Saturday, January 5, 2013

Placebo - Regurgitated

Placebo is one of the most unrealized, most backwarded, under-rated phenomenon in modern medicine.

I can sum it up in a very short blunt phrase that you won't be able to deny:

Non-medicine can cure you of almost anything.

Wow! Tah-Dah. Its been under our nose for so long, and its been the thing to avoid in all clinical trials, rather than maximized. Placebo is possibly a gold-mine of untapped knowledge.

Why is it so demonized in modern medicine? Why is it that clinical health "Placebo" is treated like a fuck-up, something to get rid of? Why the hell aren't we USING placebo?

Well of course you can't sell placebo. Imagine the next company that comes out with pills named "placebo pills - take it for anything!". Oh wait thats homeopathy (ooooh! low blow).

The History of Placebo
Lets take a ride into the origins of placebo, and what placebo REALLY is, and how we need to get rid of (and relabel, or UNlabel placebo).

For as long as oral and written history can document, we have had medicine men (and recently women) who have treated every ailment of a tribe with their knowledge. Often a certain medicinal plant is employed, accompanied by a very long (depending on how sick the person is) ritual or custom. This was the very beginning of our modern "placebo" phenomenon. It is creating an energy and mind-set in the individual that something is happening, and the body is going to be healed.

Often, in fact, some medicines were only verbal, or the blowing of smoke on the face. A purely psychological expression - nothing internally taken, almost nothing physically to help the wounded. All that was being done was a change in the mindset to bring about healing.

How Can We Use Placebo?

Well - the first thing we must realize is that modern medicine has shown us the true extent of our own will-power, our own ability to heal our bodies. We are so good at it, we don't even need a ritual, we don't even need a shaman or even a doctor in some cases, all we need is a little white pill. You could argue that modern civilization has created a kind of life-long ritual of modern-medicine, in which we believe things are going to happen "Cause we saws it on the TV!".

Shamans were our brothers, fathers, and uncles. We don't have them anymore.
Doctors were our neighbors - often we knew them and trusted them on a personal level.
Doctors used to come do house-calls. We don't have that anymore.
Now we have the Television, beaming us streams of heroic stories and miracle cures and healings all the time, we believe in modern medicine. Just look at the popularity of the new-age dramas like House.

The first thing we need to do is not label the phenomenon as placebo. Placebo has too much baggage and nobody wants to be the "victim" of placebo. When someone tries out a new herbal supplement and modern medicine labels it as a placebo, we feel ashamed - we feel tricked! This is NOT how we need to look at placebo.

In such a situation, you should take pride in the fact you are seeing results from your own self-awareness and will power. You need to realize you are the creator of this good energy and the healing is coming from within.

You can use herbs as your devices for healing, substrates on which you are acting on. Receivers of your own healing thoughts and energy. USE this phenomenon to your best advantage and health.

You aren't tricking yourself, you are mastering your body and mind, the connection between the two.

4 comments:

  1. I really think it's the "medicine world" that desires so much to push forward chemicals on a person's mind. I work at a psych institute and I frequently see medication being thrown at those with depression and more extreme disorders such as schizophrenia. Even though I agree with those that see and hear things to be on medications, I feel that with depression and other similar disorders, that placebo and regular therapy could be effective for them. To me though, I have depression but I’ve done very well managing it. I don’t take medications nor feel that they would benefit me. I choose to work through my depression or stress by taking on healthy coping skills like working out constantly, eating a healthy diet, recognizing when I am starting to feel depressed, even though at times I feel like I can’t control it, I know what works. I don’t want to be weak. I desire to be strong and I’ve done so well with it, that mindset. I feel like those that are trying to get rid of the placebo effect is just wanting more advanced medications to take place, due to costs. The brain is a powerful, complex organ.

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    1. Hey I read your other comments and poems and they are great. You know what you want, and I can feel you are a strong person. You're on top of your stuff too.

      But I have one thing to say - when I felt really bad, really down, I would write the happiest poems I could. I would try to imagine some kind of prancing, bambi-like vision, and put that on paper, rather than what I was feeling at that moment. That forced me to stop thinking so down, and enhanced my "happy" thought muscles if you know what I mean.

      The brain is god damn powerful. Its where it all takes place. The more we learn about it, the better more we find we're really wrong about it - its so much different than we originally thought.

      Inspired me to write my next article! Thanks! Hey and good luck up in norther california :) thats where I'd like to end up eventually.

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  2. I don't see Orange County as Northern California lol but I guess others do.

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  3. Oh what? Oh wow. I thought Irvine, CA was up by Berkeley for some reason... My bad :)

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