Episode 33 Placebo, Self affirming bias ... psycho somatic power 10-12-23
Sat, Nov 04, 2023 10:11AM • 27:21
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
placebo, belief, body, mind, affirming, virtue, good, acting, studies, believing, placebo effect, behavior, speak, opinion, discuss, basketball, future, fact, term, effect
Welcome back, folks to Episode 23 of the Running Man self regulation skills and self improvement project podcast with me, your host, Dr. Armando Dominguez, PhD in health psychology, Licensed Professional Counselor and an adjunct professor at a local community college. Now what we're going to discuss today is going to be something that we're probably all familiar with whenever we hear about pharmaceutical studies, and that is placebo. Now placebos are really important thing, whenever we're trying to determine the effects of an actual drug versus a pill or sugar pill or something that has inert substance with no effect expected. But there is a quality of belief that goes along with placebo, that even sometimes placebo effects. If you look that up, it's a rather interesting term has an impact on how effective a drug could be, versus what the drugs actual substance could do. And also what maybe even the placebo does, because sometimes even placebo has an effect whenever studies are done meta studies, you see that the placebo is not a zero effect, in some cases. So that means mine please, a role in the effects of not only the medication that does give a benefit. And there's some wonderful things that we've gotten as a result of those types of studies. But also realizing the fact that the underlying effect the impact of what our predictive mind are expecting, as a result of our predictive mind, such as in quotes, cure, or alleviation of pain, or an improvement of health. And those are some really powerful effects to really keep in mind about because it's not just with the medications that we see, but we call this a placebo effect. So to start the discussion, when we discuss terms like placebo placebo effect often is within the realm of pharmaceutical studies, this sort of thing. But what we're going to be doing today is discussing what we've talked about before on this podcast about suggestion, the most proximal suggestion, that means the closest good suggestion that we have is the one that we generate within ourselves. And that is very much a belief born of what we expect or what we anticipate. And since our brains are predicted machines, from the right now into the future, sometimes influenced with what we've experienced in the past, that tends to color or shape, what it is that we're going to do in the immediate moment, but also how we may respond in the future. And as far as placebo effects go, if we think about placebo, not just being within the realm of something that we ingest, but also in how we behave, and how we act and how we are treated sometimes. And this actually kind of blurs the line between even some of the roles that we play. Whenever we're in work, for instance, so why don't we dress a certain way, not unlike acting, wherever you get into the costume and the theater, the theater of the mind can be affected by words, but then we have the theater, the body, the actual life that we live, not unlike Shakespeare, speaking of us being the players and the people that we have in our lives as players within this theatrical drama that we call our life. So this is a very distinct detail that I believe is important to self regulation, because often, even dysregulation, whenever we don't regulate ourselves, our emotions are state of body, our state of mind, and even our capacity to think under stress and even whenever we're not stressed, is often influenced heavily by how it is that we believe as much as how much we believe something, the one but the house is really important. How am I believing? Am I stalwart believer, no questions dyed in the wool type of believer? Well, that's a good question. Notice I said believer, not a hopeful, not a faithful, but a believer. That's a step above that is generally speaking much closer to what we'd call having knowledge, actual facts, data. and maybe even concrete evidence to support what it is that we may think. And we will talk about arousal and how often our suggestibility goes up, if we're more apt to take things the way they look, versus taking the time to look more deeply and see how things really are. And we're going to be in the realm of the belief once we've seen something and taken it to the point of belief. And that is, this is a higher cognitive process, but it is influenced by what we perceive what we actually take in through our eyes, our ears, our nose, and our mouth. Also the very skin, the tactile sensations that we experience that can very much influence and add to the power or potency of a suggestion or in quotes, in this case, the placebo that we follow. Now, Dr. Glenn Morris, I've mentioned him before the late Dr. Goodman was passed away, April 1 2006, and a martial artist and a psychologist, and he worked in industry having to do with automakers for a time. But one of the things he mentioned is that often we follow our own placebos. And I really took this task in the sense that I really wanted to figure out what that meant. How do we actually do that? How do we follow our own placebos? At first at the most surface level is, well, am I deluding myself? Am i Believing myself to be something or do something that maybe is not only unrealistic, but more correctly, not real, or not supported by evidence, but yet, I still take it as if, and we'll call this sacrosanct meaning no one can change my mind, I'm taking it as actual fact, actual objective fact, versus a subjective thing, which is an exercise in our mind that we call thinking that we can very easily erase with that little mental eraser I made in my