The most amazing thing about the placebo effect, to me, is that it works even when you know that you're taking a placebo. There have been several studies that showed patients improved from all sorts of ailments by taking what they knew were sugar pills when compared to a control group that was given no treatment. It's possible that just the ritual act of taking a pill can help trigger the effect. The human mind is an amazing and enigmatic thing.
Its likely just the act of being looked after by some people you trust aka medical professionals, similar to the mother picking up their son in this example.
@@rickojay7536become a member of the Hypnosis Training Academy in Washington USA Online check them out we would welcome you And you will be taught why the Placebo works And how it works And the Placebo Response Also the Ideometer Response Phenomena The Power inside the Brain will Astound you my friend
Not to mention the fact that a patient's own emotional state and expectations from his own illness directly affect his recovery, is a universally accepted medical truth. In fact this was told to me by my grandfather, a world-renowned surgeon with over 60 years of experience.
What amazes me is that in many cases of patients of Chronic diseases Allopathy drugs consistently induce the Nocebo effect as evidenced by the Spontaneous progression of the Chronic disease whereas Homeopathy medicines consistently induce the Placebo effect evidenced by the Spontaneous regression of the Chronic disease
I’ve been studying/trying to understand hypnosis for a long time. Changed my mind about it a few times. Recently I started thinking maybe it works in a similar way to the placebo effect. Your explanation is amazing. Many of the things the placebo can effect are the same that hypnosis (supposedly) effect. I think the most important thing for me to take away is that almost all results for both methods are short term, and don’t truly fix the problems. They seem to change your attitude to “ok, I don’t need to feel that pain right now because I’m safe”. I think a lot of people make the mistake of seeing short term relief of an ailment as proof of a cure. Thank you so much!
You should check the work of people like Daniel Moerman about the placebo effect, it has a lot of data about the results that a placebo can get. There is tons of anthropological data that says that a placebo can have long-term effects, so it isn't as simple as you said.
@@matheuscervo892 I can agree on a couple things. Def not simple. Just trying to keep it short. Also, no doubt there have been people who have lasting effects from both placebo and hypnosis. I just think that as a percentage, that group would be very small. I also wonder if there is some aspect of placebo and hypnosis that’s overlooked or misunderstood that could be the key to unlocking those effects for more people. I’m not trying to say anyone is right or wrong, but that it’s something we don’t truly understand yet. Thanks for your recommendation, I’ll check it out.
This does not explain the placebo effect. It simply speculates as to why it happens from an evolutionary perspective (in a non-falsifiable way, I may add). The important question, however, is how a phenomenological state, a belief, can cause physiological change for the benefit of the organism.
Just like the protection of a family, in our modern societies, we developed the believes that medications will help us, so we stop the adaptive responses, because our bodies are what is making us feel them, pain, nausea and fever are all "made up" by our subconscious so that we'd do something about it instead of just sitting down, watching TH-cam, while you have headache, you try taking an pill, which helps taking away whatever makes your head aches, but taking a fake pill, which would only take away the pain, because your body (due to past experience with pills) thinks that this pill will easily treat your headache, and thus, you feel better, surely, this is debatable, because the placebos remain a mystery of the many mysteries of the human mind
Átila Firmino It's probably because our body has the ability to fight cancer, but we have to use the placebo effect to induce the feeling of 'needing to fight a part of itself' into the sub-conscious, placebo effects are still not fully understood though, but the 'beliefs' of the conscious can and will change how the subconscious and thus the immunity system works, time to make some googling about the placebo effects and cancer relationship
FirstName LastName I agree with that, but doctors and scientists in general simply ignore the power of self-healing of our body. I myself notice the effect of meditation and relaxation exercises in my body.
I've always wondered about this, and I have tried to explain it to my friends but they think I'm just being stupid, but if I tell my self that the pain isn't real or that something doesn't actually hurt then I find that it actually goes away, it's not pain, it's just a sensation.
Subbed at 3:59, then thought about it and wondered why I didn't subscribe before. Then I remembered I was paying attention to the very well-made, very high quality, interesting video. Nice job!
The placebo effect in my opinion is barely covered in this video. I saw and read about a doctor who told his patients that they were going to recieve the latest and best surgery on their knees to remove their osteoarthrits, but all the doctor did was just make cuts on the knee and nothing else and the patients that recieved the fake surgery all reported they felt completely healed. Also there was a dr. back in the early 20's i think, that healed a kids skin that was covered in warts because he convinced the boy that the skin disease was actualy something a lot less serious. imo the placebo effecct could save millions of dollars a year.
@@rainbowwaves5531 Yes lets hope. But what i meant was that all they care about is making money, and if you can't patent something, nothing will happen. It's pretty sad. Also that's why the snake oilers can do their thing, because of placebo. But if the placebo really works, aren't they fixing you? Lol. For placebo to work you kinda need to be lied to right?
Yes, its possible to heal a medical condition that you're born with and medically impossible to fix by the book (like the boy with the wart-like problem). However, this is rare.
When the boy's mother turns up, his wound doesn't suddenly heal. His injury is no better than it was before, but he feels better because his mother is there. Therefore his mother is (or administers) a placebo. Many parents and carers of children do this consiously by 'kissing it better', and it works. This is a valuable use of placebo. The child is injured, they feel pain, which causes them to stay still and cry to atract the attention of an adult. If they were badly injured, they would have the best chances of surviving and recovering because they remained still so as not to cause further damage and got help as soon as possible. If they're not badly injured, the adult can administer a placebo and the child feels well again and can continue as before.
He’s talking about the pain, not the injury. IMO the mother in this example is not placebo, but represents help/safe environment. And the presenter was saying it doesn’t make much sense for the body to feel as much pain anymore once one of the main purpose of it (getting help) has been achieved. Even in the case of real injury, only reducing the pain, as long as it doesn’t hinder recovery, still improves the person’s wellbeing.
