No matter how physically active you actually are….. the Power of Perception!
Would you say that you are physically more active, less active, or about equally active as other people your age?
Your answer might be linked to your risk of premature death decades from now – no matter how physically active you actually are, according to research by Stanford scholars.
Research finds that people who think they are less active than others in a similar age bracket, die younger than those who believe they are more active – even if their actual activity levels are similar.
Findings fall in line with a growing body of research suggesting that our mindsets — in this case, beliefs about how much exercise we are getting relative to others — can play a crucial role in our health.
Powerful Effects of Perception
In a survey of more than 60,000 U.S. adults regarding their levels of physical activity, health and personal background, participants wore an accelerometer to measure their activity over a week.
Researchers were interested in one question in particular: “Would you say that you are physically more active, less active, or about as active as other persons your age?”
The researchers then viewed death records, 21 years after the first survey was conducted. Controlling for physical activity and using statistical models that accounted for age, body mass index, chronic illnesses and other factors, they found that individuals who believed that they were less active than others were up to 71% more likely to die in the follow-up period than individuals who believed that they were more active than their peers.
How Mindsets Influence Us
The Stanford researchers offer possible explanations for mindsets and perceptions having such powerful effects on health.
One is that perceptions can affect motivation, both positively and negatively. Those who are made aware of their healthy activity levels can build on them and exercise more.
Secondly, those who deem themselves unfit are more likely to remain inactive, fueling feelings of fear, stress or depression that negatively affect their health.
Our mindsets – in this case, beliefs about how much exercise we are getting relative to others – can play a crucial role in our health.
The researchers also cite the established influence of placebo effects, where patients who think they are getting a treatment experience physiological changes without receiving actual treatment. In the same way, people who believe they are getting good exercise may experience more physiological benefits from their exercise than those who believe they aren’t getting enough exercise. Read more about this Stanford research here.
Placebo effects are very robust in medicine. It is only logical to expect that they would play a role in shaping the benefits of behavioral health as well.
Taking Mindsets Seriously
So much effort, notably in public health campaigns, is geared toward motivating people to change their behavior: eat healthier, exercise more and stress less. But an important variable is being left out of the equation: people’s mindsets about those healthy behaviors.
In fact, a growing volume of research shows that perceptions and mindsets predict health and longevity, for example, in the domains of Stress, Diet and Obesity.
In the case of Stress, a thought about something going wrong can make us sweat, or become shaky or increase our heart rate. With sexual arousal, a simple thought or idea can have immediate physical effects.
We experience these things regularly, and yet most of the time we’re not cataloguing them as something that matters. For whatever reason, we oftentimes tend to ignore the fact that our thoughts, mindsets and expectations are shaping our everyday physiology.
How can people use this finding? Many Americans think that vigorous exercise in a gym is the only way to attain a proper activity level. But being mindful of and feeling good about activities you do every day – like taking the stairs, walking or biking to work, or cleaning the house – could be an easy first step for everyone to benefit their health.
It’s time that we start taking the role of MINDSET in health more seriously! In the pursuit of health and longevity, it is important to adopt not only healthy behaviors, but also healthy thoughts.
Is this what we call the Placebo Effect?
We have long been mystified by the placebo effect, but the placebo effect isn’t some mysterious response to a sugar pill. It is the robust and measurable effect of (3) components:
the body’s natural ability to heal
our mindset
the social context
When we start to see the placebo effect for what it really is, we can stop discounting it as medically superfluous and can work to deliberately harness its underlying components to improve health.
In the past 30 years, neurobiological research has shown that the placebo effect, which stems in part from an individual’s mindset or expectation to heal, triggers distinct brain areas associated with anxiety and pain that activate physiological effects that ACTUALLY lead to HEALING outcomes.
Mindsets can also lead to negative, or “nocebo,” effects. For example, patients had a heightened pain response after they were informed that an injection would hurt. Those who were told about possible negative side effects of a medication had an increased presence of those effects.
In other words, the mind can HEAL you, or KILL you. With toxic thoughts, we make ourselves ill. With positive thoughts, we can heal ourselves!
Research also suggests that people’s mindsets also influence the benefits they get from certain behaviors. For example, studies have shown that the physical effects of food depend on how caloric or indulgent it is in a person’s mind.
Studies have also demonstrated that viewing stress as a helpful part of life, rather than as harmful, is associated with better health, emotional well-being, and productivity at work.
