In a new book by Jo Marchant entitled Cure, we hear once again about the power of the placebo effect.
In the book she writes about 75-year old former golfer Bonnie Anderson who cracked a bone in her spine and was beset by pain and suffering.
She was to have an experimental operation called vertebroplasty in which cement is injected into the spine.
She left the hospital cured.
Except for one thing.
Bonnie Anderson never had the operation.
The surgery she underwent was “fake” – a placebo. The surgeons never injected the cement.
Her brain believed that the pain would end and it ended.
Placebo effect is also a major consequence of anti-depression medication trials where 50% of the group is given the drug and the other 50% is given no drug with high rates of relief – almost equal to the medication – for those taking the sugar pills.
This is evidence of the importance of the brain. How powerful it really is.
And there are every day lessons for us.
If you believe it, it can happen.
If your mind commits to a goal and we pay the price, anything can be accomplished.
Our minds are the ultimate resource for overcoming life’s obstacles and for pursuing happiness.
For all the medications, counseling and education that we get in life, it turns out that the most potent weapon we have is sitting right there on our shoulders.
The brain in our head.
As Henry Ford put it:
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t — either way you’re right.”
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