I'm watching all 10 of these videos in the 10 unanswered questions, and I'm doing so in a sort of means to find informative science channels. My rule was that I would watch all 10, and go back afterward to subscribe to the ones I found the most informative or enlightening. This is the only one so far that I'm subscribing too before finishing the rest. I don't want to lose this one.
True, we did this in Iraq, people would ask our platoon medic for help and all we could do was give them an 800mg ibuprofen. They thought we were helping them. I think it may have something to do with getting rid of the stress, cortisone and adrenaline can cause long term health issues and suppresses the body's immune system. I also think it has something to do with the power of thought that has only recently been studied in science. In time we will learn more about how our world works.
I have actually tried this thing called self healing. I just didnt know that we even had a name for it. Just saw this now & agree with it. It works ;-)
This is probably the most civil and well mannered chain in TH-cam, thank you both for restoring my faith in humanity and rendering the common notion that TH-cam is only good for religious wars, moot.
THIS IS WHY YOU DONT FEEL THE PAIN OF A CUT UNTIL YOU SEE IT. As in sometimes, you suddenly notice a cut or a bruise on your body and you don't remember when it happened and it suddenly starts hurting!
After watching some of those top10 channels which are basically aimed at people with an attention span of 30s and are more about entertaining than informing, I was starting to feel let down. The quality ones I had already subscribed to and the other were simply popscience. This channel made up for it all! Very clear, very informative. I will definitely watch more videos on this channel in the future! Great work.
The thing about Placebo is that it only changes your perception, not your body's actual response. This and the fact that it only works if we think it works makes it likely that it is made in order for us to ignore problems we've already solved by removing the remainder of the problem from our perception. Also, the predator issue is irrelevant when it comes to pain, because the sheer thought that a predator is chasing you blanks your mind from pain with the desire to escape and live.
Jarod Alien ***** The Human body is capable of fighting of bacteria, heal broken bones, repair organ tissue, etc. All of its own, well almost. The process need a control centre, the brain. What brain areas are not that important, but its important to know that there is alot of automatic processes in the body that we never get to our perception. And as always the brain is very complicated, so how its wired between the frontal lobes (reason and thinking) to all the other parts in the body involved with that spesific response to a, broken bone. or to dull down the nociceptive reseptors (pain). is not yet well know, or its known ofc how it works, but not why it works. But the body can truly "change your body's actual response" thats why it works so well. so the body can indeed "fight the condition itself"
It changes your perception, your perceptiin then changes your body's response. You perceibe safety and love abd happiness and your body produces hormones that match this.
The amazing thing about this video is that it also explains why placebos work even when the person given the "medicine" knows it's a placebo: he or she subconsciously knows that if real medication was necessary, that'd be what the doctor would have prescribed.
but the best part about the placebo effect is the fact that it works on psychological problems as well, and unlike physical problems it's essentially costless, I think that fact is just so great. I simply love the ways our brain works.
I looked at it like this: In the animal kingdom we have fights between males in many species. When someone wins those fights he is seen as the strongest, gets appreciation, bangs the ladys and so on. The other one(s) however, actually grow weaker (not in all cases), kind of a "depressed" state, being more vulnerable to illnesses and generally having less strength. I remember reading this somewhere but don't ask me where and please tell me if this is all misinformation^^ Now back on topic: The benefits of those individuals to become weaker are that those genes are definitely not gonna get passed on and those "useless" individuals might become one less mouth to feed I would say. Now for humans, those with a strong mind are clearly the kind of individuals one would favor(beneficial for the group and all that), they are gonna get through illnesses easier, therefore having a higher chance of passing on their genes. Does this make any sense? Just an idea.
DarkAnimaYT For politics and such, there's always 'truths' that aren't the least bit true. I agree that's how it should be, but lots of people prefer different truths, not just on this subject, which is often too bad.
Sorry but I cannot understand on what trait you compare humans. Like for animals, it is simple, physical strength, better defensive abilities and hunting. How can you compare hunay, we have so many fields, for eg, higher IQ is preferred over physical stronger one. But you cannot eliminate physically stronger one because he can serve as your protective soldier.
So does the placebo effect also work directly on the causes of a disease? Like bacteria, like toxins, like broken bones? Or does it only work on the physiological responses to these causes?
Lately I've been getting into science and the world of wonders and this is the first I'm hearing about placebos. I am amazed that I can regenerate just bye thinking that there is no pain. Someone comment back to me if I have anything wrong or factually incorrect or grammar!
Simple, informative and to the point, unlike that Spangler Effect disaster. The jittery animations with a faint weird music in background are a bit unnerving, like that suffering stickman at 1:00, but I like even more for it
What I find intriguing is that many medications today are also used to treat the symptom not the root cause itself. Like anxiety med, heartburn meds. We are treating the symptom not the cause. So I would prefer taking a placebo action over a medication that affects the entire body system (causing side effects). Of course there are medications that are still needed. But for those meds that just treat symptoms without touching the cause, I would prefer a placebo effect action. I would want more research to be done on the 'placebo effect' so that we can find ways to make it's effects stronger, go treat the symptoms when appropriate.
I believe that our minds, albeit all different, are a lot "stronger" than we know on a conscious level. Another example, (keep in mind this is still mere opinion), is fear. When I was younger, I would be afraid of walking in the dark, due to the horror movies I've scene. Even though none of those dolls or demons were real, my mind kept recalling those terrifying memories and my body would be paralyzed with fear. Genuine paralysis, I wouldn't move and my heart would beat faster and I'd sweat.
First time I see that donate box .. TH-cam should turn this for more people like a tip jar from Vimeo in order to support your favorite channels if you choose to
I would think so. I have had an experience like that before. I once had horrible nausea and I took medicine to help it, knowing that it wouldn't help. It made my nausea worse and I threw up.
This answers the question of how one lowers the side effects of injury or disease (e.g. nausea, pain, fever) but I want to know why the placebo effect can effectively cure a disease or an injury not just the side effects...
