How To Leverage Placebo Effect For Yourself

Today’s almonds have been activated by:

In A Rush?

Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• The placebo effect is a well-known, well-evidenced factor that is very relevant when it comes to the testing and implementation of medical treatments

  • Today’s main feature examines how we can leverage that for our own benefit, to enhance our own medical treatments and health practices

• Good quality sleep is one of the top few things for good health, yet it’s often the one we most easily neglect.

  • Today’s sponsor Cozy Earth is offering temperature-regulating bamboo sheets guaranteed to keep you cool on even the warmest summer nights (literally, they have a 100-night risk-free trial to guarantee it)

• Today’s featured recipe is for fast-pickled cucumbers; gut-healthy and easy to do at home without the long wait!

Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive

A Word To The Wise

Watch and Learn

Why You Can’t Deep Squat (And The Benefits You’re Missing)

You can do it, provided you practise correctly and don’t sabotage yourself:

Prefer text? The above video will take you to a 10almonds page with a text-overview, as well as the video!

Psychology Sunday

Placebo Effect: Making Things Work Since… Well, A Very Long Time Ago

The placebo effect is a well-known, well-evidenced factor that is very relevant when it comes to the testing and implementation of medical treatments:

NIH | National Center for Biotechnology Information | Placebo Effect

Some things that make placebo effect stronger include:

• Larger pills instead of small ones: because there’s got to be more going on in there, right?

• Thematically-colored pills: e.g. red for stimulant effects, blue for relaxing effects

• Things that seem expensive: e.g. a well-made large heavy machine, over a cheap-looking flimsy plastic device. Similarly, medication from a small glass jar with a childproof lock, rather than popped out from a cheap blister-pack.

• Things that seem rational: if there’s an explanation for how it works that you understand and find rational, or at least you believe you understand and find rational ← this works in advertising, too; if there’s a “because”, it lands better almost regardless of what follows the word “because”

• Things delivered confidently by a professional: this is similar to the “argument from authority” fallacy (whereby a proposed authority will be more likely trusted, even if this is not their area of expertise at all, e.g. celebrity endorsements), but in the case of placebo trials, this often looks like a well-dressed middle-aged or older man with an expensive haircut calling for a young confident-looking aide in a lab coat to administer the medicine, and is received better than a slightly frazzled academic saying “and, uh, this one’s yours” while handing you a pill.

• Things with ritual attached: this can be related to the above (the more pomp and circumstance is given to the administration of the treatment, the better), but it can also be as simple as an instruction on an at-home-trial medication saying “take 20 minutes before bed”. Because, if it weren’t important, they wouldn’t bother to specify that, right? So it must be important!

And now for a quick personality test

Did you see the above as a list of dastardly tricks to watch out for, or did you see the above as a list of things that can make your actual medication more effective?

It’s arguably both, of course, but the latter more optimistic view is a lot more useful than the former more pessimistic one.

Since placebo effect works at least somewhat even when you know about it, there is nothing to stop you from leveraging it for your own benefit when taking medication or doing health-related things.

Next time you take your meds or supplements or similar, pause for a moment for each one to remember what it is and what it will be doing for you. This is a lot like the principles (which are physiological as well as psychological) of mindful eating, by the way:

How To Get More Nutrition From The Same Food

Placebo makes some surprising things evidence-based

We’ve addressed placebo effect sometimes as part of an assessment of a given alternative therapy, often in our “Mythbusting Friday” edition of 10almonds.

• In some cases, placebo is adjuvant to the therapy, i.e. it is one of multiple mechanisms of action (example: chiropractic or acupuncture)

• In some cases, placebo is the only known mechanism of action (example: homeopathy)

• In some cases, even placebo can’t help (example: ear candling)

One other fascinating and far-reaching (in a potentially good way) thing that placebo makes evidence-based is: prayer

…which is particularly interesting for something that is fundamentally faith-based, i.e. the opposite of evidence-based.

