Placebo - Now Extra Strength!

The word "placebo" is kind've a negative one. Placebo is the thing that drugs and other treatments always have to defeat in order to prove that they're effective. Placebo is just the body tricking itself, shame on it.

Or at least, that's how I used to think about it. More recently, however, I've been gripped with a different perspective: if every single effect that a drug can ever have on the human body must overcome the placebo effect, then that means placebo makes every single thing about you better! Immune system is low? Placebo will boost it. Want to run a little faster or jump a little higher? Placebo will boost that too. Want to think more quickly, memorize things better? Use placebo!

Sure, the placebo effect isn't a huge gain, necessarily. If you have a choice between highly effective cancer drugs and placebo, take the drugs (and use the placebo effect in addition to the drugs). But the fact that it effects every single aspect of human life makes placebo really quite powerful.

Imagine you're a jogger. You could challenge yourself in several ways, such as jogging faster, having better endurance, seeing better muscle and cardio benefits from jogging, your feet and joints suffering less from the impacts and healing faster when they do suffer. Now throw the placebo effect on ever single one of these. Even a 5% boost across the board will have a profound effect on your overall jogging ability over the course of a year.

And all this without any harmful side-effects, another one of placebo's huge selling points.

Using the placebo effect deliberately is a bit of a trick, of course. The more you believe in the effect, the better it works. Apparently, little placebo pills work better than big ones, because little ones look more potent. Placebo capsules work better than placebo pills. Placebo injections are even more effective.

So in order to really take advantage of the placebo effect, you need to really think that it'll work. When you think you're getting medicine that'll work all on its own, the placebo effect kicks in. If you know you're getting sugar pills, it won't help that much.

So you seem to have two choices for using this powerful tool:

1. Lie to yourself. Find some kind of "magic" or fake medicine and/or get someone to trick you into believing that your treatment really works.
2. Be honest with yourself. But now you don't get to use the placebo effect, because you know your fake treatments are just fake.

I'm really not keen on the whole dishonesty thing, especially when it comes to talking to yourself. So I'm trying to work on a third angle:

• Believe in the placebo effect itself.

That is, believe, deeply and truly, that the placebo effect will help you.

This requires viewing it with a certain awe and wonder--even viewing it as "magical" if you can. As someone more prone to atheism and respecting the scientific method, this is tricky.

However, the universe itself is magical, in terms of the beauty and elegance of the natural laws. The way that simple rules, via quantum and chaos effects, turn into the infinite complexity of the universe is a staggering truth. If I can see the placebo effect as a manifestation of that wondrous universe, as nature's built-in healing energy, to be channelled and directed by my mind to enhance my entire life, I could begin to see that as something magical.

This may not be the sort of magic that Harry Potter would use, but it has the advantage of really existing, and actually working, which only makes it easier to believe in.

To put your mind in the right frame, immerse your imagination in this wonderful song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk

The universe is magical. Science is the open-minded and delighted exploration of that magic.

And thanks to my friend Jason for co-inventing the phrase, "Extra Strength Placebo".

EDIT: My parents pointed out that if you are using any treatment and really believe that it will work, the placebo effect will help make that true. Case in point for me: if you truly believe that doing exercise will boost your confidence, placebo will kick in when you exercise, increasing the confidence boost.