positivity Archives

Placebos, Nocebos, and The Power of Your Imagination

Recently, I’ve been challenged by rotator cuff pain. Truth be told, it’s not recent. It’s been painful for over nine months. I’ve been waiting for it to ‘self-correct.’ Something my body always did when I was young.

If you listened to me talk about it, you’d hear me saying things like, “I’m getting old.” “I don’t think it’s going to heal without surgery.” “This is what happens when you age.”

As I succumbed to the realization that my shoulder was not going to self-correct, I went this week to my first physical therapy session. I was tearfully repeating these very things to my new physical therapist when it occurred to me: I know better.

The mind can create real, measurable changes in the body — and I was overdosing on negative thoughts and wishes.

Stop for a moment. Close your eyes. See a fresh plump lemon. Glossy with bright yellow skin. You pick it up and slice it into the lemon. As you cut into it, you see the juice spray out and drip down your fingers. Now you place a lemon wedge into your mouth and suck all the juice right out of it. Does your mouth pucker or fill with saliva?

You just experienced the mind-body connection. This visualization is a simple but powerful way to show you how the mind and body unite.

Years ago I got really taken with the power of the mind-body connection. When I was just beginning to learn the power of our mind’s ability to impact our body, I became fascinated with stories of spontaneous remission and people overcoming the most debilitating illnesses that seemed impossible without medical intervention.

At the time I soaked it all in, but the healings seemed more like miracles than anything scientifically valid.

Then I learned about the placebo effect which is mainstream science’s recognition of the fact that the mind can create real, measurable changes in the body.

The placebo effect is when patients think they’re getting a new drug, but what they’re really getting is a sugar pill. Then they start to recover from their ailment as though they’d been taking the real deal.

It turns out you don’t even have to be sick for it to have an effect. In a study at the University of Glasgow, researchers told fifteen runners that they were being administered drugs and then asked them to run a race. The runners’ race times increased significantly even though they were getting only saline injections.

The placebo effect provides proof that when we believe we are going to get better or feel better, we often do. It’s a testament to the power of the mind to affect the body with mere suggestion.

But did you know that there is a flip side to this? It’s called the nocebo effect. It’s what happens when you’re given a sugar pill and are told it’s a drug that has terrible side effects. Believing you’re taking a real medication, many people actually begin to experience the warned-about side effects.

A documented case of the nocebo effect occurred when a twenty-six-year-old man who was participating in a clinical trial on antidepressants was rushed to the hospital after an attempted overdose. He took 29 of the pills. When he arrived at the hospital, his blood pressure dropped to dangerously low, near-death levels and he was sweating, shaking, and breathing. When the doctor from the clinical trial arrived at the hospital, he realized that the young man had been in the placebo group. The young man hadn’t overdosed on medication. He had overdosed on his negative thoughts.

Dr. John Kelley, Ph.D., deputy director of Harvard Medical School’s Program in Placebo Studies and Therapeutic Encounter says, “It’s the power of imagination…Just imagining something is happening is enough to activate those portions of the brain associated with that thought, or worry, or pain.”

I bring this topic up not to whine about my rotator cuff, but because I know right now you or someone you love may be worried about something. Maybe it’s health scares or treatments or even an impending surgery.

Any of these can be challenging by themselves. Even to the most resilient, any one of these can feel downright debilitating.

But it’s important to remember —as someone who forgot — that we are actively participating in our mental and physical wellness with every thought.

As for my rotator cuff, after one physical therapy session along with my decision to stop judging, insulting, and expecting the worst from my body, I woke the next day pain-free. I’d slept through the night without waking from pain for the first time in months.

I called it a “miracle” when I saw the therapist two days later.

Whether it was or it was a result of moving my thoughts, imagining something better, or the treatment I’d received, I didn’t care.

My mind and body were connecting, proving my new thought —“Every day I’m getting and feeling better.”

Reviewing the Year Before Moving On

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn the simple practice to review the year that can help you grow in every area of your life.

What I am profoundly aware of is that there have been many times in my life when I have – in the simplest terms – been wrong.

For the longest time, I believed that I would hit a certain age and magically everything that I wanted would happen. For years, I believed that it would all just come together and I judged myself when it didn’t.

I now realize that is not the truth – that wisdom doesn’t just arrive based on time, age, or even some external situation, but it requires deliberate actions to learn and grow.

I realized that my thoughts on success were all wrong – success is an inside-outside job. The most successful people are those that feel good in their skin, have humility and confidence, forgive themselves, and have the awareness to reevaluate their lives.

And that last one is what I am discussing today.

Reevaluation is absolutely necessary as our old ways are not always our best ways. Without reevaluation, we make things a lot harder on ourselves as we continue to repeat things we’re unconscious that we’re doing. Conversely, there are also our achievements, our successes, and our positive habits that deserve and require our acknowledgment.

So, at a time like the end of the year when there is a collective pause, it’s important to step back, review what worked in the past year and what didn’t work well, and consciously identify what it is we want to carry with us into the new year.

To help myself and my clients do so, I implement a simple practice I call Catch & Release each year. The practice will help you know exactly what it is you want to take with you into the year ahead, what you want to let go of and why. Let’s get into it.

