The Strange Powers of the Placebo Effect

I personally don't think there's anything more amazing in this entire universe than the human mind in what it can do and what it can create. And I know that you are here because there's a part of you that knows that if I can get my mind to do what I want it to do, my life will be what I want it to be. If I can just get my mind on board. Because, you know, it's not you versus anybody else in this world. It's not you versus the government. It's not you versus competition. It's not you versus whatever else is out there, the economy. It's you versus you. And today I'm going to talk about the amazing power of your mind. And I want to try to blow your mind a little bit so that you can start to really get on board with how controlling your mind and taking the power of it. If you could get all 100% of the energy in your mind to go towards one thing, to think one thing, and then get after your mind is on board, get your entire body on board, get all 40 trillion of your cells in your body on board, that you can create anything that you want to. And it is estimated that up to 32% of all medical healings come from this thing that's called the placebo effect. And I don't know why people don't talk about it more, because it's fucking incredible. What it means is, is that somebody believes that they're healed and they heal themself. They're given a sugar pill and they're told that that pill can cure whatever disease that they have, even though there's only sugar inside of that pill, because they take it and they believe that they're gonna be healed, they become healed. That's insane. And so that's what we're gonna talk about today is I really want you to understand the power of your mind based off of what you think in the positive, but also the power of your mind based off what you think in the negative. And so Ali Crum, who's a professor of psychology and director of professor of psychology at Stanford, and the director of the Mind Body Lab, did this experiment on people where she gave them milkshakes. And what they did was they gave people milkshakes and they measured their body's physiological response to the milkshakes. So one group, they said, hey, this milkshake is a high fat, high calorie shake. The exact same shake was given to another group of people. And they said, this is a sensible low calorie shake. And each one of the participants on both sides, and they had a group of people had to have one of these shakes per week, one of these shakes per day for a week. And so what they found was that there's this chemical that's called ghrelin that creates the feeling of hunger in your body. When they gave the shake to the people and they thought it was a high fat, high calorie shake, ghrelin, which is the thing that creates the feeling of hunger in your body, dropped three times more. In the people who thought it was a high calorie, high fat shake, the ghrelin, which makes you hungry, dropped three times more than when they thought they were consuming a sensible shake with every single person in the study. So basically, their bodies responded as if they consumed more food because they thought it was a high calorie, high fat shake, even though it was the same shake between both people, which shows what your mind thinks your body will also follow. Another really incredible study that they did was on housekeepers. So they went to a hotel with housekeepers, and they realized that, you know, when you look at the surgeon general, they recommend that every person gets a minimum of 30 minutes of moderate exercise per day, right? So the surgeon General in the United States says, hey, the average person should get at least 30 minutes of exercise, moderate exercise, every single day. And then what they did was they went to all of these housekeepers and they said, hey, on a scale of 1 to 10, with how much you work out, with how much you take care of yourself, on a scale of 1 to 10, what do you rate yourself as far as how you take care of yourself? And on average, all of them rated themselves together about a 3 out of 10. And then they took a group of them, they split them into two different groups. One group they did nothing with. They just let them continue on their way. The other group, they pulled off to the side and they said, hey, I want you to understand that being a housekeeper is incredible for your body because you're getting way more than what is recommended. If you look at this, the surgeon general says that you should get 30 minutes of moderate exercise per day. You're getting eight to nine hours of moderate exercise with your job. And then they followed up with all of them. The group that they told nothing to, nothing changed in their bodies. The group that they told that, hey, this is actually good for you, your job is good for you, lost weight and on average, decrease their blood pressure by 10 points, on average. And when they rated them and had them rate Themselves. At the end of this study, the ones who realized that they had been doing more than just the average moderate exercise rated themselves as feeling better about their bodies at work. And none of them reported any difference in their diet or their workout routine. So, hold on. This is crazy. They tell a group of ladies that their job is good for their body because they're doing way more exercise than what is recommended every single day. And they lost weight and they decreased their blood pressure by, on average, 10 points. The other group of women who they did not tell this to had no differences, and neither one of the groups reported any difference in diet or workout routine. So think about this for a second. What do you think inside of your head all day long? What do you say to yourself, oh, my back's just always sore. Oh, my knees are always hurting. Oh. And I'm like, even hesitant even saying these things out of my mouth because I don't want it to manifest in my body. But what type of stuff are you saying to yourself? What type of stuff is running through your head? Because these women just thought that their job was better for them and they lost weight, they thought that their job was better for them, and they lost. Dropped their blood pressure by an average 10 points. Another thing that was done was called the sham surgery trials. And so this one study, what they had was patients with osteoarthritis in the knee were either given real surgery or what they called a sham surgery, which in this, some people went in and they had actual osteoarthritis surgery on their knee. Some people went under as if they were going to have surgery, and all they did was made an incision and on their knee, but did no surgical procedure at all on these people. Hey, real quick, I want to introduce