It only really talked about the benefits regarding pain. But Placebo effects have been known to do more than simply reduce pain. They actually cure diseases and so how would it be beneficial to put that off? I understand pain preventing you from aggravating and injury but Placebo's are not just illusion in making you "feel better" even though the injury remains, they actually allow you to heal faster, so what possible evolutionary advantage does that provide? Using pain as an example was a horrible choice because with proper training one can push pain out of their mind, it doesn't heal the injury though which is the point of studying the placebo effect.
True, focusing on one affect of placebo may mask us from an answer that could be received at looking at the problem from a whole, but this is common in science. Initial foray into a subject matter is best dealt with by eliminating variables and simplifying the problem. Then we present that solution (hypothesis) to other aspects of the problem to see if it is congruent and does not conflict. If it succeeds still, we may have a theory. His hypothesis is simply using the basis of evolution as a means to generate potential launching points, but easily can be wrong. Pain is the simplest means of explaining this cost-benefit relation hypothesis. When you propose that we can train ourselves to not feel pain, is that not an example of controlling placebo effect with great precision to master pain? I'm curious as to whether centenarians (people 100+ years) are able to unconsciously exercise this placebo effect to cure disease on an on-going basis to reach old age seemingly effortlessly. Why does it not exist in all inherently? It could be that this genetic mutation is somewhat new. Perhaps placebo was not always present. Perhaps it has not changed significantly for a long period of time and remained "dumb." There is a good reason why people die, to turn over the leaf of information to a new generation. Many extremely influential people were extremely hesitant to amend their own hypothesis' when confronted with conflicting datums.
Adam S While people who master control over pain have really good mind over body skills it's not the placebo effect. Like I said before the Placebo effect is not about "Feeling Better" it is actually making you better. People have real illnesses that are healed. Though I do think there is some crossover which can be the cause of confusion. Placebo effect has been used to pretty much describe any effect that is generated by giving fake medicine. But like you said the goal of science is to narrow down possibilities. When you broaden the scope of it like that though it makes it harder to narrow down what is actually going on because your examining multiple things. The first effect is one of "Feelings" where the patient simply feels better. This can happen with pain management drugs as well as drugs actually meant to cure someone. In the case of pain management drugs this is on par with the monk's ability to push pain out of their minds. And while maybe not well understood I thought it was a well documented thing that people can push physical pain out of their mind. But while patients can often claim to feel better their test show the disease or illness has not changed. This can be helpful for quality of life management than healing but is not quiet that interesting or mysterious as we have ample evidence that this is a learn able ability. I also consider this first effect to be demonstrated in other fields that show the human capacity for self delusion. For example a study on luck showed people had the standard win/loss ration you would statistically expect from a game of pure chance. But those who thought of themselves as unlucky tended to only recount their failures while those who thought of themselves as lucky highlighted their successes. So they felt good or bad based on what they believed and cherry picked result to backup their world view. The second effect, which is the one more commonly referred to as Placebo effect. Which is someone takes a fake drug and their disease/illness actually goes into remission at a faster rate than those not taking the fake drug. This indicates the body is able to heal itself and fight off some disease but for some reason isn't. This serves no real evolutionary advantage since it means someone could die when they didn't have to, as their body failed to do repairs it was fully capable of doing. This effect is the one that is of real interest. Because if we can figure out what triggers the self healing mechanism than we could force people's bodies to heal themselves.
I believe he did cover it; what you know as 'sickness' is mostly your own body in action against some internal threat. So if the placebo effect happens to you, your brain basically tells the body to tone it down a bit, because it doesn't need to be so active about it all.
While I was working today, a kid came in with a headache, and so I gave him a sample sized icecreame (which we give out for free) and told him it would help his headache, and probably stop it. I figured that receiving something, and being told it would help, from someone who looked smart and kind, would be enough to induce the placebo effect. He told me it REALLY HELPED, and I was smart enough not to tell him why.
Though it is true that prematurly curing pain, fever, and/or nausea could be a risk, the placebo effect has been shown to temporarily increase stamina and strengh, like those rubber braclet things or wheat grass.
Your video only talked about the medical use of the placebo effect, but it can also apply to the acceleration of weight loss and the increase of muscle mass.
Is the cost/benefit model for pain the reason why a minor injury hurts so much at first and then dulls to a more easily-tolerated version after a few minutes?
Great video, but the only thing it really explains is why we our sense of pain decreases in certain circumstances. Self-healing induced by placebo was mentioned, but how is it that the immune system can be enhanced by placebo, and not only the production of endogenous oppiates?
What is it when you feel sick simply because someone told you that you were infected with something? When your body reacts to an infection or sickness that doesn't really exist inside your body. And how does it work?
This is so interesting. Whoever came up with the all time 10s, or whatever it is called, is a marketing genius! Haha, you all have the same audience, but I never knew about half of the channels featured. This video is particularly interesting to me, I am not studying medicine, but, idk, its fun to think about I suppose!
It's been pointed out this video deals only with how placebos can bring about pain relief (and by analogy relief from other defensive symptoms such as nausea), but not with how placebos can lead to the mobilising of an immune response. Elsewhere I've shown how the same kind of story can apply to immune responses. See for example the paper on the evolution of healing on my home web page (and also my next post).
If you consider it a rare pleasure, just think how often one gets a compliment reply. Thanks. I'm not sure I believe in a general intelligence, but the impatience of some to think about what they could be saying, could convince one otherwise. You are obviously contemplative and that is all I was being. May you have many ponderings ahead!
What about the idea of using the placebo effect not to heal or use for pain, but to enhance physical abilities? i.e. strength, speed. If you think you are going to preform better, you will. What are the costs of that?
This explanation is sufficient to reduce pain by placebo effect. However how to explain someone who really heal from something like cancer through placebo?
