What Is A Nocebo?
have heard a lot about placebo and its nearly miraculous nature of treating the human body with nothing but inert substances but do you know what is a nocebo?
Well, the nocebo effect is the exact opposite of a placebo effect. The placebo effect comes from positive thinking and the nocebo effect comes from the negative thinking of one’s mind. The placebo treatment is carried out all over the world by many doctors. For example, when a treatment in which the patients are told that they are being treated through a fancy new drug but actually the medicine they are being given is just a sugar pill. It’s just the mind which tells your body that the medication will likely work and thereby your brain takes action to heal.
However, the nocebo effect is a darker side of a placebo treatment; it's not as common but definitely can be dealt with.
Negative thinking affects your health
The term nocebo comes from the Latin ‘to harm’. Nocebo can lead to actual physical side effects and it is simply based on a patient's negative thoughts about a specific treatment. The nocebo effect can be triggered by a physician when he tells you there is nothing anyone can do to help you get better. Or when a friend tells you they had a similar illness and took forever to get better.
The truth is, If you think that you’ll get sick that’ll probably happen because your mind sent a message to your brain, and then your brain convinced your body to feel bad in no time. This bizarre phenomenon that is known as the nocebo effect actually describes the effects of negative expectancies. But remember, this, is in contrast to positive thinking which triggers the placebo effect.
It’s scary that nocebo sometimes can be stronger than a placebo. In 2012, researchers from the technical university of Munich in Germany published a review on the nocebo effect, which declared that when the doctors inform the patients about a very high risk of a certain treatment, the patient may never recover or their condition may be worsened.
In one experiment, volunteers were asked to put their hands in a bucket full of ice. One group was told that this will be beneficial for them. The second one was told that it could be extremely harmful and the third group was given a neutral instruction about it. In the end, people who were told that it’s beneficial kept their hands in it but the rest who were told it was harmful took their hand out of the bucket in no time!
The nocebo effect is more common in patients who have panic attacks or face increased levels of anxiety. Their perception about a treatment really affects their health. Patients are more likely to experience an adverse effect if they expect or are worrying about an adverse effect. The body language of a doctor can also trigger a nocebo effect in the patients. If the doctor is not confident enough it will lead to an uncertain and unsure patient. The risk of a nocebo can be reduced by ensuring a good balance between explaining both the positive and negative effects.
The moral of the story
Nocebos are relatively related to one’s negative thinking and that slowly gradually destroys a person. Like Peter Mcwilliams said, “For many, negative thinking is a habit which, over time, becomes an addiction”. This negative addiction can result in physical problems.
On the other hand, doctors also play an important role to take their patients out of a certain negative mental state to help them heal. The physician should know they have to teach more about hope and resilience to sufferers so that they can expect a better outcome, think positive, engage in positive behavior, and achieve better health with positivity and expectation of healing.
Negativity and nocebos are much stronger than positivity and placebos but the real hero is your brain, which overpowers all things.
The infamous nocebo effect is like an evil twin to the placebo effect; one has to be very powerful to tackle such negative effects of nocebo and be able to appreciate and benefit from the power of placebos.