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?
In: Other
Our moods, emotions, and feelings can have a very strong influence over how our bodies function. This influence can manifest as visible symptoms and even manifest as physical pain within the body. Basically if you believe something strong enough, your brain will start to act like it’s true and start to stimulate the body to behave like it’s true.
For example if you really think you hurt your back, your brain will start to simulate pain in your back despite it not actually being damaged.
Placebo pills can influence this by making you think you’re taking a treatment, which will make your brain respond accordingly. If the injury was not real then the brain will think it got treated and stop stimulated pain. Coincidentally this can actually work on real injuries as well where you will think a placebo is working and your brain starts masking real injuries or symptoms.
Note a placebo is not limited to just a pill. Things like faith healers, reiki energy manipulation, and whatever woowoo alternative medicine you can think of frequently act as placebos (although sometimes going in for the treatment and relaxing for a bit can help someone feel better, not because of the treatment, but because they relaxed for a bit).
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