You Are The Placebo by Dr. Joe Dispenza

In an age of medications, fad diets, and quack self-help gurus, this book is an antidote to a whole lot of health scams. Dr. Dispenza refers to a British army physician Henry Beecher who used saline shots in place of morphine, deducing that the thought of being sedated was as good as the real thing. Perhaps the true effect was that the soldier’s anxiety and stress were reduced, making everything seem easier by comparison? Whatever the case, the facts are clear; self-hypnosis can have as great an effect as a whole lot of medications.

One of the chapters, titled “The Placebo Effect On The Body,” discusses age versus imagined age. In one study, some old men are asked to imagine they are 22 years old. They’re taken to a monastery, given magazines and TV from the era, and allowed to act as they did all those years ago. The results are reduced stress and blood pressure, improved hearing and eye sight, and general improvements in health. Lifestyle changes can be an obvious factor in health improvements, as it was in this case.

Dr. Dispenza’s book continues with case studies of people who manage their illnesses through meditation, exercise, and generally accepting their conditions. People with chronic pain tend to either medicate themselves, or they take out their frustrations on others, and that leads to misery. Take Howard Hughes as an example (he would’ve made a great case study in this book.) Today’s doctors agree that Hughes’ bizarre habits, like his nudist lifestyle, living in darkness, watching the same movies over and over again, his need for painkillers, were the result of chronic pain. Today there are better ways of pain management, like medication and exercise, along with healthy eating. You can train yourself to ignore the pain of a pinched nerve or a skin condition. It’s a lot healthier than doping yourself up and living on disability benefits.