Science Memes

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Crystals (mander.xyz)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I agree. Placebos can help too.

Fact is, for it to work as a placebo, you need to believe it will work.

I've had a few coworkers who had stuff like crystals on their desk because their partner believed in it. I understand why that stuff happens, the believer who (supposedly) cares about your well-being, gets benefit from it, and wants you to have the same or similar benefits from the same. But since they're doing it to placate their partner and don't personally believe, it's just a rock on their desk.

[–] ameancow 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Fact is, for it to work as a placebo, you need to believe it will work.

What's even wilder is you don't have to consciously believe it, you can unconsciously believe it and it will still work! Doctors will routinely prescribe placebos and be very open about the fact that it's just a placebo, that there is no chemical compound in the medication.

And yet, the act of taking a pill from a bottle seems to trigger something. Recent research has actually identified part of this mechanism in rat brains. There really is a part of the brain that can be tricked into releasing a set of chemicals that relieve pain, reduce inflammation and create better moods. Someday we might have a placebo pill that actually has medication in it. Wildly convoluted how the brain works.

[–] ForgotAboutDre 0 points 4 months ago

Placebos is measurement error, not effectiveness. People that believe something works are more likely to report improvements when taking that medication irrespective of its effectiveness. Placebo effect is just misreporting, noise or unaccounted phenomena. It’s literally how we define something doesn’t work.