Make The Placebo Effect Work for You | Jim Kwik & Erik Vance

Welcome back, Kwik Brains. I'm your brain coach, Jim Kwik, and the host of the Kwik Brain Podcast. This is where you learn things to upgrade your learning and your life to become even more limitless. And your question for today is, how do you make the placebo effects work for you? How do you make it work for your brain, for your business, your brand, your body, and so much more? Even things that do not start with the letter B. Excited to have this conversation with Eric Vance. He is a science journalist and an editor of the New York Times Well Desk and author of the book Suggestible You. And I encourage everyone to get their copy. We'll put a link in our show notes at jimkwik.com/notes. This is the curious science of your brain's ability to deceive, transform, and to heal. Eric, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Yeah, it's good. It's good to have you. Now, in your book, Eric, you explore the world of placebos, hypnosis, false memories, the neurology to reveal the groundbreaking science of suggestible minds. And, I wanted to start by just asking you quickly, what made you interested in things that make you more suggestible and the placebo effects?

I mean, briefly, I think a lot of it was my childhood. I was raised in Christian Science, which is a religion that doesn't go to doctors and believes in faith healing. And when I left Christian Science, I was left with a lot of questions about what I had experienced when I was younger and the sense that like these people I'd grown up with weren't crazy. You know, we, you know, they were doing the best healthcare they thought they could. And that if you, if you sort of take that assumption, then that leads you down in this world of placebos and how the mind actually does affect your body. And it turns out I wasn't the only Christian Scientist in that world. It's, it's a quick jump, but that's what got me interested was that relationship that I had sort of grown up with and never really understood.

And we're talking about the connection between our minds and our body. Our listeners and our viewers who are watching this, you know, they definitely take a special interest. We talk about the power of mindset, but you know, you, you in the book talk about this concept of expectation and beliefs. You know, how does the way that we choose to see the world affect our minds and our bodies? Things like resilience, things like false memories of, you know, the different shams and scams that you mentioned in the book, kind of this, it all, it must be fascinating.

I mean, it's, and it's such a fascinating, interesting space right now. I mean, mindset, you know, was barely even a word when I started, you know, working on this book. And, you know, it's such a big part of the vernacular now. There's just been a lot of growth in this area in terms of the science. I mean, it all comes back to expectation and, you know, the way your body, your brain functions, which is, you know, if you were to boil it down, and I'm sure some of your listeners will take umbrage with this, but, you know, it is fundamentally a prediction machine or an expectation machine that your brain spends a lot of its time sort of trying to look at the past to apply it to the present in order to predict the future. And it's, it's sort of constantly doing that from a micro level. To a macro level of how you see the world. And a lot of the way your brain takes a lot of shortcuts, you know, based on the expectations that it has. And in some sense, there's actually many different kinds of placebo effects, but, you know, many of them take advantage of that habit of your brain to— if something doesn't fit its expectation, it's easier to change reality than it is to change the expectation and to sort of tweak what it feels. And that's all you're sort of doing. You're sort of, you know, your brain is so wired to build this map of the world based on what it's seen, that when things don't perfectly line up, it's hard to change that map. And so, placebos are kind of a— they're kind of like almost like a glitch in the matrix where your brain is willing to fill in the gap in order that the expectation meets reality. You know, an example would be taking a placebo pill. You know, how many times have you taken a pill in your life and felt better? And then all of a sudden you take this pill and you don't. Well, it's often easier for your brain to just make you feel better so it doesn't have to recategorize what a pill is. That's a pretty blunt way to put it. But I think, I think that gets the idea of what ties these things together, which is the map that your brain has made of the world based on the expectations that it's observed or it's internalized. Some of them are conscious and some of them are unconscious. And that's where it gets really interesting.

And you've taken this to a deep level. I mean, as a science writer, as a researcher, you've been electrocuted in, in a number of labs. You were cursed by a witch doctor. I mean, the book is not only very insightful, but it's entertaining as well.

