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?

Question

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

Answer 1

It does not work that way… Placebos do nothing. They do not heal, the body just heals itself in the same way it would have healed if the placebo was not taken. If the body cannot recover by itself, a placebo will do nothing, it will not heal.

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Note there is a kind of opposite effect, called nocebo, were people manage to feel ill on imaginary symptoms. The prime example of this is people who claim radio waves from a brand new cell tower made them unhealthy, when the cell tower has not even been turned on, or claim they can detect radio electric fields from appliances turned on when studies in double blind show both their group and a reference group have a 50% rate of find.