In the end, the power of positive thinking will undoubtedly play an increasing role in health, healing, and our definition of effective medicine. For placebos, as understanding advances and beneficial applications widen, the future is nothing but bright.
The power of placebo can make mere sugar pills as effective as drugs in improving numerous ailments, including low-back pain, erectile dysfunction, arthritis, insomnia, Parkinson’s, nausea, depression, stress, and stress-related disorders. At the heart of placebo’s success is the role that thoughts can play in healing.
Breaking Down the Science
More scientists believe it is real and are more concerned with determining how placebo works, and how much. One current train of logic suggests that if placebo is beneficial enough on its own — without the side-effects — why would we need treatments and drugs?
Most people think of placebo as a simple matter of imagination, a case of “mind over matter”, although induced by thought or emotion, this placebo effect is entirely physiological. It is the activation of neurological and chemical processes in the body that serve to reduce symptoms or to promote healing. Read about another study here.
Can Awe Boost Health?
A new study suggests we can add nature, art, and religion to life’s best anti-inflammatories.
Taking in such spine-tingling wonders as the Grand Canyon, Sistine Chapel ceiling, or Schubert’s “Ave Maria” may give a boost to the body’s defense system, according to new research from UC Berkeley.
Researchers have linked positive emotions—especially the awe we feel when touched by the beauty of nature, art, and spirituality—with lower levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, which are proteins that signal the immune system to work harder.
Findings demonstrate that positive emotions are associated with the markers of good health. While cytokines are necessary for herding cells to the body’s battlegrounds to fight infection, disease and trauma, sustained high levels of cytokines are associated with poorer health and such disorders as type-2 diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and even Alzheimer’s disease and clinical depression.
It has long been established that a healthy diet and lots of sleep and exercise bolster the body’s defenses against physical and mental illnesses. But the Berkeley study, whose findings were just published, is one of the first to look at the role of positive emotions in that arsenal.
The awe, wonder and beauty promote healthier levels of cytokines suggests that the things we do to experience these emotions—a walk in nature, losing oneself in music, beholding art—has a direct influence upon health and life expectancy. For more info on the Power of Awe, click here.
Placebo by Prescription, and the Morality of it….
Some people have raised questions about the morality of using placebos with patients who believe they’re receiving real drugs. In the past, doctors could only prescribe placebos if the ailment was so minor it could go without drug treatment, or if conventional intervention was unavailable for some reason.
Today, it’s important to know that placebos are being prescribed more often than people think. According to a study in The British Medical Journal, despite the ethical pitfalls associated with prescribing dummy medicine, some researchers estimate that as many as 50% of physicians in the U.S. have prescribed placebos without telling their patients. They do this for a variety of reasons, including the off-chance for some unknown pharmacological effect and the feeling that they should administer something, even if there aren’t any known treatments.
Meanwhile, as study of the Placebo Effect continues, drug companies haven’t refrained from attempting to profit on this apparently inherent human capacity for self-healing. Last August, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first prescription placebo. Eleven pharmaceutical companies have created placebo pills or liquids.
The first to hit the market, Sucrosa from AstraZeneca is basically powdered sugar and ranges in doses from one to 40,000 milligrams. Analysts expect Sucrosa to pull in sales of more than $25 billion a year.
GlaxoSmithKline is hot on the heels with two placebo versions of their own. One’s a 40-mg pill called Appeasor, marketed to ages 55 and up. The other’s a cola-flavoured beverage, Inertia, for middle-aged women.
Finally, lest they miss out, Eli Lilly’s Pacifex, is a green 400-mg triangular tablet.
Your Personal Power
What seems to be forgotten amid all this special packaging is the fact that placebo (belief) lies within each and every one of us. Any healing journey should automatically contain the mental, emotional, or spiritual components.
Power of Placebo. Mind over matter. Call it what you wish…..
To use our own thoughts is one of the most powerful and least damaging therapies out there. If you believe it works, it works. Why not use it?
IT IS possible to improve the body’s immune response by fostering positive emotions and MINDSET. To some people, this built-in power is not only reassuring, but also worth cultivating.
I hope today’s newsletter was insightful and informative about the Power of your MINDSET. Whether you are healthy with an amazingly healthy immune system, recovering from illness, or striving to make better decisions and taking back control of your life, we are here to help you along the way.