How to Change Your Life With a Suggestion, With Science Journalist Eric Vance
This week, we’ll learn how to use hypnosis and the placebo effect to our advantage with the help of science journalist Eric Vance. Did you know, for example, that you can still benefit from using a placebo even if you know you are taking a placebo? Hear Eric explain the fascinating science behind these psychological phenomena and their potential uses to combat pain, depression, anxiety, and more.
Eric is the staff editor of the Wells section of the New York Times and author of What You Propose: The Curious Science of Your Brain’s Power to Deceive, Transform, and Heal .
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Highlights from this week’s series
From an interview with Eric Vance:
The placebo effect works along the way:
[T] Here are two kinds of placebos, and one of them is a conscious placebo, where I just tell you this wonderful story about this new nutrient, or some new berry, or something that uses the sun’s rays and, you know, lets them bounce off the ribs, then go up to the head and say, “Wow!” You really start to do it, and when you try it, you have a placebo effect, that’s all. Another is the unconscious placebo, where every time you take the small blue pill or every time you take the small triangular white pill, you feel better. And this happens throughout your life. And then one day someone gives you the same thing, but there is nothing in it. And you take it and you feel better. Even if someone tells you that it is a placebo and explains to you what a placebo is, this effect can still happen … Your brain simply says, “Let’s just do this, instead of rethinking all the expectations associated with pills. Let’s get rid of the pain. ”Basically, it’s a placebo effect, it’s just your brain adjusting reality to match your expectations.
Why more emphasis should be placed on hypnosis research:
[In the] fifties, there is a guy who had this, what was called Acneiforma … It’s the kind of wort that builds up on your skin and looks like fish scales. And they are really, very uncomfortable, and they bleed, and they are terrible. And [Dr. Albert Mason] practically completely cured the child of this hypnosis. Like skin, like it came off, like it spilled like a snake. We don’t know exactly how this happened, but it seems like someone should study it. We have to know, as if someone has to work on it. And it’s very difficult to do given the cultural connotations of this. Really disappointing.
Listen to the entire episode to learn more about the possible uses of hypnosis and the placebo effect.
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