Yeah, I mean, I'm amazed at, you know, you have these, like, these powerful insights, you talk to a, to a scientist who's studying expectation, and then you go out and you talk to someone who, you know, to both well-meaning and, you know, charlatan healers, you know, out in the world, and they already know about this. Like, this is something that is, is pretty well ingrained in human society and the way we approach the world. And it's been around for thousands of years, you know, and arguably has been around since before we were even humans. So where better, you know, to start reporting a book like this, you know, the laboratories were interesting because, you know, you can do these amazing experiments where if you set up the expectations right, you can electrocute me and, and make that that pain actually disappear. If you convince me that, like, with, say, a light, you know, that is turning green and that I won't get electrocuted, and then you electrocute me, my brain will just tamp that down so I don't feel it. So, it's a powerful, powerful thing. But, one of the experts and leaders in this field, Tor Wager, told me that, like, as amazing as these experiments are, they're kind of weak placebos. Like, all the placebos we study in the lab are weak. Sterile placebos. You know, the real ones are out in the world that have culture behind them, that have history, that have a lifetime of experiences and expectations. Those are the ones that are sort of in the wild. And we don't— it's very hard to even understand how powerful they are because we know that in labs, other people's opinions and other— knowing other people are involved heightens the placebo, even if they're not real. But it's very hard to actually measure that.

Yeah.

When you're in like a large group of people and they're all laying hands on you or they're doing something to boost the placebo effect, it's— one scientist told me the placebo effect is not limitless. We just don't know what the limits are.

That was actually one of my questions about the limits of that. When you think about somebody could take a, what they think is, they're told is an energy drink, right? And it might not have any of those qualities and all of a sudden they have greater energy or somebody, a student is, they're using let's say a pen that has an Ivy League school crest on it, they'll maybe be smarter.

Yeah.

And so, a placebo can make you effectively more energized, faster, smarter, and better. So, I know our listeners are probably thinking about how do I apply the learnings, the research that you have around the placebo effects to our everyday life? Because I'm sure even some people, they have family members at the doctor and they get a diagnosis or prognosis.

Right.

In terms of not even just, you know, what the current health condition is, but this is what's going to happen over the next couple of months. Where do you start usually when you have conversations with people around this?

Well, tell me more about this energy drink. Is it a fizzy drink or is it like a flat drink?

Oh, I mean, I was making up a fictitious drug, you know, somebody who's told—

If it's a fizzy drink, it'll totally work on me. I will— if you tell— if you give me a fizzy drink and tell me that it, you know, that it'll cure my cold, Or it will make me sing better, I'll fall for it. And partly it's because of that. There's— I don't know what it is, but it's that cue that kind of tells me— maybe goes back to like the 7-Up that I drank when I, you know, the only time I could drink it when I was a kid was when I had a cold. And part of it's kind of knowing what, what your triggers are and what taps into your expectations. For me, like, there's just certain things that I know make me feel better. I mean, orange juice doesn't really help your cold or an immune system. I mean, the vitamin C, you probably get enough of it from your food. It's not really doing much, but it helps me because I'm so used to thinking of it that way. And it's so in my culture. And I know that, you know, and I'm not going to not drink orange juice when I'm sick, you know, but orange juice is inexpensive and it's pretty harmless. Same thing with garlic. Garlic is another one that, you know, if I'm sick, I'll take some garlic and, you know, just the raw stuff or those are things that I know resonate with me. So you can do that. You can, the other thing you can do is you can pay a lot of money for something, which probably is not the right answer that you want to hear. But the more you pay for something, the more likely it will, it will have the effect you want. Expensive placebos are more effective than cheap placebos. Marketing and packaging has a big effect on the effectiveness and actually changes— very likely changes the way your body responds to it. There was a really interesting study that looked at a chemical called ghrelin that's related to your appetite and how it responded to really fancy or sort of like diet packaged shakes versus sort of indulgent sort of packaged shakes. And both of the shakes actually had the exact same amount of calories. But the packaging actually affected the release of ghrelin in the body, which changes your metabolism a little bit, and probably had some other effects that we have yet to measure. But that's just a picture on a label and the price. There are these things that you can sort of tweak. I hate to say it, but it's probably easier to take advantage of other people than it is to hack yourself, which is the sad reality of of our world. But there are some things if you know yourself, and you're willing to balance your skepticism with your willingness to sort of go all in, or at least go for it, go with it, not all in, you can figure out what resonates with you. Maybe it's, you know, crystals, maybe it's a lot of different things. And I think some of these things are harmless. I think some of them can be very helpful in athletics. If you're a competitive person, there's— this is something that I think shoe companies, and I've talked to people at shoe companies, have told me, They've long since figured out that a lot of shoe design is psychological. And, there was an expert actually in Britain who would give various colored placebos to runners to see which ones were the most effective. And, I think green was really effective. And, there was one that was striped that people felt like they could really run faster on them. And then, there was a black one that no one would try. And, You know, these are all placebos. These are all sugar pills. This because when in athletics, because performance is, it's such a nuanced thing and you know, you're, you know, if you're a serious athlete, you're always very close to your limit. Placebos can make a significant difference. Sex, another way. If you've looked at the, at some of the early days of treating erectile dysfunction, some of the early drugs that people looked at, while those drugs outperformed the placebo, The placebo rate was still pretty high. So there's a lot of things you can tell yourself about, about yourself. And some of it's about tricking yourself. But some of it's also about living healthy, and living well, and making sure that you're in a state where you're ready for hope, you're ready for good expectations, you're ready for good things to happen to you. And that's a part of it too. You know, there's— we live in an ecosystem of expectations in our minds. And there's a lot of different ones out there. And it's not just this one little light or this one little thing that you're playing with. But What are your expectations for the week, for the year? And these are places where you can really think about, you know, placebo in a larger sense of creating expectations that will benefit your life. And that might be a different conversation.

