The Placebo effect
Staring: Your bleeped up brain!
Emotions come from the heart, poetically it sounds beautiful, however from a scientific standpoint I'm pretty sure we all know that they come from our Brains. The brain of a living being is the most important part of our bodies, without it we literally cannot do anything (watch your spines kids!). The ability to feel from touch, to calculate logically, to express emotion. All of these come from our brains. I can definitely say that it's one of nature's finest pieces of work. With our brains comes the power of thinking and then believing. The ability to believe is, in my opinion, the absolute most powerful thing we human beings have. And I'm not just saying this to sound philosophically positive because scientifically speaking, sometimes our minds tend to go beyond the boundaries of what we think is possible! In order for me to get to the topic of Philippine mind magic, I first have to include a very important aspect that has may have an influence on this study! Now I introduce to you, the "Placebo effect"
To quote from the article "How the Placebo Effect Works" by Shanna Freeman found on the "website science.howstuffworks.com"
This could also be a possible explanation for how miracles in pray over's sometimes work. However that is a subject that I will not dwell into lest I risk being stoned by two sides of opposing beliefs.
"Buddhesushamad bless you with light!"
In the article "The Placebo Effect Takes Place Subconsciously" Written by Kelly Fitzgerald found in the website www.MedicalNewsToday.com, they conducted an experiment involving pain levels, I quote:
"They conducted two experiments using 40 volunteers. In the first, researchers gave heat stimulation to participants' arms and showed them pictures of human male faces at the same time. The first image was related to with low pain prompts, while the second was related to high pain prompts."
So we get two pictures, one with a guy who just got a mosquito bite and another where, he was forced to watch repeated episodes of Jersey shore while applying heat to the patients arm. Later on in the article, it's revealed that the heat levels were similar, however many patients experienced a different level of heat when they were shown the pictures individually.
In an episode of the TV show "Your bleeped up brain" they made a test wherein they had a few college students have a drinking party in a room (best test ever) however, none of their drinks contained any alcohol. Just water dipped with tonic to make it taste like the drinks. Guess what after 30 minutes, they were all freaking wasted. Of course the levels varied and one of the girls was a 'lot more hammered than the others, to the point where she was actually vomiting and walking tipsy. But the point is...It freaking worked, they really got drunk off of stuff that was never even alcoholic in the first place and all because they believed they were drinking real alcohol.
Though I cannot locate the source, as I saw this on TV, the episode explained that we had electronic signals that would respond to different types of stimuli in our body. When the teenagers were drinking fake beer, the signals triggered the same types of reactant signals as it normally would when drinking real beer. So in the end the body reacted accordingly.
To conclude, every time I remember the placebo effect, I tend to realize just how powerful the human mind actually is. Does that mean better stuff happen if we're gullible? Does scepticism kill of the placebo effect since it shoves off the idea of believing if you don't have any first hand evidence? Whatever the answer may be, it's perhaps something to be explored for another time.
I have all the f***ing power
Staring: Your bleeped up brain!
Emotions come from the heart, poetically it sounds beautiful, however from a scientific standpoint I'm pretty sure we all know that they come from our Brains. The brain of a living being is the most important part of our bodies, without it we literally cannot do anything (watch your spines kids!). The ability to feel from touch, to calculate logically, to express emotion. All of these come from our brains. I can definitely say that it's one of nature's finest pieces of work. With our brains comes the power of thinking and then believing. The ability to believe is, in my opinion, the absolute most powerful thing we human beings have. And I'm not just saying this to sound philosophically positive because scientifically speaking, sometimes our minds tend to go beyond the boundaries of what we think is possible! In order for me to get to the topic of Philippine mind magic, I first have to include a very important aspect that has may have an influence on this study! Now I introduce to you, the "Placebo effect"
To quote from the article "How the Placebo Effect Works" by Shanna Freeman found on the "website science.howstuffworks.com"
" It's what happens when a person takes a medication that he or she perceives will help, although it actually has no proven therapeutic effect for his or her particular condition. "
In other words "I believe this medicine works, and it really freaking works" no of course I'm not saying that if you somehow woke up and suddenly believed that you could pop wings out of your ass and fly off the top floor of a hospital, you'd actually fly. However there have been many accounts of false medicines, ritualistic trinkets and other things that should never have amounted to any type of cure in the first place actually working and curing plenty of patients.This could also be a possible explanation for how miracles in pray over's sometimes work. However that is a subject that I will not dwell into lest I risk being stoned by two sides of opposing beliefs.
In the article "The Placebo Effect Takes Place Subconsciously" Written by Kelly Fitzgerald found in the website www.MedicalNewsToday.com, they conducted an experiment involving pain levels, I quote:
"They conducted two experiments using 40 volunteers. In the first, researchers gave heat stimulation to participants' arms and showed them pictures of human male faces at the same time. The first image was related to with low pain prompts, while the second was related to high pain prompts."
So we get two pictures, one with a guy who just got a mosquito bite and another where, he was forced to watch repeated episodes of Jersey shore while applying heat to the patients arm. Later on in the article, it's revealed that the heat levels were similar, however many patients experienced a different level of heat when they were shown the pictures individually.
In an episode of the TV show "Your bleeped up brain" they made a test wherein they had a few college students have a drinking party in a room (best test ever) however, none of their drinks contained any alcohol. Just water dipped with tonic to make it taste like the drinks. Guess what after 30 minutes, they were all freaking wasted. Of course the levels varied and one of the girls was a 'lot more hammered than the others, to the point where she was actually vomiting and walking tipsy. But the point is...It freaking worked, they really got drunk off of stuff that was never even alcoholic in the first place and all because they believed they were drinking real alcohol.
Though I cannot locate the source, as I saw this on TV, the episode explained that we had electronic signals that would respond to different types of stimuli in our body. When the teenagers were drinking fake beer, the signals triggered the same types of reactant signals as it normally would when drinking real beer. So in the end the body reacted accordingly.
To conclude, every time I remember the placebo effect, I tend to realize just how powerful the human mind actually is. Does that mean better stuff happen if we're gullible? Does scepticism kill of the placebo effect since it shoves off the idea of believing if you don't have any first hand evidence? Whatever the answer may be, it's perhaps something to be explored for another time.
No comments:
Post a Comment