The placebo response - Dr Deepak Chopra

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Times of india reports:

 

You can evoke the healing response from within because you have an inner pharmacy that can make the appropriate drugs, says Deepak Chopra

An interesting example of how the body-mind interprets, participates in, and constructs its own experience is the placebo response. Years ago, doctors discovered that they could give people unmedicated sugar pills, tell them that the pills would kill their pain, and a certain number of patients, approximately 30%, would experience relief from their pain. This became known as the placebo response. Then it was discovered that placebo responses occur not only in pain syndromes but in other conditions. So if

doctors give patients a pill and say, "This is going to relieve your heart disease," then that simple notion in their awareness as a true idea causes them to make a chemical that has the effect of lowering their blood pressure and improving the flow of blood to their heart. The placebo response is important for your understanding of the body-mind connection because the placebo response is basically an interpretation we make to ourselves. We don't need to use affirmations; we just need to have a simple notion, "This is going to relieve my pain," and the body-mind brings this about by making these very powerful chemicals. Now, the opposite of the placebo response is the nocebo response. Let's say a patient walks into a doctor's office and the doctor says, "I'm sorry to tell you, but you have breast cancer that has metastasised to all your bones. You have only six months to live." If the patient happens to believe everything her doctor tells her, she may translate this notion into that outcome. And what is the nocebo response? Just another interpretation we make to ourselves. To realise the power of interpretation is to acquire a new definition of the body-mind. We can do wonderful things with this body. We can evoke the healing response from within because we have an inner pharmacy that can make the appropriate drugs. We can restructure our perception of time, which would completely restructure the physical obsession of the body, so it would even be possible to retard or reverse the ageing process.