you to something called Mindset Mentor Plus. If you love this podcast, you will absolutely love what I'm about to talk about. I designed Mindset Mentor plus to help you actively integrate every one of these episodes into your life. And here's how it works. With every episode of this podcast that comes out, Mindset Mentor plus subscribers get more. You're going to get multiple page, detailed, printable worksheets. Effectively a mini masterclass that's way more in depth than just this podcast. They also come with journaling, questions, challenges, assignments, and so much more. So that you're not just listening to these podcasts passively, but you're actively integrating them into your life. That way you improve much faster. I also do monthly Q and A sessions in there and much, much more. If you Want to learn more about it? Go to mindsetmentor.com or click the link that's down in the description. So some people had surgery, and then some people had no surgery. But what they did was they made a little tiny incision and then stitched it back. And so when they looked down at their knee, they saw, oh, there's the incision. They must have done surgery on me. Right? And many of those people who received the sham surgery reported improvements in pain and function comparable to those who went through the real surgery. So people who went through the real surgery had improvements, but many of the people who had no surgery, they just had an incision on their knee, said that they had pain and function improvement that was comparable to those who underwent the real surgery. Which is pretty crazy. Cause it just shows you what you believe is actually what you're gonna create in your reality. There was another study that was done. I'm just telling you this. Cause I hope that you can just listen to all these and be like, holy shit, this is real. What's going on in my head? Am I thinking about in creating the future that I want and the body that I want and the health that I want? Or am I thinking about fears and worries and the stuff that I don't want? Or am I saying, oh, my gosh, what if something happens to my health? And I'm constantly thinking about something being wrong with my. There's another study that was done on irritable bowel syndrome, so ibs. And the study was conducted at Harvard Medical School, and it involved patients who had ibs. And some were given absolutely no treatment, while others were given placebo pills, which means that they were just given pills that looked like pills, but there was sugar inside of them. And the doctors openly told them that they were sugar pills with no active ingredients. Surprisingly, the group that took the open label placebo reported twice the rate of relief compared to those who had no treatment. So the doctors literally said, this is a sugar pill. For some reason, the people thought in their head, well, this is going to help me. And so because of the thought, this is just so wild to me in my head, some people got nothing. Some people got a sugar pill. They were told it was a sugar pill. And a group of people who took the sugar pill that were told it was a sugar pill reported twice the rate of symptom relief compared to the no treatment group. Like, it's insane. So nothing in all of these stories changed with the person. You get that, right? Nothing actually changed with the person except their mind. And their mind is what healed them, what fixed them, what made them lose weight, which helped their blood pressure. It was their mind that did everything to them. And so the thing that you have to realize is the placebo effect is the idea of if you believe that you're gonna get healthy. And please understand this, when I'm saying this, I'm not saying don't go to a doctor. I think there's definitely times to go to a doctor, and there's definitely times you use the placebo effect and there's definitely times you get both at the same time. But there's a placebo effect which means that you believe that you're healthy, so you get healthier. There's also this thing that's very important that you know about, which is called the nocebo effect, which is when people were told more about the negative side effects, and when they were told more about the negative side effects, they are more likely to experience those side effects. People who think they have a fever, like people who literally are told by a doctor, yes, you do have a fever, have a three degree jump in temperature, so they think that they have a fever and they give themselves a fever. Sometimes when people think that they're getting sick, they can actually create the physiological symptoms inside their body. There were studies that were done on headaches, and there were these experiments where participants were warned that they might experience a headache as a result of exposure to WI fi or mobile phone signals. And the participants that were told this were more likely to report headaches than the ones that weren't given the warnings. So they say, hey, by being in this room, just so FYI, just so you know, there's WI fi signals you're getting hit with, there's mobile phone signals you're getting hit with. And the ones that were told that were more likely to report headaches than those who weren't giving that warning. There's also, when you look at withdrawal symptoms in decaffeinated coffee drinkers, there was a study that was done where regular coffee drinkers were. All of this is so wild, right? Regular coffee drinkers were giving their normal regular coffee, but they were told that they were drinking decaffeinated coffee and that there's a chance that they might have caffeine withdrawals. They were given their same fucking coffee that they're always given and they have every single morning. But they're told to them, hey, there's no caffeine in this. These are decaffeinated. You might get caffeine withdrawals. And A large number of them developed withdrawal symptoms, such as headaches, due to the expectation that there wasn't actually any caffeine, even though they were given their normal coffee. And so I want you to understand this. The thing about the placebo effect is, even though very rarely do people ever talk about it, there is more data on the placebo effect than any other drug in the world. Any other drug. And the reason why is because the placebo effect is required in all drug studies, and the placebo effect is at least 32% of all medical healings. Right? This is statistics. Google it if you want to. People think that they're healed, and they're healed. How insanely crazy is that? So what does this show you? What you think about yourself actually changes everything in your life. And so it's really important. That's the key. And why I love talking about Mindset and why I love doing this