So Eric, a lot of our listeners, they are definitely interested in productivity and performance. They skew definitely more active physically and mentally. And so if they wanted to create that edge, let's say they wanted to have better focus, or they wanted to get better night's sleep, I mean, how do you use, you know, the power, just all the research you've done in behind the placebo effects? What, what do you think some of maybe a few suggestions for our listeners to be able to, let's say they wanted to get a better night's sleep as an example, or they wanted to have more focus or energy even if they didn't get a good night's sleep. Can they, is self-suggestion an option for that? I know obviously, or, or if you're more suggestible from other people, how, how would you approach that?

I mean, there's a couple different things. First of all, you know, let's, let's start with athletic performance. And one of my favorite stories, there's an expert who was telling me about a guy who he worked with who he wouldn't say his name, but he was a professional runner and apparently someone that I would have heard of. And he would go around at his meets and he would look at people's shoes and be like, oh, those are shoes you're going to wear? Oh no, those are good. Those are good shoes. I wouldn't have worn them, but those are good shoes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you'll be fine. And like, person's going like, what? And this guy's a big deal. So people are like, you know, whoa, like this person doesn't like, what are you trying to say about my shoes? And then, you know, right there, you know, you've already gotten, you know, we call it sort of a psychological edge, but It's really a placebo or nocebo effect, you know, that you're creating. And this guy's theory was that actually most of the difference between your best performance and the best performance that your body is physically capable of, there's a little space always between those two, that a lot of that would be made— that could be made up by psychological factors like placebos. And in fact, there are a number of performance-enhancing drugs that have not outperformed placebos but are illegal to use. And yet, you know, they may not do anything, but that's a really important thing. So that's an example of sort of sabotaging other people. But there is, for me, I'm a big rock climber, getting into a mind state and thinking about expectations is really, really important for climbing. One of my, the best climbers I knew told me once that you have 3 enemies in climbing, and that was exhaustion, fear, and negativity. And that negativity The best climbers I've ever met have been intensely positive people, and I think they set up that an expectation in their life of positive outcomes, of performance, of being able to get into that zone where you expect success, and then they're able to step back from that when when there's a danger. But pushing aside those thoughts of I can't or those you know the the insecurities—it's a big part of our journey in life, and it's a big part of I think why you know why we're here—not to get too metaphysical—but finding that. That, thinking about expectations more generally like that, I think is a really healthy thing to do for performance. As for a good night's sleep, I'm not convinced that melatonin is all that effective in terms of how well it performs against placebos. However, it is not harmful. And taking melatonin is, it's a ritual. It's a way to sort of, you know, feel like you have control over your sleep. It's not the only one. There are other ones like having a cup of tea before you go to sleep, Finding a ritual before you go to bed that hopefully doesn't involve a screen or caffeine or alcohol is a great way to take steps to helping your night's sleep. I think setting up that expectation in your mind that this is what I do before sleep and now comes sleep, that's a very powerful thing. And I don't know what that is for you. I think for me, unfortunately, it is usually looking at a screen, but I Doesn't affect me that way, but having the, the, the, a ritual and having, and also having it doing it at the same time. All of these things are, you know, these are unconscious placebos, the sort of Pavlovian side of placebo where if you can create those rituals, you can find, I think, at least begin to start training your brain into having a good night's sleep.

