Eli5: How do placebos’ trick our brain into thinking they do something? How do we eventually get healed if the placebo didn’t do anything in the first place?
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Your body is responsible for healing itself.
Medicine helps your body but (usually) doesn’t cure it by itself.
However, there are things that make your body weaker: Pollution, bad nutrition, lack of sleep, stress, etc.
A lot of the things that make your body weaker are related to your mental state. If you are tired and scared, your body will stress out and waste resources on keeping you awake, for example by producing a lot of hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. Those hormones are designed to keep you alive in case you are threatened by a lion and need to fight or run but don’t really help you when you are sick.
A placebo will release some of that stress because it makes you less scared: After all, you think you took some medicine and know medicine will help you. Once you are less scared, your body will relax and will not produce as many stress hormones.
You don’t need a placebo for that, either. You can learn to meditate and create a sense of peace yourself whenever you feel sick. A relaxed mind paired with enough sleep and good nutrition will help your body fight against diseases more effectively. People who are naturally relaxed like that will see no real difference between taking a placebo and doing nothing.
That’s also why people shouldn’t work or stay up late or do strenuous activities when they are sick. It will only prolong the sickness because the body will be weakened or distracted from fighting whatever is causing the disease.
The opposite can also happen: If you believe something you ate will harm you, your body will stress and it’s more likely that you feel bad or even get sick. That’s called nocebo.
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