Fix Yourself

"Strength does not come from capacity, it comes from indomitable will." Mahatma Ghandi
"You are the only person on earth who can use your ability." Zig Ziglar

Deep down, where your private thoughts reside, what messages do you send to yourself? Is it that you are sick, healthy, dying, tired, robust, depressed, content or what? We know about self-fulfilling prophecies—what we think about is what we get—but is there science to support the claim? Research on the effect of placebos, biofeedback, and visualization suggests that, at least to a certain extent, you can "will" yourself to better health, longer life, and fewer problems.

The placebo effect became a popular subject of study in the sixties when medical researchers found that patients who only received a sugar pill (a placebo) displayed significant improvement in health and well-being. As long as patients believed the "medicine" would work, many showed significant improvement in their symptoms, even without the medical treatment.
In a recent article on Parkinson's Disease in the Journal of Neuroscience, Benedetti, Mayberg, Wager, Stohler, and Zubieta, reported that the administration of a drug to control Parkinson's was more effective when patients were told (thus, they expected it) the drug would have a beneficial effect. If they were simply given the drug without any explanation of its effect it was less beneficial. Similarly, there was a greater and more rapid change in brain activity when patients were both given the drug and told about the effect of the drug.

For those who want to believe in the power of positive thinking this is good news. It shows that the drug plus expectations produced greater change in both symptoms and brain activity than did the drug alone. Increased brain activity would not be predicted if the change (the placebo effect) was only psychological hocus-pocus. Similarly, the same authors reported other research that indicated placebo treatments lead to a 22 percent decrease in both reported pain and pain-evoked activity in the brain for over 70 percent of participants.

Bio-feedback is a training technique which enables a person to control a normally involuntary response, such as blood pressure, heart rate, or alpha rhythm in the brain, by watching or listening to a device that monitors the response continuously. Since the late sixties, biofeedback has shown us that we can wilfully influence such physical outcomes by getting ourselves into a certain mental state. It is used today to treat migraines, tension headaches, muscle pain and stress, in addition to other maladies.

Other examples of how we can fix ourselves come from studies of visualization in sports. For example, in 2002, Keith Randolph reported on a study done by Alan Richardson using three groups of basketball players. None had ever practiced visualization. The first group actually practiced free throws every day for twenty days. The second group only practised free throws on the first day and the twentieth day, as did the third group. But members of the third group also spent 20 minutes every day visualizing free throws. If they "missed," they mentally "practiced" getting the next shot right.

On the twentieth day Richardson measured the percentage of improvement in each group. The group that actually practiced daily improved 24 percent. The second group, as expected, did not improve at all. The third group, which had physically practiced no more than the second, but spent 20 minutes per day visualizing free throws, performed 23 percent better—almost as good as the first group!

Richardson reported that the most effective visualization occurs when the visualizer feels and sees what he is doing. In other words, the visualizers "felt" the ball in their hands and "heard" it bounce, in addition to "seeing" it go through the hoop."

The point is this: The research from these three areas proves the concept. With focused, dedicated attention, we can use the power of thought to fix ourselves and function optimally. The challenge is to incorporate this reality into our belief system so we get the best out of life and live well between our ears.