I do not know what the name is, but I experienced something similar, but opposed to that effect. Twice, was I afraid of taking a school exam (I was quite younger) and forced my brain to become ill so I'd have an excuse to not go to school. And guess what, that worked, the two times I was ill the next morning. And I don't believe that was a coincidence
+ a more correct answer would be: the placebo effect (in the 1st (correct) sense of the word) works because it a way to determine how much energy and recourses we should dedicate towards healing. When we receive a soothing from our mother, and/or caring attention from doctors, and/or prescribed treatments from entities we trust, we are basically being told that in their opinion (which we value higher then our own, given they are an authority on the matter of healing and safety)...
Perhaps, understanding the placebo effect is less about the actual placebos themselves but in understanding how and when stress can be beneficial (and it's effects) and when the stress response causes more harm than good?
I don't think anyone should argue that people that are ill don't need to seek medical aid, however the profiting mechanism of the drug corporations have turned the getting treatment into gambles where too many people are given drugs they don't need for ailments that they don't have. Trauma care has advanced significantly and is very effective today. Most know by now that stress reduces the bodies ability to heal itself, so outside of trauma care, placebos can actually be substantially powerful.
Im curious on how far the placebo effect goes on helping. Like is there a limit on self cure? Like if you can you cure/relieve pain on your headache, a broken bone or even cancer? Where is the placebo effect effective and when does it draw a line as the pain is too great?
Please do, we'd love that! Most of our videos (including this one) are shared under a CC BY SA NC license which means that you can reproduce them anywhere , in any format, as long as the use is non-commercial and you credit us.
I tend to get quite car sick and when I was younger I used to manage it while riding in my dad's ute by thinking to myself "I can't be car sick because I'm not in a car, I'm in a ute." It's a shame the same tact couldn't be used while riding in cars. I suppose I could try "I can't be motion sick because I'm not moving."
I've always been fascinated by this factor Placebo and nocebo(which is the opposite of it). As a pharmacy student and understanding medications and there Effects in the body stuns always has an explanation how they act on a receptor site and administer it effects. But placebo stuns me that the human body and can actually heal itself without the aid of aggregating the receptor site with an actual medication. But simply just rest assuring the mind of the person.
I have just one question after watching this. If say the placebo were taken away after the pain was reduced if it was removed would the pain resurface or would the pain just be gone?
One question: this only applies for pain, fever, nausea etc. But doesn't the placebo effect exist for a actual illness as well? Like a patient with huntingtons or coronary heart disease?
Research suggests more temporary effects. You have to go back, repeat to have another placebo-shot. Like acupuncture: you see the same patients go back for the same threatment for years and years.
the placebo effect can not make chemicals disapear but supress or relief reactions of the body itself, as pain is something that you body makes you feel and is not actually caused by something exterior. Thats as far as I understood this
Pain relief, in this sense, is quite a different quality of 'cure', compared to something like the optimistic belief that we can remove cancer from our body. 'Curing' pain doesn't make much sense compared to 'curing' cancer. I hoped this video would talk more about types of cure that are actually beneficial, and go in more detail about what we do or do not know about how our consciousness can influence the physical biological world.
The entire video was about the placebo effect, so I'm not sure how you could disagree so strongly on one point, but say the rest of the video was good. There are mechanisms of action (so not unequivocally false). For instance, when you are less stressed, you engage your hypothalmic pituitary axis less, releasing less adrenocorticosteriods (like cortisol) which start the flight response, despite not fleeing. So there is in fact benefits, above psychological, but real physiological benefits.
I don't know if placebo's will work on me, because if I know it is a placebo, it is not instilling confidence, yet, I know what the placebo often cause, so i find my idea of whether or not placebo's work on me individually confusing.
I think one thing people often forget is that we're not necessarily fully evolved. Things can't always be explained by "Well, why did/didn't we evolve that?". If humans were to continue evolving at the rate at which they did previously, then many of these things that we see as perfect imperfections, would rather be seen as, well, imperfections.
I'm on vacation right now and forgot to bring my asthma-spray. So first night I head a not asthma attack (very rarely have them) and the next night again, then i went to a pharmacy bought an asthma-spray and since then never had an asthma attack (during that vacation) Is that placebo too ? The fear (even if its unconcious) of the propablity making it actually happen and the knoledge of security preventing it of happening ?
The most amazing thing about the placebo effect, to me, is that it works even when you know that you're taking a placebo. There have been several studies that showed patients improved from all sorts of ailments by taking what they knew were sugar pills when compared to a control group that was given no treatment. It's possible that just the ritual act of taking a pill can help trigger the effect. The human mind is an amazing and enigmatic thing.
any chance you can link me in on any of those studies?
Its likely just the act of being looked after by some people you trust aka medical professionals, similar to the mother picking up their son in this example.
I don't think that's true
@@rickojay7536become a member of the Hypnosis Training Academy in Washington USA
Online check them out we would welcome you
And you will be taught why the Placebo works
And how it works
And the Placebo Response
Also the Ideometer Response Phenomena
The Power inside the Brain will Astound you my friend
Not to mention the fact that a patient's own emotional state and expectations from his own illness directly affect his recovery, is a universally accepted medical truth.
In fact this was told to me by my grandfather, a world-renowned surgeon with over 60 years of experience.
What amazes me is that in many cases of patients of Chronic diseases Allopathy drugs consistently induce the Nocebo effect as evidenced by the Spontaneous progression of the Chronic disease whereas Homeopathy medicines consistently induce the Placebo effect evidenced by the Spontaneous regression of the Chronic disease
I’ve been studying/trying to understand hypnosis for a long time. Changed my mind about it a few times. Recently I started thinking maybe it works in a similar way to the placebo effect. Your explanation is amazing. Many of the things the placebo can effect are the same that hypnosis (supposedly) effect. I think the most important thing for me to take away is that almost all results for both methods are short term, and don’t truly fix the problems. They seem to change your attitude to “ok, I don’t need to feel that pain right now because I’m safe”. I think a lot of people make the mistake of seeing short term relief of an ailment as proof of a cure. Thank you so much!
