When new drugs are tested, placebos are used to ferret out whether the drug actually works or whether people just think the drug works.

Depressed people can have a 30 to 50% chance of feeling better whether they take an actual anti-depressant pill or a sugar pill.

Hotel room attendants who were told that they were getting a good workout from their job showed a significant decrease in weight, blood pressure and body fat – all this in just 4 weeks. (Published in Psychological Science, 2007)

Four weeks of simply thinking they were getting a real workout.

Patients with an irritable bowel condition were given inert pills and told that these pills worked by a mind/body process.  The patients started feeling better.  In other words, the medicine worked even after patients were told it was a placebo.

Asthma patients who were treated with placebos said they felt just as good as if they inhaled the medicine albuterol.

The mind is more powerful than the body.

We can harness the power of positive expectations today and every day.

If you expect good to happen, chances are they will.

We already know that when we expect bad, it never disappoints.

So, cop an attitude – a positive attitude about something you expect will happen and see if it doesn’t work for you, a friend or a loved one.

“Human beings are not made to take shortcuts … You’re to live your life, moment by moment. Your life isn’t here to entertain you – it’s to be lived.” – David Rotenberg, The Placebo Effect

Please feel free to forward this article to friends and family. 

•••

For more stories like these, click here.

•••

To start receiving these free “day starters” by email, sign up here.