The Placebo Effect

"Everything can be taken from man but…the last of the human freedoms - to choose ones attitude in any set of circumstances"

In a recent Parkinson’s disease Study, patients felt better when they thought they were taking a special, more expensive and effective medications. Miraculously, their symptoms and pain lessened, and they were on the way to recovery. Just a missing piece in the puzzle. The costly medicine was just a simple “saline injection”. The Placebo Effect. They were taking in the effects of a placebo - Where you believe a medication will help you, and the body and mind simply respond back. The medicine, is usually just a harmless sugar pill.

The glass is half full. The glass is half empty. Or is there a glass anyway. The actual way we see problems and adversity has a profound effect on the outcome.

No one wants to fall in the face of suffering or be overwhelmed to the point of despondency. You can feel like a failure or blame your destiny for not being as favorable as that of others. Face it. We all have been there. But for me, one the greatest tragedies of human life, is to lose hope. For, when you have lost hope, you have lost everything. You surrendered before the battle even started.

Think of this. What is hope anyway? The origin of the word “Hope” literally means to “leap forward with expectation”.  It is an intangible belief that good news is around the corner. Its that soft whisper that keeps telling you to hold on and keep moving, when you are at the end of your wits. It is that voice within that says, “Just try one more time”. This simple emotion or feeling has profound effects on human potential and achievement.

 It is now being seen as such a pivotal part of our life that researchers have devised a “hope theory” which states that hope is not just a dreamer’s dream. It is more than just that. It is a clear conceptualization of goals based on “will power and “way power”. It is believed that having high level of hope not only helps one create different pathways to goals effectively, but also drives the perseverance to sustain and travel those paths effectively. Like “having the will and the way”.

Essentially, it is a combination of 2 elements:-

·        Belief , that change is possible

·        Expectation , that actions of an individual can result in a better future

The interesting bit is this. People with high level of hope are more likely to:-

-         Set a number of goals

-         Have goals which may be more difficult to attain

-         Be more successful at reaching their goals

-         Have less distress and greater happiness than low- hope people

It all boils down to your outlook. How we see problems and adversity has a profound effect on the outcome. If you want to see goodness in others, you will see it. If you want to find beauty in situations, you will see it.

Hope is simply looking beyond your troubles and believing that the best is still on its way and goodness will triumph in the end. No matter what it is. It is on its way to you. That’s the belief. And that’s the expectation from life.

Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t expect you to start seeing unicorns and go to the unreal wishful side of life. There is a difference between hoping and wishing. Hope is not about just positive thinking. It is half optimism and half belief in the power that you can make it so. Wishing takes you to an unreal stance which encourages passivity and is a kind of fantasy. Hope is more about endurance and showing up for the hard work with an eye on the horizon.

So why is it that we fall into a rut of worry and fear, than actually galvanize our efforts through this simple baseline feeling of hoping for a better tomorrow? It has to do with the internal dialogue we have. It all starts from within.

• Hold On. The only constant is change.

These are turbulent times and challenging to say the least. In feelings of despair, it is a human reaction to think that the present moment is almost permanent. That all looks bleak and there is barely any light at the end of the tunnel. This is farther from the truth than anything. Often we take one upsetting situation and make it an everlasting one by fixating on it. It’s temporary like any passing event. Life is an assortment of experiences as they come and go. Take situations as they come. Nothing ever is permanent, except your perseverance. Look ahead. This too shall pass.

• Watch your step. Stay away from the Domino Effect

Another pitfall of facing dire times, is to think that because of one aspect not going our way, all is lost. Like a domino effect, a single negative event can overshadow the way you look at your whole life. One constructive feedback, and you feel that you are not good at anything in life. Your worth as a valuable person has been rejected. This only makes you feel worse and cause a downward spiral. Hope is that light, that keeps you focused on what needs to be done. Theres always a way. Find it or be patient. It will come your way.

• On Guard. It’s not a personal attack.

You cannot have high hopes, if you keep taking setbacks as personal attacks. Thinking that anything bad that happens is your fault and anything good that happens is credited to others or a game of chance, is heedless thinking. Yet a lot of us suffer from this. Quietly. Try to stay away from over criticizing yourself and focus on what needs to be done. Next time, you will try better and do better. The overriding aspect is that you learnt and you pulled through.

• Learn. Unlearn. Relearn

Einstein once said that it is insanity to do the same thing again and again and expect different results. The illiterates of today are not those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn from experiences. Life is portioned into phases, and each phase brings its own unique challenges to groom us to a better version of us. Our strength lies in how we react to them and not thinking of a life without any hardship. That space does not quite exist. We are here to learn to become better than yesterday. One must see beyond the adversity and reach to problems with a sense of confidence, thinking that negative events are temporary and limited in scope, and manageable. Half the battles you fight, are never actually fought. It all starts within our heads. Our internal dialogues.

• When things are falling apart, they maybe actually falling into place. Believe.

Often I have seen that we are so focused on what we don’t have, that we look less at what we do have. Sometimes challenges come our way, to help give us a break. To make us step back and take a holistic view of life and how far we have come. To reenergize our faith and belief in what we are doing.

Think about this story.

There was once a King who had a wise advisor. The advisor followed the King everywhere, and his favorite advice was, “Everything happens for the good”. One day the King went hunting and had a little accident. He shot an arrow at his own foot and was injured. He asked the advisor what he thought about the accident, to which the advisor replied, “Everything happens for the good”. This time the King was really upset and ordered for his advisor to be put in prison. The King asked his advisor, “Now, what do you think?” The advisor again replied, “Everything happens for the good”. So the advisor remained in prison.

The King later went on a hunting trip, this time without the advisor. The King was then captured by some cannibals. He was taken to the cannibals' camp where he was to be the evening meal for the cannibals. Before putting him into the cooking pot he was thoroughly inspected. The cannibals saw the wound on the King’s foot and decided to throw him back into the jungle. According to the cannibals' tradition, they would not eat anything that was imperfect. As a result the King was spared.

The King suddenly realized what his advisor said was true. The advisor also escaped death because had he not been in prison, he would have followed the King on the hunting trip, and would have ended up in the cooking pot!

When we draw strength from within, our outlook undergoes a dramatic transformation; everything around us starts to look completely different. To be strong in the face of the storm - that is the key to happiness.

No one ever stumbled over mountains. It is the pebbles along the way that make you fall. Real strength, to me, is all about rising up again and having hope is simply the jet fuel for this journey.

In reality, hope never abandons us. It never really retires. We are the ones that abandon it. We are the ones that give it its expiry date. Its birth is in the dark, but it comes with a strong message. The dawn is just around the corner. It is only in the darkness that you can see the stars. Hold on. For just a little bit longer. This too shall pass. A better brighter tomorrow is not very far.

Everything happens for the good!!! Does it?

YES IT DOES !