You should check the work of people like Daniel Moerman about the placebo effect, it has a lot of data about the results that a placebo can get. There is tons of anthropological data that says that a placebo can have long-term effects, so it isn't as simple as you said.
@@matheuscervo892 I can agree on a couple things. Def not simple. Just trying to keep it short. Also, no doubt there have been people who have lasting effects from both placebo and hypnosis. I just think that as a percentage, that group would be very small. I also wonder if there is some aspect of placebo and hypnosis that’s overlooked or misunderstood that could be the key to unlocking those effects for more people. I’m not trying to say anyone is right or wrong, but that it’s something we don’t truly understand yet.
Thanks for your recommendation, I’ll check it out.
This does not explain the placebo effect. It simply speculates as to why it happens from an evolutionary perspective (in a non-falsifiable way, I may add). The important question, however, is how a phenomenological state, a belief, can cause physiological change for the benefit of the organism.
Just like the protection of a family, in our modern societies, we developed the believes that medications will help us, so we stop the adaptive responses, because our bodies are what is making us feel them, pain, nausea and fever are all "made up" by our subconscious so that we'd do something about it instead of just sitting down, watching TH-cam, while you have headache, you try taking an pill, which helps taking away whatever makes your head aches, but taking a fake pill, which would only take away the pain, because your body (due to past experience with pills) thinks that this pill will easily treat your headache, and thus, you feel better, surely, this is debatable, because the placebos remain a mystery of the many mysteries of the human mind
Healing the pain is easy to explain, now I would like him to explain the healing of a cancer through placebo effect.
Átila Firmino It's probably because our body has the ability to fight cancer, but we have to use the placebo effect to induce the feeling of 'needing to fight a part of itself' into the sub-conscious, placebo effects are still not fully understood though, but the 'beliefs' of the conscious can and will change how the subconscious and thus the immunity system works, time to make some googling about the placebo effects and cancer relationship
FirstName LastName I agree with that, but doctors and scientists in general simply ignore the power of self-healing of our body. I myself notice the effect of meditation and relaxation exercises in my body.
Átila Firmino Oh, just to note, I'm not an idealist or spiritual
How is it possible I never came across this channel with all the science video's I watch?
Glad to see your channel is getting the recognition it deserves! :D
I've always wondered about this, and I have tried to explain it to my friends but they think I'm just being stupid, but if I tell my self that the pain isn't real or that something doesn't actually hurt then I find that it actually goes away, it's not pain, it's just a sensation.
Subbed at 3:59, then thought about it and wondered why I didn't subscribe before. Then I remembered I was paying attention to the very well-made, very high quality, interesting video. Nice job!
thanks elmo
Great stuff! Delighted you enjoyed it.
The placebo effect in my opinion is barely covered in this video. I saw and read about a doctor who told his patients that they were going to recieve the latest and best surgery on their knees to remove their osteoarthrits, but all the doctor did was just make cuts on the knee and nothing else and the patients that recieved the fake surgery all reported they felt completely healed. Also there was a dr. back in the early 20's i think, that healed a kids skin that was covered in warts because he convinced the boy that the skin disease was actualy something a lot less serious. imo the placebo effecct could save millions of dollars a year.
You can't patent placebo
@@rainbowwaves5531 Yes lets hope. But what i meant was that all they care about is making money, and if you can't patent something, nothing will happen. It's pretty sad. Also that's why the snake oilers can do their thing, because of placebo. But if the placebo really works, aren't they fixing you? Lol. For placebo to work you kinda need to be lied to right?
Yes, its possible to heal a medical condition that you're born with and medically impossible to fix by the book (like the boy with the wart-like problem). However, this is rare.
When the boy's mother turns up, his wound doesn't suddenly heal. His injury is no better than it was before, but he feels better because his mother is there. Therefore his mother is (or administers) a placebo.
Many parents and carers of children do this consiously by 'kissing it better', and it works. This is a valuable use of placebo. The child is injured, they feel pain, which causes them to stay still and cry to atract the attention of an adult. If they were badly injured, they would have the best chances of surviving and recovering because they remained still so as not to cause further damage and got help as soon as possible. If they're not badly injured, the adult can administer a placebo and the child feels well again and can continue as before.
He’s talking about the pain, not the injury. IMO the mother in this example is not placebo, but represents help/safe environment. And the presenter was saying it doesn’t make much sense for the body to feel as much pain anymore once one of the main purpose of it (getting help) has been achieved. Even in the case of real injury, only reducing the pain, as long as it doesn’t hinder recovery, still improves the person’s wellbeing.
Thanks for the comment, glad you enjoyed it! - Justifies the late nights spent animating and editing this!
Thanks for watching! Hope you subscribed...
Hi, it's called 'Scwarz by The Jakesperiment' - we put music credits at the end of each film.
I'm watching all 10 of these videos in the 10 unanswered questions, and I'm doing so in a sort of means to find informative science channels. My rule was that I would watch all 10, and go back afterward to subscribe to the ones I found the most informative or enlightening. This is the only one so far that I'm subscribing too before finishing the rest. I don't want to lose this one.
True, we did this in Iraq, people would ask our platoon medic for help and all we could do was give them an 800mg ibuprofen. They thought we were helping them. I think it may have something to do with getting rid of the stress, cortisone and adrenaline can cause long term health issues and suppresses the body's immune system. I also think it has something to do with the power of thought that has only recently been studied in science. In time we will learn more about how our world works.
I have actually tried this thing called self healing. I just didnt know that we even had a name for it. Just saw this now & agree with it. It works ;-)
This is probably the most civil and well mannered chain in TH-cam, thank you both for restoring my faith in humanity and rendering the common notion that TH-cam is only good for religious wars, moot.
THIS IS WHY YOU DONT FEEL THE PAIN OF A CUT UNTIL YOU SEE IT. As in sometimes, you suddenly notice a cut or a bruise on your body and you don't remember when it happened and it suddenly starts hurting!
