Sharing My Experiences of the Placebo Effect and the Power of Thought on the Body

Your mind is far more powerful than you realize

The placebo effect has, no doubt, not escaped your notice. Most of us have heard of it, yet, not everyone is clear about what it is and its implications. Nor do they all believe it exists, despite evidence to the contrary.

What is the placebo effect?

The placebo effect occurs when patients think they’ve taken medicine to cure them, but are given pretend medication like sugar pills. It also happens when they believe something, therapy, for instance, will cure them.

So, the same therapy might relieve them of illness but not help someone else who believes it won’t be helpful. At the same time, if you believe magic or some form of higher power will heal you, it just might since your positive thoughts stimulate healing.

Our beliefs stem from experiences, including our upbringing, culture, and social circles. If you haven’t had involvements to aid a belief in the power of thoughts, you might not entertain the concept. You could even imagine it leads people along an unrewarding path.

You will find plenty of evidence to support placebos if you look, showing it can work. However, I’d like to share my own experiences with you rather than regurgitate studies you can dig up by yourself with ease. Plus, it won’t hurt to remember how the mind influences physical well-being. So, let’s begin with the latter.

Your mind impacts your well-being and creates a physical response

Do you watch scary movies? If so, you know the scene when a girl flees from a knife-wielding maniac through the forest in the dark can illicit a fear-based response. And you jump the moment a boy looks under his bed in a haunted house movie. Your heart’s likely to pound or miss a beat. The hairs on the back of your neck might rise. You may even feel nauseated as your stomach churns.

In other words, your fear instigates a physical reaction. Hence the body/mind connection.

And the same’s true when you entertain any emotive thought. It can make your heart-rate increase, leave you in a cold sweat, or raise a smile depending on its nature. It’s no wonder, then, the placebo effect is real. What you believe matters and impacts your physical and emotional wellness.

You also know aches and pains and tension are sometimes attributed to emotional causes. So, if you experience your boss as a pain in the neck — you’ve guessed it — you may have pain in your neck. If you find a difficult situation a headache, you’re probably going to get a headache.

Some thoughts turn on hormones that increase health and wellness, while others do the opposite. Negativity, fear, and consistent anxiety cause your muscles to tighten. They result in physical constriction, and the result can be anything from constipation to pain.

My experiences with the body/mind connection

As a former counselor, hypnotherapist, and NLP practitioner I’ve witnessed many cases of people suffering long-term anxiety whose ailments and illnesses disappear when their happiness increases and they rewire their brains. That’s not to say every disease vanishes when people manage their emotional issues, just that it ‘can’ happen, and often does occur. And the placebo effect can and does help people. But belief must be present for it to work.

Faith-healing and prayer

My first experience with the mind/body connection occurred early and influenced my career choices. I learned thoughts change people from the inside out; a powerful lesson at the age of about four. After many months of a skin disorder on my hands (which nothing cured) my aunt introduced me to a faith healer.

I believed anything adults told me, so when it was explained I could pray away the condition, I had no qualms. I recall several family members, myself, and the faith healer stood in a circle, held hands, closed our eyes and each said a little prayer aloud (simultaneously) about my skin condition disappearing.

And it did. Very quickly. In fact, it mostly cleared up overnight and had some visible immediate results too. That’s the power of belief.

I remember, too, that to make doubly sure of achieving success, the faith healer buried an onion, or rather, he got me to do it, in our garden. He told me as the onion rotted in the earth, so to would my skin condition go and leave no trace.

Hypnotherapy and body function regulation

The next time I experienced visible physical results from thoughts occurred while I studied hypnotherapy. During class, we (other students and I) were led into a trance by our tutor who instructed us to regulate our temperature, either up or down, and I quickly felt my body heat rise and fall. We practiced on each other, as is normal when you learn hypnotherapy, and I practiced on myself at home too.

I wanted greater evidence about my thoughts impacting my body, though, so decided to stimulate a rash by imagining one covered my skin. Since I was with a friend at the time I can be sure the results, a long dark red rash along my upper-chest, arms, and neck, were not my imagination.

Hypnotherapy and healing

A few months later a pal asked me to visit her friend and offer a hypnotherapy session to help her face realign after a stroke that left one side drooping.

According to Healthline “facial paralysis occurs during a stroke when nerves that control the muscles in the face are damaged in the brain. Depending on the type of stroke, damage to the brain cells is caused by either lack of oxygen or excess pressure on the brain cells caused by bleeding. Brain cells can be killed within minutes in each case.”

They go on to say “you may be able to regain lost motor function, speech, or swallowing abilities after a stroke through rehabilitation. However, these can take time to regain.”

I’m not a doctor and didn’t know much about stroke. Nor was I hooked up to the Internet those days. But I doubted hypnotherapy as an effective method for the problem.

“It might not work,” I said, not wanting to offer false hope.

“But it may,” my pal said. “Anyway. You don’t need to believe it will do any good. It’s my friend’s thoughts that count.”

So, I gave the woman a single session that I recorded and asked her to listen to several times a day for a few weeks.

In less than a week, however, my pal told me the good news. Her friend’s face had lifted, and she was much happier.

No one was more amazed than me. Despite my former training and knowledge, even I wasn’t so sure the mind could make such incredible improvements in such a short time span.

Could the results be completely due to the power of the mind? We can’t be certain, but it seemed that way.

Your beliefs live in your subconscious, and your subconscious controls your body

Your beliefs are wired into your brain. You can form new ones, though, while sleepy because your brainwaves are in a state of deep relaxation and your subconscious is in charge. Many drivers who become sleepy fall asleep at the wheel because their subconscious mind is in control. Consciously, they tell themselves to stay awake. But their conscious mind isn’t the boss.

Why is this important? Well, if you want to develop helpful beliefs, like the belief your mind can heal you, you must impress your subconscious mind and wire your brain to match your wish.

The mind is amazing. It’s a tool we can control to a great extent and use in our favor. If you want to investigate scientific studies to support the placebo effect, they are extensive on the Internet. You can also bear in mind the many ways you already know your thoughts influence you physically and understand the possibilities for healing.

I describe the beliefs people who experience spontaneous healing share in the article link below too.

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