Do you have a process for, you mentioned, you know, you wanna set an expectation. Can we deconstruct that a little bit? Is there, is there a way you do that? Do you do, do you visualize it? Do you write it down? Is it something? You just, you say it to yourself a few times and try to add some certainty, or what, how do you, how would one go about setting an expectation that this external thing could lead to some kind of internal change?

I mean, I guess it depends on the, on the, the thing that I'm doing. If, if, if it's rock climbing, you know, it's, it's my, the way I set my expectations is really focusing on the task at hand and really being, you know, very logical and thinking, okay, like this is doable. This is not getting too far ahead of yourself, you know, not stepping out and looking around at a lot of different things. I think that the same is probably true for sleep. keeping, you know, trying to keep, keeping your vision smaller and focused. But I think it very much depends. I think this is tapping into how your brain works, the very base functioning of it. So there are larger ways, you know, to bring in expectation into your life. And there are smaller ways, you know, if you're just, you know, if I'm just needing to calm down, I have some, you know, some small rituals that I can do. I've tricked myself into thinking will calm me down. And, you know, they're based on meditation, but a lot of these things are just small things to get me into the moment in that moment. But then there's also the larger question of what you want to do in this world and what this world has to offer you. And for me, I do tend to fall back on sort of those climbing tropes where you focus on where you are and you think about the moment and you think about the decision and then you move forward and you don't— You know, try not to second-guess myself and I'll talk to myself Another thing you can do is placebos are more powerful in groups. They just are. They've done some really cool studies where they've, you know, I kind of alluded to this where they've tell people to rate how hard, strong a shock will be. And then, and then they'll just sort of by and by, you know, this is how many people thought it wasn't very strong. This is how many people thought it was really strong. And not only does that affect what people report, but it actually using measurements on the skin, they can actually detect that that's how it actually affects What the amount of pain people feel, so basically other people's opinions and these people don't even exist. These are people that scientists made up affect how I experience pain. That's just sliver of the power that groups have on placebos, and so finding a positive group, finding a group that you feel like gives you strength and hopefully isn't a cult because they also take advantage of these things. These are also powerful ways to tap into these effects. You know, when you think about expectations. You know, surrounding yourself by people, you know, even just, you know, giving people shots of, you know, oxytocin. And so you can simulate that by, you know, by finding a good group of people, or maybe just lying to yourself and telling you you have a good group of people around, because there's always a side of placebo where you can lie to yourself about it. But I think those are good, those are good steps. I won't say that I've mastered it. I've definitely met, you know, rock climbers more positive than me. And I've met successful people in life who have mastered the expectation game. I'm not pretending to be one of them, but I do see that as being important.

So we talked about rituals and routines, resources that even athletes use. You know, they have a ritual of if they mess up on serving, they'd have, you know, routine of bouncing the ball a certain amount of times, or maybe they have some kind of token that they have that gives them good luck, maybe something that they wear. Role models and the people around you, your peer group, Their expectations or even expectations of just reading something about some other, you know, and how you should act. You mentioned nocebos, which is kind of like the negative outcome of the belief and using it to sabotage someone like they're mentioning of their shoes. Can somebody use that then what you have in Suggestible You to support the people around them, their children, their teammates? What would be one example where you could help leverage the power? placebo effects to support somebody that you care about?