After watching some of those top10 channels which are basically aimed at people with an attention span of 30s and are more about entertaining than informing, I was starting to feel let down. The quality ones I had already subscribed to and the other were simply popscience.
This channel made up for it all! Very clear, very informative. I will definitely watch more videos on this channel in the future! Great work.
The thing about Placebo is that it only changes your perception, not your body's actual response. This and the fact that it only works if we think it works makes it likely that it is made in order for us to ignore problems we've already solved by removing the remainder of the problem from our perception. Also, the predator issue is irrelevant when it comes to pain, because the sheer thought that a predator is chasing you blanks your mind from pain with the desire to escape and live.
Jarod Alien ***** The Human body is capable of fighting of bacteria, heal broken bones, repair organ tissue, etc. All of its own, well almost. The process need a control centre, the brain. What brain areas are not that important, but its important to know that there is alot of automatic processes in the body that we never get to our perception. And as always the brain is very complicated, so how its wired between the frontal lobes (reason and thinking) to all the other parts in the body involved with that spesific response to a, broken bone. or to dull down the nociceptive reseptors (pain). is not yet well know, or its known ofc how it works, but not why it works. But the body can truly "change your body's actual response" thats why it works so well. so the body can indeed "fight the condition itself"
It changes your perception, your perceptiin then changes your body's response. You perceibe safety and love abd happiness and your body produces hormones that match this.
The amazing thing about this video is that it also explains why placebos work even when the person given the "medicine" knows it's a placebo: he or she subconsciously knows that if real medication was necessary, that'd be what the doctor would have prescribed.
I feel it also says a lot on the matter of free will.
this channel is criminally undersubscribed.
Wow!...only new suscription out of the 10 unsolved mysteries...really really loved ur presentation...so calm yet so insightful...
We aim for one o two per week but do check out our other videos or the Ri Channel website for the best of the web too!
but the best part about the placebo effect is the fact that it works on psychological problems as well, and unlike physical problems it's essentially costless, I think that fact is just so great.
I simply love the ways our brain works.
Physical and psychological are not separate. Physiological is also largely a physical phenomenon of imbalance, no matter the cause.
I looked at it like this:
In the animal kingdom we have fights between males in many species. When someone wins those fights he is seen as the strongest, gets appreciation, bangs the ladys and so on. The other one(s) however, actually grow weaker (not in all cases), kind of a "depressed" state, being more vulnerable to illnesses and generally having less strength.
I remember reading this somewhere but don't ask me where and please tell me if this is all misinformation^^
Now back on topic: The benefits of those individuals to become weaker are that those genes are definitely not gonna get passed on and those "useless" individuals might become one less mouth to feed I would say. Now for humans, those with a strong mind are clearly the kind of individuals one would favor(beneficial for the group and all that), they are gonna get through illnesses easier, therefore having a higher chance of passing on their genes.
Does this make any sense? Just an idea.
It does. It's not politically correct, but that IS the way nature works.
Dark Knight If it is the truth it cannot be politically correct or uncorrect, it is just the truth. (assuming it is true)
DarkAnimaYT For politics and such, there's always 'truths' that aren't the least bit true. I agree that's how it should be, but lots of people prefer different truths, not just on this subject, which is often too bad.
Dark Knight
truth is something objective, those people are prefering different ideas and not truths
Sorry but I cannot understand on what trait you compare humans. Like for animals, it is simple, physical strength, better defensive abilities and hunting.
How can you compare hunay, we have so many fields, for eg, higher IQ is preferred over physical stronger one. But you cannot eliminate physically stronger one because he can serve as your protective soldier.
So does the placebo effect also work directly on the causes of a disease? Like bacteria, like toxins, like broken bones? Or does it only work on the physiological responses to these causes?
Lately I've been getting into science and the world of wonders and this is the first I'm hearing about placebos. I am amazed that I can regenerate just bye thinking that there is no pain. Someone comment back to me if I have anything wrong or factually incorrect or grammar!
Simple, informative and to the point, unlike that Spangler Effect disaster. The jittery animations with a faint weird music in background are a bit unnerving, like that suffering stickman at 1:00, but I like even more for it
What I find intriguing is that many medications today are also used to treat the symptom not the root cause itself. Like anxiety med, heartburn meds. We are treating the symptom not the cause. So I would prefer taking a placebo action over a medication that affects the entire body system (causing side effects). Of course there are medications that are still needed. But for those meds that just treat symptoms without touching the cause, I would prefer a placebo effect action. I would want more research to be done on the 'placebo effect' so that we can find ways to make it's effects stronger, go treat the symptoms when appropriate.
Considering this is a video about an unanswered question, the guy actually presents a rather convincing answer.
I believe that our minds, albeit all different, are a lot "stronger" than we know on a conscious level. Another example, (keep in mind this is still mere opinion), is fear. When I was younger, I would be afraid of walking in the dark, due to the horror movies I've scene. Even though none of those dolls or demons were real, my mind kept recalling those terrifying memories and my body would be paralyzed with fear. Genuine paralysis, I wouldn't move and my heart would beat faster and I'd sweat.
Thank you elmo, I feel better noe
First time I see that donate box .. TH-cam should turn this for more people like a tip jar from Vimeo in order to support your favorite channels if you choose to
I like how this man speaks. And he also looks like Richard Wright which makes me happy :)
I would think so. I have had an experience like that before. I once had horrible nausea and I took medicine to help it, knowing that it wouldn't help. It made my nausea worse and I threw up.
Well, it's meant to be viewed on a screen, so it's actually much more "correct" use of the font than what one usually sees.
This answers the question of how one lowers the side effects of injury or disease (e.g. nausea, pain, fever) but I want to know why the placebo effect can effectively cure a disease or an injury not just the side effects...
It only really talked about the benefits regarding pain. But Placebo effects have been known to do more than simply reduce pain. They actually cure diseases and so how would it be beneficial to put that off? I understand pain preventing you from aggravating and injury but Placebo's are not just illusion in making you "feel better" even though the injury remains, they actually allow you to heal faster, so what possible evolutionary advantage does that provide?