Now, we’re a health science publication, not a theological publication, so we’ll consider actual divine intervention to be beyond the scope of mechanisms of action we can examine, but there’s been a lot of research done into the extent to which prayer is beneficial as a therapy, what things it may be beneficial for, and what factors affect whether it helps:

Prayer and healing: A medical and scientific perspective on randomized controlled trials

👆 full paper here, and it is very worthwhile reading if you have time, whether or not you are religious personally

Placebo works best when there’s a clear possibility for psychosomatic effect

We’ve mentioned before, and we’ll mention again:

• psychosomatic effect does not mean: “imagining it”

• psychosomatic effect means: “your brain regulates almost everything else in your body, directly or indirectly, including your autonomic functions, and especially notably when it comes to illness, your immune responses”

So, a placebo might well heal your rash or even shrink a tumor, but it probably won’t regrow a missing limb, for instance.

And, this is important: it’s not about how credible/miraculous the outcome will be!

Rather, it is because we have existing pre-programmed internal bodily processes for healing rashes and shrinking tumors, that just need to be activated—whereas we don’t have existing pre-programmed internal bodily processes for regrowing a missing limb, so that’s not something our brain can just tell our body to do.

So for this reason, in terms of what placebo can and can’t do:

• Get rid of cancer? Yes, sometimes—because the body has a process for doing that; enjoy your remission

• Fix a broken nail? No—because the body has no process for doing that; you’ll just have to cut it and wait for it to grow again

With that in mind, what will you use the not-so-mystical powers of placebo for? What ever you go for… Enjoy, and take care!

Our Sponsors Make This Publication Possible

Oprah Loves Them, And You Will, Too. Introducing Cozy Earth Sheets

Want luxurious sheets that get softer after each wash? Cozy Earth bamboo viscose sheets - featured on Oprah’s 2018 Favorite Things list - are the answer you’ve been searching for.

Cozy Earth’s best-selling sheets are made from 100% premium bamboo viscose - an ultra-soft and sustainable fabric produced by meticulously processing bamboo pulp. These temperature-regulating sheets keep you cool and comfortable on even the hottest summer nights.

The team at Cozy Earth has worked hard to provide you with the highest-quality sheets. Each set goes through rigorous research and development, and every detail has been carefully considered and painstakingly tested, from design and fabrication to quality and sustainability. When you try them, you’ll see why they’ve received nearly 7,000 5-star reviews!

Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free

This Or That?

Vote on Which is Healthier

Yesterday we asked you to choose between pistachios and walnuts—we picked the pistachios (click here to read about why), as did only 37% of you!

Now for today’s choice:

Click on whichever you think is better for you!

Recipes Worth Sharing

Fast-Pickled Cucumbers

Pickled vegetables are great for the gut, and homemade is invariably better than store-bought. But if you don't have pickling jars big enough for cucumbers, and don't want to wait a couple of weeks for the results, here's a great way to do it quickly and easily:

Click below for our full recipe, and learn its secrets:

One-Minute Book Review

Body Sculpting with Kettlebells for Women: Over 50 Total Body Exercises – by Lorna Kleidman

For those of us who are more often lifting groceries or pots and pans than bodybuilding trophies, kettlebells provide a way of training functional strength. This book does (as per the title) offer both sides of things—the body sculpting, and the body maintenance free from pain and injury.

Kleidman first explains the basics of kettlebell training, and how to get the most from one’s workouts, before discussing what kinds of exercises are best for which benefits, and finally moving on to provide full exercise programs.

The exercise programs themselves are fairly comprehensive without being unduly detailed, and give a week-by-week plan for getting your body to where you want it to be.

The style is fairly personal and relaxed, while keeping things quite clear—the photographs are also clear, though if there’s a weakness here, it’s that we don’t get to see which muscles are being worked in the same as we do when there’s an illustration with a different-colored part to show that.

Bottom line: if you’re looking for an introductory course for kettlebell training that’ll take you from beginner through to the “I now know what I’m doing and can take it from here, thanks” stage.

Click here to check out Body Sculpting With Kettlebells For Women, and get sculpting!

Penny For Your Thoughts?

Wishing you a pleasantly peaceful Sunday,

The 10almonds Team