The Nocebo Effect: Placebo’s Evil Twin & Weird Facts You Never Knew

Have you ever been completely stuck trying to solve a problem or come up with a new idea? There is a remarkably simple thing you can do that research shows can get your creative juices flowing. And it works surprisingly well. https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2014/04/walking-vs-sitting-042414 Can you actually think yourself sick? Absolutely. It’s called the nocebo effect — essentially the evil twin of the placebo effect. If a doctor warns you that a medication might cause certain side effects, simply hearing that can make those symptoms more likely to occur. The same thing can happen when you read about an illness or medication online. Your expectations can trigger very real physical symptoms. So how does that happen — and how do you protect yourself from it? Helen Pilcher is a science writer with a PhD in neuroscience from London’s Institute of Psychiatry, and she has some remarkable examples of the nocebo effect in action. She is author of This Book May Cause Side Effects: The Curious and Dangerous Power of the Nocebo Effect, Placebo’s Evil Twin (https://amzn.to/4qvrdLU). Why are sideburns called sideburns? How could the first automatic door possibly have been invented before the…