You’ve Heard Of The Placebo Effect, But Have You Heard Of This?
by Marissa Pomerance
We’ve all heard of the “placebo effect,” right? That phenomenon where we unknowingly take a placebo—a substance with no true therapeutic properties—and believe it cured our ills.
By desperately wanting our concoction of adaptogens, mushrooms, and turmeric to cure our headaches, by believing it IS working, we can actually…make it work? It’s wild. The placebo effect is real; it’s not just that our mind thinks we’re getting better, in fact in many cases we ARE getting better.
But. There’s an inverse of the placebo effect that’s equally as powerful, yet none of us know about it. It’s called the nocebo effect. Yes. NOcebo.
And it proves that negative thinking affects us as much as positive thinking. Here’s everything you need to know about it.
What is it?
The nocebo effect is when we believe that we’re experiencing the negative side effects of a drug or a placebo.
So if the placebo effects allows us to unknowingly believe that a sugar pill cured our headaches, the nocebo effect would cause us to take that sugar pill, and think we’re experiencing side effects of that “medication,” like feeling nauseous or dizzy, even though said placebo has no side effects.
Just like how the placebo effect can help us get better, the mere suggestion of a negative side effect can actually cause us to experience real symptoms. Pain IS a matter of perception, so if you think your stomach hurts…well, then you’re still experiencing stomach pain, whether or not it was brought on by a sugar pill or “real” medication or the stress of worrying about getting a stomach ache.
Isn’t this just health anxiety?
If you, like the editors behind this site, also suffer from health anxiety, all of this might sound eerily familiar.
Think that you’re having stomach pain out of nowhere? Convinced your allergy medication is giving you heart palpitations? Worried that the Vitamin C tablet you just took is causing your throat to close up, even though you take it every day and why would you be suddenly, deathly allergic to it now? Yes, the nocebo effect sounds a lot like hypochondria.
But, it’s not exactly the same thing.
First, the nocebo effect can happen to anyone, not just hypochondriacs or people who experience anxiety. In one study, participants with chronic back pain performed a flexibility test; the 50% of participants who were told the test could cause pain reported a significantly higher amount of pain after the procedure than the 50% of participants who weren’t told the test would cause pain.
Second, there’s usually an inciting incident to the nocebo effect; a new medication introduced by a doctor, a suggestion of a side effect, a new treatment, etc. For us health anxiety sufferers, we don’t need inciting incidents to convince ourselves we’re ill! We’ll make up side effects, even when there are none (remember the Vitamin C tablet we somehow think we’re allergic to?).
Why does any of this matter?
All of this is to say: the mind is powerful. Our thoughts matter, and have the ability to influence our bodies, our feelings, our sensations, our perception of pain.
It’s also nice to know we’re not totally deranged for convincing ourselves we’re experiencing every single side-effect of our new migraine medication: it’s just the nocebo effect at work.
Isn’t that fascinating?
Marissa Pomerance is the Managing Editor of The Candidly. She’s a Los Angeles native and lover of all things food, style, beauty, and wellness. You can find more of her articles here.