I think just understanding for a moment, a little bit about nocebos is helpful understanding that in laboratories, again, these are weak, weak placebos compared to the ones in, you know, out in the wild, that nocebos are, are easier to create. And they last longer than placebos. So there is a certain trend we have towards negativity towards caution, you know, nocebo is basically when you say, you know, something bad will happen to you, and it does, you know, so or this pill will make you sick, or this, you know, the shock will be stronger than we expected. Those are all examples of sort of laboratory nocebos. And the fact, just the fact that you know that they are powerful and that they are, you know, sort of potholes in life where, you know, you sit there and you say, I can't do this, or this is too hard, or man, that, you know, you're a baseball player, man, that pitcher throws really hard. I don't think I can, you know, like those kinds of conversations, those are more powerful, sticky Thoughts, then I can do this. You know, my father was a major league baseball player. He played for the Dodgers, and and he once told me who came up to he looked at them and said, "You know, you're nothing. You got nothing. I'm gonna strike you out so easily." He was a pitcher. You know, he was up against like Willie Mays and stuff like that because people were much better than him. But that's an attitude that you need to have. Now you don't want to internalize it at the point where you're you become some sort of obnoxious jerk off. But there is something to be said. For understanding the power of a negative thought. And for good reason. I mean, you know, our ancestors grew up, you know, we evolved, you know, trying to avoid dying, you know, and it's really good to have strong nocebos and strong negative expectations, but they can be really crippling.

And then, Eric, and then in terms of a positive placebo, I mean, a placebo for people around you, if you're a parent or a teacher, employer, you know, your teammates, and you want to give them a suggestion for positive effects, something that would benefit them and not be detrimental. What would be an example of that?

I, well, words are important. The words you choose are very important. The words you tell yourself are important. So for instance, not, you can do this, but this is what you do. This is who you are. This is something you are good at. You already have it in you. And when you do this, you are good at this. One of the things I think is really interesting about Christian Science is they believe that you, they don't believe they can heal themselves. They believe that they are already healed. That expectation is not Hoping for something to happen. Expectation is expecting it, knowing it. And so using words, and I know a lot of experts are just starting to scratch the surface of the kinds of words that really tap into placebos, but a lot of them are based around certainty. That sense of, please, I hope this happens, isn't right. It's more, this will happen. This has to happen because that's, that's what a place— that's when you take a placebo pill. That's what we're talking about, right? Like you're not thinking, gee, I, I certainly hope this thing works. That's, that's not how you You create a placebo effect. You take a pill you've taken 500 times, and then it does work because you expect it to. So you're good at this. This is something, you know, and the stories, like the stories we tell ourselves around math, you know, I'm no good at math. Oh, math's hard. Oh, God, math. You know, like, just, I think we have a very cultural acceptance of people saying they're bad at math. And that doesn't have to be that way. I mean, you know, you got some guy who's, you know, memorized every batting average on the, you know, the National League. Saying he's bad at math. This happens so often and you just need to switch what you're telling yourself and creating an expectation that is in line with your values and your aspirations. I think that's really important.

And potentially even looking for evidence to be able to validate that. When I was a child, I had a traumatic brain injury and I remember I was slowing down a class when I was 9 years old and I was being teased pretty harshly. A teacher came to my defense But all I remember is in front of the whole class, she pointed to me and said, that's the boy with the broken brain. And it was interesting because, you know, it's just, she, I held her as an authority figure. And, and those external words became my internal words and expectations and beliefs. So every single time I did badly, I would explain, oh, cause I have the broken brain. And so those words and thoughts definitely have, have, have patterns. As we wrap up, I highly recommend everybody look into your research. Certainly get a copy of Suggestible You. We'll put a link in the show notes at jimkwik.com/notes, as we always do. Eric, who did you write the book for, and, and why should they potentially consider getting their copy?

I think I wrote the book for people who think that they are immune to suggestion and that, you know, somehow they can't be affected, that they have a clear picture of the world exactly as it is. And That's to some extent all of us. We all think that, but none of us actually have that. We're all completely fallible. We all have a very skewed view of this world. And that's not such a bad thing. I mean, that's kind of fundamentally what it means to be human, and it's the way our brain works. But I think that having some humility, having a little skepticism, but also having some enthusiasm and optimism, there's a mix in there that I think we need to have. And so that's why I Amazing.

Eric, thank you so much for being on the Kwik Brain Podcast. Thanks for having me. And everyone, thank you for listening. Please share this episode if you found it valuable. Always, we encourage you to subscribe on YouTube and Spotify, wherever you consume these podcasts. And we look forward to seeing everyone in the next episode. Until then, be limitless, everybody.