How to Fool Yourself Into Health

How to Fool Yourself Into Health

If you were told by your doctor that he was giving you Sugar Pills for
your (IBS) Irritable Bowel Syndrome, would you expect any improvement
in your condition? Would you take them twice a day as he/she prescribed?

Wait – printed in large letters on the pill bottle was – Placebo.

In New York – folks would say, GetOUTTAhere.

Placebo Effect

Scientists know the power of placebos (Latin for - I will please you), for
patients, and are embarrassed by it. The U.S. Food And Drug Administration
knows that about 30% of folks tested with sham or simulated medicines show
a very positive result.

Drug companies must show their new product - tests better than the results offered
by Placebos to get federal approved for public consumption.

Doctors and scientists always attribute the great (30-50%) results of placebos to the
power of positive thinking. They means you are fooled into believing you are taking
the real thing (drugs). It is all just a mind trick.

Harvard And Placebo Theory

Dr. Ted Kaptchuk professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School working with
Beth Israel Medical Center tested the concept of Placebo, but without the deception.
They worked with 80 patients suffering with Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Half were the control group and given no pills at all, the other 50% got the bottles of Sugar
Pills, and told to take them twice a day. The thing is the patients were directly and un-
conditionally told the pills were inert, with no active ingredients. In case they missed it,
the pill bottles were labeled – Placebos.

One last thing, the doctor told each patient that they did not have to believe in the
placebo effect, just take the pills.
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What Happened

59% of the 40 placebo-taking patients, compared to the control group that took no drugs,
reported active symptom relief. One more bit of craziness, the placebo-takers doubled
their rate of improvement, compared to the most powerful IBS drug.

Google: December 22, 2011, in the journal PLoS ONE.

“These finding suggest that rather than mere positive thinking, there may be significant
benefit to the performance of medical ritual. Placebos may work even if patients know
it is a Placebo,” said Ted Kaptchuk of Harvard.

Better Explanation

Homo Sapiens believe in authority. The uniform of the police, the white jacket of
scientists are their gear of power and knowledge. This belief occurs at a nonconscious level
and conscious awareness has nothing to do with it.

When a physician gives you a bottle of pills, and tells you to take them twice daily,
you believe in the efficacy of the treatment, in spite of her/his disclaimer the pills are
Sugar-Like, inert, and have no active ingredients.

Your conscious mind, (left prefrontal cortex) hears the disclaimers logically and reasonably,
but it bows to the will of your right hemisphere (nonconsciousness). Symbols like a stoplight,
initials after your name by professionals, and the power of celebrity, override logic and reason.

Remember the authority figure defines who can control, command or determine. He/she
is anointed by our culture as an expert, specialist and wizard. Mere mortals cannot overcome
this power by our simple logic and reason.

The power of authority is far more than the power of positive thinking. Thinking is left-brained,
linear, organized, and based on reasoning. The right-brain (hemisphere) controls our
limbic system (emotions and feelings), holistic beliefs and pattern recognition. It makes the important
power decisions in life. Sure, both halves of our cerebral cortex work together, but who is in charge?

The right brain is in charge of our life motivations; it gets the point of metaphors, and runs everything
past our powerful emotions before implementation.

Mark Twain

“The power, which a man’s imagination has over his body to heal it or make it sick - is a force which
none of us is born without. The first man had it, and the last one will possess it.” 1903.

Boustrophedon

The ancient Phoenicians, Romans, and Greeks wrote and read using Boustrophedon. It is in the dictionary,
meaning as the Ox plows. Huh? The animal goes up one row, turns around, and comes down the
other. Wait – left to right, and then right to left.

When you and I READ we do not use boustrophedon. We read left to right, come to the last word on the right,
GO BLIND, and see nothing until we return to the first word of the next sentence on the left side. We stop
reading when we get the last word of the sentence, and do not start reading again until we reach home base,
the left side.
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Speed Reading

Your brain can read left to right as you and I do, but it can easily read from right to left. No? How about the
1.5 billion Moslems and 7.5 million Israelis? Our brain converts meaning from either top-down (Asia),
left to right, or a right to left system.

So What

By reading using boustrophedon, you will increase your learning speed up to 40%. There is additional improvement
in attention span and long-term memory. We have trained executives and students in this system and it is
as easy as pie to learn, and produces instant results.

See ya,
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copyright © 2011, H. Bernard Wechsler
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