mind. But I'm projected onto the tape the editor that I'm sharing with you right now, and not unlike a whiteboard or chalkboard just kind of wiping out and starting and getting, right the new thought of there, so to speak. So whenever we're discussing placebo, what do I mean? Well, it could be a number of things in the behavioral sense. But as far as self regulation, how many things do I believe to be based on words that I've heard, due to a stressful environment whenever maybe I wasn't that my best may be able to really young and I heard something from parents that all be in well, meaning maybe somebody that was formative in my rearing and raising up as a child will either be a teacher or coach, or even some adult that we may have heard flippantly speaking out loud in the street, that we kind of somehow assumed what they said being factual or true. Maybe when we were raised, and I had this experience as well, we're expected to respect our elders. And even though we were told to be careful and safe, we couldn't make that bridge of understanding from being respectful of elders, to having trust, not having trust, rather, with those that would be seedy or dangerous or dark that we shouldn't be around. But yet being caught in a catch 22 Because nobody brings the understanding for us. But teaching us discreetly, and maybe we didn't have that realization on our own, that we couldn't make that jump of reasoning on our own. And therefore, we wound up with a belief that may or may not have been a functional belief that might be floating around there subconsciously, or at least below the surface level, that we tend to act by with. So that was a lot and a little bit, but something to chew on. So just some ideas. There is such a thing that we pay attention to in studies of academics, or we call it self affirming bias. And that is one of the things and my husband developed. A study that I completed my PhD with, I had to look for, and asked to be pointed in the direction of anything that sounded like a self affirming bias guy, I see for myself what I was doing, but it was by the discriminating eyes of my, my teachers that that I was able to see Oh, okay. I can see where that would be self affirming. Because I definitely had an opinion, but I wasn't trying to proffer an opinion of self, but rather to look for facts to support or evidence to support an idea, but not an opinion, because I wasn't in a position to do a dissertation with. Well, I'm going to put my opinion out there, but rather will this seems like an interesting problem. That seems to be a problem, real world problem. And let's see what the facts are, then we'll let that determine what's right and wrong, or evidentiary, so to speak or not. And it wasn't about opinion, but rather gathering facts in data. And whenever we have self affirming bias, often, we may in light of fly in the face of what we would call facts or data or evidence, because we feel that what we're believing is not only correct, true.
And I say that in quotes truth. And that's above fact, and it's immutable. And it is a belief. And it is an opinion, because it definitely has an emotional base to it. But it tends to be rather dear. And it's too hard for me to turn around. Now, there are many that say, Well, I believe this. And they may say, I don't know so much about this area of knowledge. But yet, I'm still saying that I don't believe this to be true, such as people discussing the global warming issue. Some say it's real. The government wants us to believe it. But there are people out there saying no, it's not real scientists saying Oh, yeah, there's no way we could hurt the environment. It's self correcting, but yet the magnitude of eliminating the deforestation in the Amazon, the lungs of our world, you know, that has had an impact. But to say that it hasn't, makes us question. Now, we're not going to get into politics. But that's just a very large global, for instance, that we can all share as an understanding, just to get to the point here. But the next thing we're going to discuss is relative to self affirming, bias, a self fulfilling prophecy. What does this have to do with placebo? Well, this is a really good question, but it's not so far removed from the belief that we may have an expectation of a result, based on a behavior or food, or maybe even a medication that we may ingest. Or maybe a situation being, one wherever we're respected as an authority, because maybe I'm the team lead or a boss or, or working in a position where people work under me. And there is this sense of if I do a certain thing, I will become a certain thing. And sometimes by having and holding these ideas, these beliefs, whether they're supported by evidence, or not, even if it's supported by what we'd call empty behaviors. But yet, these are some of the things we may bring about, we may even bring about things by virtue of us having a negative attitude, or mindset. Now, this isn't to harp on anyone that struggles with depression, or issues with being productive, or positive, because we have a confound there. And one of the compounds to this whole process of being positive. And I will say that it's our biology. We're in most cases, and I'm going to quote this from never split the difference by Chris Voss, a former FBI crisis negotiator, and really awesome book and all your book as well. But he mentioned, and it supports the science that I know that 75% of our brain is aligned, or leaning towards the negative. We are not negatively attributed to that. But rather, we seek those things as a protective mechanism. And we're better survivors, because we see those things that can be harmful to us. And if we have a placebo effect, do we tend to believe and follow on placebo? Those negatives that come up in my mind, this is a very rhetorical question. And b2c People that tend to always somehow be just a step, a