Placebo Definition and Your Affirmations

The Placebo Definition and how the placebo effect works offers insight into how affirmations work. Just as these phenomena can cause physiological effects, the words we use in our affirmations can likewise cause physiological as well as psychological changes that can fulfill our desires.

Placebo Definition

If you were around in the 70's and saw Steve Martin on Saturday Night Live, you no doubt remember the Placebo skit. Needing pain medication, after much reluctance, he finally convinced his doc to give him some. Thus, he discovered this incredible drug that made him high as a kite. It was called a Pla-Ceeee-Bowwww. So, what is placebo?

The placebo definition relates to the placebo effect or placebo response.

What is the placebo effect? This is the result from an inert tablet or a fake drug, false information about what is being given or telling someone that something has changed in their treatment. Some placebos have been in the form of sham surgeries or surgeries that never took place but the people thought they had a surgery.

Usually the placebo is intended to deceive the person receiving it. The resulting improvement (whether it is perceived or an actual improvement) in their condition results from a physiological response to their psychological perception of the placebo.

While placebos play a role in medical research, there is a fundamental problem. If you give someone sugar, it is technically not inert. Those who know about the Water Cures are aware of the power sugar can have in helping people when taken with salt, magnesium and other electrolytes, the ones someone may have in their diet. Likewise giving a saline injection in place of a drug is still providing water and salt, even though it is a small amount.

Additionally, the critics of the Water Cures Protocol, even with decades of research and peer reviewed articles about it, cannot offer any way to create a placebo trial. What can you drink other than water and what can you take that will not taste like salt to the tongue?

And there is the water that is given to take the placebo, again although small, it still provides some hydrating effects or diuretic effects.

Studies have even looked at people who knew they were getting placebos. They did better than those who did not get any treatment. And looking at brain scans, t has been found that placebos can cause physiological changes such as in heart rate, blood pressure and chemical activity in the brain.

Placebos are controversial in numerous ways. In addition to the ethical implications, there are validation issues as to if placebo is real or not.

Definition of Nocebo

The nocebo effect or nocebo phenomenon is the expectation of a negative effect resulting in an even more negative than it would otherwise.

The perception or belief in a negative outcome can influence the outcome. This is based on the thinking that our mental states, which include beliefs, expectations, and anticipations can influence pain, the results of diseases like cancer and the outcomes of surgery.

Conversely, if positive results are expected, more positive outcomes tend to result (called the placebo effect).

What is a Placebo to Affirmations

Both nocebo and placebo are considered to be caused by psychological rather than a physiological effects. Yet they both produce physiologically measurable changes, including changes to the brain, body and behavior.

The important take-away from this....when it comes to affirmations, what we think about could cause our reality. If we think of negative thoughts, negative possibilities and negative results, we may realize them, even if they would not otherwise have happened.

So to with the placebo effect. When considering the placebo definition or how to define placebo, it is easy to see how the affirmation could help us attain our particular goal, whether it be social, physical or most importantly a health related need. What we believe can have a powerful impact on our being.

More on the Brain and Mental Health

What Does Affirmation Mean

Affirmation For Health

The Scientific Healing Affirmations

Placebo Definition

The Water Cures Protocol

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