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Step 4: Rethink
Our mind has the incredible power to change how we think, which has an immediate impact on how we feel. Research has shown that simply adjusting our mindset can have significant effects on objective, measurable outcomes, such as levels of hormone secretion, reduced pain, improved hearing, and decreases in body fat percentage. You've probably heard of the placebo effect before, often used negatively to describe things that don't work. However, the placebo effect has an effect, which means it does work; it has the power to trigger a significant change in the brain and body because we think it will work.
In fact, research has shown that inactive pills—the placebo—show benefits in 60 to 90 percent of diseases.1 This includes both diseases with subjective endpoints, like anxiety or depression, and diseases with measurable physical changes, like osteoarthritis and cancer. Placebo treatments trigger complex neurobiological phenomena, including the activation of distinct brain areas, as well as peripheral physiology and the immune system. Alia Crum, a top Columbia Business School mindset researcher, calls the placebo effect “an incredible and consistent demonstration of the power of mindset to recruit healing properties in the body, even without active drug.”
This phenomenon has been shown to have serious implications not just in pharmaceuticals but in medical procedures as well. In one study, researchers enrolled patients who were scheduled for reconstructive knee surgery. ...