little step behind a step down, or in a broken situation that always seems to stay broken, or something gets better. And something else breaks down, almost to support the expectation that they have themselves. And they not only live it, but they believe it. And you can tell them and show them you can do this and have this and you can improve things, but they keep repeating the same mental loop. So by virtue of repeated suggestion, we can say that this hypnotic effect is a self fulfilling prophecy in that sense. But it is also a self affirming bias because the evidence on the outside in our life, look at all this, this is a result of me. I am the way I am I'm a product of aren't my environment environment. And this is where the nature versus nurture comes in. Because I am by virtue of my environment being nurtured to respond this way, and believe this way and so stay in that state of mind and believe, which it's questionable, because you can still in spite of environment, wrangle yourself out of there. You can still in spite of your beliefs succeed somehow. You may attributed as luck or Wow, one in a million implied in strike one of those things, but yet it can still counter the reality, but are believed many times we will continue to believe because we have the past our memory. And often people say that past behavior is good predictor of future behavior. I would say always that that is a useful tool. It's not an absolute tool, but I always take it with a grain of salt. Because people can change behaviors in the sense of the external than not doing what it is that you may have expected them to. But even then, that does not necessarily connote the change on the internal where their motivations, support that behavior, they may just be putting on the camouflage, putting on the sheep's clothing, so to speak. So even then, I don't believe what people say on all the half of what they do. Because it couldn't be camouflage doesn't mean that everyone that they've been doing, been doing negative and tried to get over on people, even though there are those people. It's just a matter of fact that depending on what the internal motivation is, what's going to serve me, hypnotically, how am I going to get my payoff? How am I going to get that dopamine rush or that oxytocin bond where I can get together with somebody? Or have that feel of making me feel better? Whenever I've had a hard time? Well, I may do things. And so let's say, well, that's disingenuous, it may not be authentic at all, could be a really good actor. We discussed the life of the theatre, as per William Shakespeare's description, and we're all actors on that stage. And in a very practical sense, we are it doesn't mean we're liars, even someone in a very positive table that is dishonest, but in a very survival allistic sense, it's part of the process. And it's allowed, this is the getting along to get along. That is allowed. And we all do it to some degree or another. And that's okay. Nothing wrong with doing that. I think it's important that we're able to realize this, that we can be authentic with ourselves and honest with ourselves, and not trick ourselves into believing that we're somehow incapable. The next part of this is something that you've probably heard the term before psycho somatic. Psycho, of course, has to do with our mind and how we think, and the somatic having to do with our body. And the way it's termed makes it sound rather discrete and separate, when in actuality, it's really not. We've come to realize that that which we consider our subconscious mind is actually the lower brain. That is the where the wordless mind occurs wherever our visual processing and our tactile and auditory and our gustatory and olfactory processing occurs. And that is something that gets interpreted to language once the signal splits off to the higher cortical structures in our brain. And whenever we're thinking about Soma, our body, there are many body methods out there, but I've had experience in in Rolfing, and that is R O L. F. Rolf, developed by a very premier body worker named Ida Rolf, she has since passed. And this method developed around the time that Moshe Feldenkrais in Israel develops his Feldenkrais method that was also a body work method, that many actors and vocalists use because it really placed an emphasis on good structure and just a bit of information on the Feldenkrais he was also a black belt in judo. And he actually trained Israeli military and, and neutralization and fighting methods for World War Two. So he was around for a while and he was a bit of a renaissance man, so to speak. But also Feldenkrais is a bodywork method, and there are a number of others. But Rolfing is one that involves changing the body structure from the feet of how you stand, how the muscles interact, some say it can be very painful. I've had the one where it was really uncomfortable. But the lady that worked on me many years back and she little tiny whisper of a woman, I probably outweighed her by good 130 pounds whenever she was working on me, she didn't put any pressure on me, but made the body change, because they were working on the fascia itself, and corrected a lot of the misalignment that I had in my structure by virtue of working on the soft tissue. So she was incredibly talented. But I will tell you that this next term applies very much to body work, and how we think and how we are, is definitely affected by how our body is more so than the thoughts that we have. And