Celebrate your wins and accomplishments
1. My suggestion during this step is to grab your calendar and go week by week reviewing gatherings you’ve had with family and friends, projects you accomplished at work, improvements to your house, and any other experiences you have had in the past year. This is very helpful because, if you’re like me, you may forget all the great moments you’ve experienced.
Acknowledge your mistakes and challenges with grace
1. Just as we have reviewed our wins, we want to also take a moment to review our mistakes or difficult moments of the year. These may be goals you didn’t reach, projects you didn’t finish, or something that didn’t go as planned. Although these can be difficult to look at, they may actually become gold for you in designing the year ahead.
Identify insights from both lists
1. Once you’ve made these two lists, go through them noting next to each what insight or lesson has come from that experience. Nothing happens without a purpose, so ask yourself, “What did I learn from this?” It may have been to ask for more help or for what you want, to delegate and let go of more, or to set bigger boundaries. Look at the themes you can notice with each win and setback.
Forgive someone or yourself
1. Forgiveness allows us to make space for other things to enter. When we’re holding grudges or judges, they retain and take energy which depletes us of the fuel for other great endeavors and dreams. What is it that you need to forgive and release so you can welcome something wonderful and extraordinary?
Ask “What do I need to say goodbye to?”
1. Maybe you’re ready to say goodbye to a relationship that isn’t serving you or to pleasing someone that’s too difficult to please and you’ve realized that’s no longer your responsibility. Being conscious of what you need to say goodbye to allows you to take the next step toward what you’d like to have.

Once you’ve gone through the Catch & Release practice, you can create your master list listing what you’re going to “catch” on the left side and what you will release on the right. As an added bonus, cut off the Release side and burn it. Perform a ceremonial goodbye and officially release those things from your life entirely.

Once you do this, you will find more freedom to design and pursue your ultimate future.

Before you sign off on the past year, thank it for everything: the positives and the messiness. Express gratitude. Each year is another opportunity to expand ourselves.

There is much to come in the year ahead!

Your Call to Action this week is to give yourself the gift of a break to recharge.

Take this opportunity to rest and review the past year before you move into the year ahead. The pause is a requirement to reenter the game of life with strength.

In this episode I share:

My go-to 5-step practice for reviewing the year or evaluating the end of any significant cycle to ensure growth and success in the upcoming year
Personal lessons I’ve learned in life that only came from a practice of reevaluating
How this practice has impacted both my life and the lives of my clients over the years

Resources and related episodes:

Tune into the previous episode, Why Who You Are Matters Just As Much As The Work

Episode 108. The #1 Sign Your Relationship Will Last

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Learn more about the Inside Out Method

Connect with Rita on LinkedIn

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About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.

Why Who You Are Matters Just As Much As The Work

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn the 1 thing I wish someone had told me and 1 of the most common mistakes I often see being made by people in leadership, business, and entrepreneurship.

This week, during a podcast interview, I was asked, “What 3 things do you wish someone had told you?” It inspired me to share with you the most significant one and also the most uncomfortable one for me to relive and share publicly.

Early on in my career, I was hired to present a keynote for a product company. As I organized my thoughts on what I would include in my speech, I was hung up on something. There were thoughts and images of very well-known speakers who I’d seen do successful keynote speeches in the past and I began to compare myself to them.

Since I had never given a presentation to this amount of people before, I was suffering from a bout of imposter syndrome.

Looking back now, it makes me squirm thinking of how I approached that presentation. But, the issue didn’t come from what I was speaking on or the words I chose to use. The real issue lied in who I was being as I presented.

Imposter syndrome led to self-doubt which pushed me towards attempting to mirror what I admired in other speakers. Now, there is some logic to this. We always hear “Success leaves clues. Watch what others are doing and repeat it.” However, in this case, my attempt to mirror someone else completely overshadowed the most important thing: who I truly was.

Each of us has the instinctive capability to sense a disconnect between who a person is behaving as and who they truly are. When this happens, we immediately lose trust in that person.

Here’s what I wish someone had told me: Who you are matters just as much as the work you do. People want you just as much as they want your strategy, your service, or your product.

My coaching clients love working with me because there’s a trust and knowing that they’re going to receive the real, authentic me – transparency, imperfections, and all – as we work together. It seems simple enough, but it’s actually one of the most uncommon things to experience.

Being true to yourself, being who you really are takes time to fully grasp. It takes each of us a unique amount of time to fully realize it, choose to be vulnerable, and implement it. We must be intentional about being true to ourselves, especially as we grow and become leaders in our industry. As the number of eyes that are on us grows, the harder it can be to stay true to who you are.

But it is so irresistibly attractive to be authentic because it is so uncommon. When you are able to truly be yourself, it easily shines through to others due to your humility and confidence. You don’t need validation. You realize you are special and enough just as you are.

The sooner you can realize, accept, and own that you are special, the sooner you can progress with helping those you are here to serve.

This will lead you to enjoy a greater deal of happiness. If you’re ready to do so, here are 3 steps to guide you in getting there:

Set the intention to share yourself vulnerably, to not be so rigid in sharing who you are.
Pay attention to how you talk to yourself. Remember: words really do matter.
When someone tells you that you’re special, accept it, own it, and say “Thank you.” Don’t deflect or dismiss.

What can you expect to happen? For me, I began to share more of who I am and it’s led me to becoming a person more focused on how I can help others instead of concerning myself with what they will think of me. When I do this, I’m real and the experience is much more comfortable, authentic, and real for both parties.