Placebos work even when you know they're placebos, because expectation alone drives real benefits. Insomnia, anxiety, ADHD, and IBS respond especially well. The speaker took an openly labeled placebo for jet lag and found it improved next-day mental performance, and these pills are actually sold on Amazon with five-star reviews.
most people don't know this, you can actually know that something is a placebo. You don't need the deception at all. It still works because we expect it to work. So there's all these things that we struggle with, whether it's insomnia, whether it's anxiety, ADHD, IBS. There are many of these conditions are highly susceptible to the placebo effect. And so what I learned in writing Beyond Belief is that we should use these as tools, even if they're not truths. And so what I do for my own jet lag, it doesn't prevent waking up at night side of jet lag, but it definitely affects your cognitive performance the next day. So the first thing you said to me is like, "Wow, you seem so awake. How come?" Well, I took a placebo that morning. In fact, you can buy placebos on Amazon that say placebo pill on them. You will see 5-star reviews that say fast-acting relief for these placebo pills.