whenever we fix the mind, by going through the body, the change tends to be more effective in my experience, versus trying to change the body of the mind. Now, this does not mean that the mind cannot fix what's going on with the body or that we can't increase healing factor. There are studies that did work with this. Now, it's incredibly rare that we have somebody that's able to do things like that, wherever we have cure, but there is an impact, there is an effect. By using the mind, I don't like meditation or using visualization probably more correctly, the ones that have visualization that affect what we do on the on the outside, there was a study done with basketball, college students with basketball players, that the one students, some were allowed to train, actually shooting basketball goals physically, and no mind training, that there was a group that had both the mind training, visualization, and the basketball shooting, so they spend equal time doing both. And then they had the group that strictly did the mental work, just the visualization a little weren't allowed to touch a basketball. And whenever they came back, they had some phenomenal results in the sense that the ones that actually practiced and practice the basketball only they they improved, they did better. The ones that had the mind training and the basketball training, they improved even more than the ones that did just the physical. But the ones that did the mind training had an equivalent jumping skill, from their baseline, to the ones that were doing the visualization and the practice. And that's pretty serious. That means that we can change what our body can do, even without practice. Isn't that interesting. So there is a powerful effect from mind to body. But there's also an equally powerful effect from body to mind. And the healthier we become by exercise, the more wellness and well being we experienced. So therefore, there is an impact that is measurable whenever we get our body in shape. And this, this is where sometimes we have a lot of apprehension to want to start running, walking and get healthy, for instance. And if it's Sally toward benefit, we're seeking getting healthier, losing weight, or in let's say, drop in our cholesterol by virtue of exercise, we know that that helps to then often getting past that apprehension requires that we just do it, not thinking about doing it, not moralizing and, and trying to encourage ourselves to do because it's good for you. But rather knowing what the effect is that I'm trying to avoid bad health and maybe an eventual outcome, notice that we tend to future pace and think about the expected outcome that's negative, that we may have gotten in the conversation with our doctor, for instance. But sometimes we know this on our own. But it's whenever we are most motivated. Because there's a quantity of belief that we're trying to avert, then we realize that we may actually gain. And we may even start with the idea of getting the game start with a positive law, I want to gain more mass muscle, I want to lose weight, I want to be more attractive, I want to be lighter, I want to sleep better. These are all very legitimate outcomes that we might be seeking. But once we entertain them in our mind in the future, and we start acting and moving towards that knowing that every step we take towards that gets us closer to that outcome, that goal, then our motivations become better, especially when we start seeing those little changes. And those are really important things. So Soma cycle, yes, body change, mind change can start with the mind. Yes, psycho Soma. So, there is such a thing as mine cure. There are some cases that have been documented wherever, just by mind alone that people have gotten better. And I mentioned Milton Erickson's hypnosis, being recognized as a medical modality of legitimate medical modality . And then, I was telling you all about the hypnotist that went in to help this one gentleman that had a severe case of warts. And then within I think a day or two, they're all gone, just by virtue of hypnosis, because the doctor tried everything and they've given up. So he was a last ditch and then they gave it a try. This happened in the 1950s, I believe. So there's definitely something to the psychosomatic cure. And some terms I'd like to throw out there just for us to chew on is the term fake it till you make it that is so cliche, it's almost painful to speak. But whenever we do things and act as if and act in the manner of doing not behaving, and believing you're deluded into thinking that but rather actually doing the behavior, the soma changes the cycle, that almost changes the psychological the body changes the psychological. Take it till you make it in that Since is a very powerful tool. And this is when in fact, we are acting not based on an opinion that is emotionally charged. But rather, we're acting in absence of evidence. But acting as if it's a fact, acting, meaning you're doing as if it's already true. And this is not a belief thing, this is a, a Nike thing, just do it. Once you start doing, then we start shoring up the difference between what we entertain in our mind as the goal that we want, and what we're doing with a body today to get us to that goal. And at some point, whenever we make the picture real once we arrive at that picture, we realize the power of what the mind has an action in health development, and also self improvement and self regulation. Because we're actually learning how to manage those steady states of stress. And limiting those things that stress is by developing resilience along the way, the different kinds of resilience that revolves around being able to not necessarily have to have satiety or satiation have a hunger, we can actually put things off delayed gratification, we've gained in strength and capability. So for now, that's it. Certainly glad that we visited this evening. And I want to tell you, thank you for listening. So if you do like following Share, share this with people that you think may be able to benefit from this podcast. And if you have any comments or anything you'd like to share with me, please contact me at Running Man. Get skills project at Gmail for now, take care all the best walk well