Using pain as an example was a horrible choice because with proper training one can push pain out of their mind, it doesn't heal the injury though which is the point of studying the placebo effect.
True, focusing on one affect of placebo may mask us from an answer that could be received at looking at the problem from a whole, but this is common in science. Initial foray into a subject matter is best dealt with by eliminating variables and simplifying the problem. Then we present that solution (hypothesis) to other aspects of the problem to see if it is congruent and does not conflict. If it succeeds still, we may have a theory. His hypothesis is simply using the basis of evolution as a means to generate potential launching points, but easily can be wrong. Pain is the simplest means of explaining this cost-benefit relation hypothesis. When you propose that we can train ourselves to not feel pain, is that not an example of controlling placebo effect with great precision to master pain?
I'm curious as to whether centenarians (people 100+ years) are able to unconsciously exercise this placebo effect to cure disease on an on-going basis to reach old age seemingly effortlessly. Why does it not exist in all inherently? It could be that this genetic mutation is somewhat new. Perhaps placebo was not always present. Perhaps it has not changed significantly for a long period of time and remained "dumb."
There is a good reason why people die, to turn over the leaf of information to a new generation. Many extremely influential people were extremely hesitant to amend their own hypothesis' when confronted with conflicting datums.
Adam S
While people who master control over pain have really good mind over body skills it's not the placebo effect. Like I said before the Placebo effect is not about "Feeling Better" it is actually making you better. People have real illnesses that are healed.
Though I do think there is some crossover which can be the cause of confusion. Placebo effect has been used to pretty much describe any effect that is generated by giving fake medicine. But like you said the goal of science is to narrow down possibilities. When you broaden the scope of it like that though it makes it harder to narrow down what is actually going on because your examining multiple things.
The first effect is one of "Feelings" where the patient simply feels better. This can happen with pain management drugs as well as drugs actually meant to cure someone. In the case of pain management drugs this is on par with the monk's ability to push pain out of their minds. And while maybe not well understood I thought it was a well documented thing that people can push physical pain out of their mind. But while patients can often claim to feel better their test show the disease or illness has not changed. This can be helpful for quality of life management than healing but is not quiet that interesting or mysterious as we have ample evidence that this is a learn able ability.
I also consider this first effect to be demonstrated in other fields that show the human capacity for self delusion. For example a study on luck showed people had the standard win/loss ration you would statistically expect from a game of pure chance. But those who thought of themselves as unlucky tended to only recount their failures while those who thought of themselves as lucky highlighted their successes. So they felt good or bad based on what they believed and cherry picked result to backup their world view.
The second effect, which is the one more commonly referred to as Placebo effect. Which is someone takes a fake drug and their disease/illness actually goes into remission at a faster rate than those not taking the fake drug. This indicates the body is able to heal itself and fight off some disease but for some reason isn't. This serves no real evolutionary advantage since it means someone could die when they didn't have to, as their body failed to do repairs it was fully capable of doing. This effect is the one that is of real interest. Because if we can figure out what triggers the self healing mechanism than we could force people's bodies to heal themselves.
PyroMancer2k Good response. I agree with you that I was wrong. Pain is a poor example at clarifying the issue.
Really glad alltime10s showed me this!
I believe he did cover it; what you know as 'sickness' is mostly your own body in action against some internal threat. So if the placebo effect happens to you, your brain basically tells the body to tone it down a bit, because it doesn't need to be so active about it all.
I acknowledge the reference and applaud you for it.
While I was working today, a kid came in with a headache, and so I gave him a sample sized icecreame (which we give out for free) and told him it would help his headache, and probably stop it. I figured that receiving something, and being told it would help, from someone who looked smart and kind, would be enough to induce the placebo effect. He told me it REALLY HELPED, and I was smart enough not to tell him why.
Though it is true that prematurly curing pain, fever, and/or nausea could be a risk, the placebo effect has been shown to temporarily increase stamina and strengh, like those rubber braclet things or wheat grass.
Your video only talked about the medical use of the placebo effect, but it can also apply to the acceleration of weight loss and the increase of muscle mass.
Same thing with me, but using the same sort of mentality I can get rid of sadness, fear and to a degree, exhaustion.
Is the cost/benefit model for pain the reason why a minor injury hurts so much at first and then dulls to a more easily-tolerated version after a few minutes?
Great video, but the only thing it really explains is why we our sense of pain decreases in certain circumstances. Self-healing induced by placebo was mentioned, but how is it that the immune system can be enhanced by placebo, and not only the production of endogenous oppiates?
What is it when you feel sick simply because someone told you that you were infected with something? When your body reacts to an infection or sickness that doesn't really exist inside your body. And how does it work?
Great! Hope you enjoy our other videos...
I had the Nocebo Effect once, but I took a placebo.
This is so interesting. Whoever came up with the all time 10s, or whatever it is called, is a marketing genius! Haha, you all have the same audience, but I never knew about half of the channels featured.
This video is particularly interesting to me, I am not studying medicine, but, idk, its fun to think about I suppose!
It's been pointed out this video deals only with how placebos can bring about pain relief (and by analogy relief from other defensive symptoms such as nausea), but not with how placebos can lead to the mobilising of an immune response. Elsewhere I've shown how the same kind of story can apply to immune responses. See for example the paper on the evolution of healing on my home web page (and also my next post).
If you consider it a rare pleasure, just think how often one gets a compliment reply. Thanks.
I'm not sure I believe in a general intelligence, but the impatience of some to think about what they could be saying, could convince one otherwise.
You are obviously contemplative and that is all I was being.
May you have many ponderings ahead!
They're sharing they're opinion. Thats one of the 2 things the internet was made for: sharing information worldwide and sharing opinions
Eureka! Everything makes sense now, you are good at explaining!
What about the idea of using the placebo effect not to heal or use for pain, but to enhance physical abilities? i.e. strength, speed. If you think you are going to preform better, you will. What are the costs of that?
