 100 medical students were called upon and divided into two groups.
The first group of students was given a red pill. They were told that the pill was a stimulant. But in actual fact, the red pill contained a depressant.
The second group was given a blue pill. They were told that it was a depressant. But in actual fact it contained a stimulant, like caffeine.
The results were startling.
In 50% of the students who took the pills, their bodies reacted according to their beliefs about what the drugs would do.
The students who took the red pill were extremely stimulated, resulting in a night of sleeplessness.
The patients who took the blue pill were totally wiped out. They slept and zonked out on their bed, even though the blue pills contained stimulants.
A new branch of cognitive neuro-psychology called Expectancy Theory has found that every thought you have, every belief and desire can act as an agent of change in your cells, your tissues and your organs.
Our beliefs do play an important role in representing our reality as shown by the placebo study. Beliefs affect our perceptions, our decisions, determining the actions we will or will not take in life.
Knowing how powerful beliefs can be, to the extent of changing the biochemistry in our body, it would be wise for us to adopt useful and empowering beliefs instead of adopting and dwelling on negative ones.