podcast is because I want to. To help you brainwash yourself. I don't want to brainwash you. I want you to brainwash yourself on what it is that you want, who you want to be, how you want to feel, and the life that you want to create. Because it's not just the circumstances themselves in your life, but what you think about your circumstances. It's kind of like the whole story of, like, the twins who have an alcoholic father. So there's this. I think it's a parable of these two boys. They're twin boys, and they grow up with an alcoholic father. And 30 years down the road they go and they find these two twin brothers born in the exact same environment. And one of them is an alcoholic, and the other one is a successful CEO. And they walk up to the one who is the alcoholic, and they said, why are you an alcoholic? And he said, I'm an alcoholic because my father was an alcoholic. Then they go up to the one that's a successful CEO and they say, why are you not an alcoholic? And he says, I'm not an alcoholic because my father was an alcoholic. It's the exact same circumstances, just a different thought pattern around what their life was, the circumstances, all of that. And, you know, I'm not saying just go out there and eat trash food and say that it's making you thin. But what I think is that if you tell yourself that you enjoy healthy food and you enjoy what it's doing for your body and you believe that it's good for you, that you will love the taste more and you'll be more inclined to go and get healthier food. If you hate the gym, don't tell yourself, oh, I love the gym. Like, don't. Oh, I love the gym. I just love the gym. Because you're going to have the BS Me. It's like, no, you don't. But tell yourself how much you enjoy taking care of your body and that this is just a piece of taking care of your body. I love taking care of. I want to take care of my body. I want to take care of it. I want to take care of it. Naturally, you're going to start doing the things to take care of your body, which includes going to the gym, which includes eating healthier. Say no to alcohol more. Say no to sugar more. And remind yourself, oh, like, every single set that I do inside of the gym is making me better. This is hard, but I love that I'm showing up for myself. Right? I want you to understand that. If you think. I remember, there was one time I said this on a live on one of the Zoom calls I was running in one of my programs, and I said this phrase, and this was back in 2020. And I said, if you think it's going to be a bitch, it's going to be a bitch. And it was for a flight that one of my students at the time, Amar, was going through. He was going on a flight from Charlotte, North Carolina, down to the Caribbean. And he was like, oh, my gosh, I've got four kids and we've got our nanny going, and it's gonna be a bitch. And I was like, yeah, if you think it's gonna be a bitch, it's gonna be a bitch. And he actually wrote it down. And he still, to this day, years later, keeps it on his desk. And I said, just think differently. If you think it's gonna be terrible, it's gonna be terrible. But if you think to yourself, I'm going on vacation with my family, I'm able to take my wife and my four children and myself and afford a nanny to come with us as well. How amazing is this? My parents were never able to do this. And you start thinking that way, there's a pretty good chance you might enjoy the flight a little bit more. He comes back to vacation. He's like, I can't believe it worked. I was like, what? I forgot that he even said it. He's like, I can't believe it worked. I just told myself, this is going to be an amazing flight. I'm going to enjoy myself. I can't believe how lucky I am to build a business where I could take my wife and my four children and my nanny down there. He's like, the entire trip was amazing, to the point where even my wife said to me, you don't seem as stressed out as you normally do. You seem like you're enjoying yourself more. You're disconnecting more. She noticed the difference in him based off of the way that he was thinking in his own mind. I want you to understand we get what we're looking for. And I want you to realize the power of your mind and the power of your belief. You know, if you look at the word abracadabra, you know, I have an episode on this years ago that I did. But the word abracadabra, most people think it's like, oh, it's what a magician says when they pull a rabbit out of a hat. Which it is. But it's a Hebrew word. It's an ancient Hebrew word that means, as I speak, I create. As I speak, I manifest that into reality is what it means. And now when you think about it, that's speaking out loud. But what is thinking? Thinking is speaking in your head. That's what it is. Thinking is speaking inside of your own head. And so as you think, you create. As you speak, you create. You have to realize the power of your belief, the power your belief changes your words. Your words change your world. You speak everything into existence. And so you've got to understand. Don't ever say, I can't do that. Say something like, I can't do that yet, or, I am even better. I'm working and improving at this. Don't say I'm not good at math. I'm improving at math because it's the difference between closing a door. I can't do that. Door's closed. There's no reason to even try versus leaving the door open. I can't do that yet. I'm improving at this. I'm working to get better at this. Don't say, you know, oh, I can't do this. Say stuff like, I won't give up. And what you want to do is you want to create your reality in order to succeed in life, in anything, in your relationships, all that. In order to succeed, you must first believe that you can succeed. And that's the most important piece. If you can change. If people can change their body based off of believing they can change their body, there's no reason why you can't create the life that you want just by simply, truly, deeply believing in it with your brain and with all 40 trillion of your cells in your body. That's how you manifest the life that you want. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on Instagram Stories. Tag me obdialjr. R O B D I A L J R. The only way this podcast grows is from you guys sharing it. And so if you would do me a massive favor, if you've ever gotten any value from anything I've ever said, please share this podcast. Don't just listen to this one, then listen to the next one. Put it somewhere. Share it so that we can grow, so we can help more people. Ultimately, that's my goal in life, is just to help more people throughout the world. And you can play a part in that by sharing this. And with that, I'm going to leave the same way leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.