This explanation is sufficient to reduce pain by placebo effect. However how to explain someone who really heal from something like cancer through placebo?
That doesn't happen
Átila Firmino cancer is cell mutation. telling you that, the rest you can think by yourself is it possible or not
I do not know what the name is, but I experienced something similar, but opposed to that effect.
Twice, was I afraid of taking a school exam (I was quite younger) and forced my brain to become ill so I'd have an excuse to not go to school.
And guess what, that worked, the two times I was ill the next morning. And I don't believe that was a coincidence
An excellent video. I like the placebo hospital concept.
He was referring to the title, which implies the video would answer the question.
+ a more correct answer would be:
the placebo effect (in the 1st (correct) sense of the word) works because it a way to determine how much energy and recourses we should dedicate towards healing.
When we receive a soothing from our mother, and/or caring attention from doctors, and/or prescribed treatments from entities we trust, we are basically being told that in their opinion (which we value higher then our own, given they are an authority on the matter of healing and safety)...
Perhaps, understanding the placebo effect is less about the actual placebos themselves but in understanding how and when stress can be beneficial (and it's effects) and when the stress response causes more harm than good?
I don't think anyone should argue that people that are ill don't need to seek medical aid, however the profiting mechanism of the drug corporations have turned the getting treatment into gambles where too many people are given drugs they don't need for ailments that they don't have. Trauma care has advanced significantly and is very effective today. Most know by now that stress reduces the bodies ability to heal itself, so outside of trauma care, placebos can actually be substantially powerful.
Im curious on how far the placebo effect goes on helping. Like is there a limit on self cure? Like if you can you cure/relieve pain on your headache, a broken bone or even cancer? Where is the placebo effect effective and when does it draw a line as the pain is too great?
I would like your permission to share this video with my class. Please advise. TY
Please do, we'd love that! Most of our videos (including this one) are shared under a CC BY SA NC license which means that you can reproduce them anywhere , in any format, as long as the use is non-commercial and you credit us.
I tend to get quite car sick and when I was younger I used to manage it while riding in my dad's ute by thinking to myself "I can't be car sick because I'm not in a car, I'm in a ute." It's a shame the same tact couldn't be used while riding in cars. I suppose I could try "I can't be motion sick because I'm not moving."
"Nothing makes sense except in the light of evolution"
I decided to stay in these parts of TH-cam probably a year ago, maybe a bit less. Never regretted it the slightest.
What's the music at the end?
Music
wow this was awesome. Thank you!
I've always been fascinated by this factor Placebo and nocebo(which is the opposite of it). As a pharmacy student and understanding medications and there Effects in the body stuns always has an explanation how they act on a receptor site and administer it effects. But placebo stuns me that the human body and can actually heal itself without the aid of aggregating the receptor site with an actual medication. But simply just rest assuring the mind of the person.
What was the song in the beginning? It wasn't in the description.
His voice is great.
who heals your cough, cold or bruises? or do you take medicine for each and every thing? Body has its own healing mechanisms as well.
The subtitles on this video actually aren't that bad considering that captions on other videos have do not correspond at all to the audio.
i'm going to a lecture at the RI tomorrow night!
I have just one question after watching this. If say the placebo were taken away after the pain was reduced if it was removed would the pain resurface or would the pain just be gone?
ALL HAIL THE GOOD GOD ELMO.
Lol
Brilliant explanation
One question: this only applies for pain, fever, nausea etc. But doesn't the placebo effect exist for a actual illness as well? Like a patient with huntingtons or coronary heart disease?
Thank you, thank you!
Does placebo effect only reduce pain, or does it actually cure?
Reducing pain (i.e. managing the symptoms) IS cure. What else do you think all the modern NSAIDs do.
Research suggests more temporary effects. You have to go back, repeat to have another placebo-shot. Like acupuncture: you see the same patients go back for the same threatment for years and years.
I love the tone of this vid.
the placebo effect can not make chemicals disapear but supress or relief reactions of the body itself, as pain is something that you body makes you feel and is not actually caused by something exterior. Thats as far as I understood this
Pain relief, in this sense, is quite a different quality of 'cure', compared to something like the optimistic belief that we can remove cancer from our body. 'Curing' pain doesn't make much sense compared to 'curing' cancer. I hoped this video would talk more about types of cure that are actually beneficial, and go in more detail about what we do or do not know about how our consciousness can influence the physical biological world.
but seriously, this was a very interesting video, glad I was brought here.
The entire video was about the placebo effect, so I'm not sure how you could disagree so strongly on one point, but say the rest of the video was good.
There are mechanisms of action (so not unequivocally false). For instance, when you are less stressed, you engage your hypothalmic pituitary axis less, releasing less adrenocorticosteriods (like cortisol) which start the flight response, despite not fleeing. So there is in fact benefits, above psychological, but real physiological benefits.
Fantastically done!
I don't know if placebo's will work on me, because if I know it is a placebo, it is not instilling confidence, yet, I know what the placebo often cause, so i find my idea of whether or not placebo's work on me individually confusing.
Interesting theory for evolutionary placebo, Why it works and Why we don't "self-heal" from the beginning.
Your video was very well done, good show sir'
Thank you vsouce that u showed channels like this
I think one thing people often forget is that we're not necessarily fully evolved. Things can't always be explained by "Well, why did/didn't we evolve that?". If humans were to continue evolving at the rate at which they did previously, then many of these things that we see as perfect imperfections, would rather be seen as, well, imperfections.
came from alltime10s. just subscribed. :)
Dude i love your art and this was very informative keep it up.
I'm on vacation right now and forgot to bring my asthma-spray. So first night I head a not asthma attack (very rarely have them) and the next night again, then i went to a pharmacy bought an asthma-spray and since then never had an asthma attack (during that vacation) Is that placebo too ? The fear (even if its unconcious) of the propablity making it actually happen and the knoledge of security preventing it of happening ?