How Can a Sugar Pill Heal Somebody?

The Placebo efffect is something I never really understood. What is the point of giving one a sugar pill? Simply to fool their mind, making them believe that they have a sleeping pill, or a pain killer. But how does that work? How does a sugar pill take away pain, or make one go to sleep? The answer is quite simple: the Placebo effect.

Placebo is Latin for “I shall please”. This means that when your mind is set to believe a pill will “please” you, it will please you. So, in many instances (i.e. World War II) a placebo was given to somebody who thought it was a pain killer. In most of those instances, the pain they had went away. This was because of the mind. The mind is the ultimate healer, and caused the pain to go away.

This is useful because you can trick somebody’s mind into healing them. Pill shortages? Simply use a placebo, and let the person heal themselves without them even realizing it.

However, the opposition to the Placebo effect is the Nocebo effect. Nocebo means “I will harm”. The Nocebo effect is simply when the Placebo effect doesn’t please, it harms. This is when whomever takes the sugar pill believes that something bad will happen, happens. This just shows that the “Placebo effect” doesn’t happen every time around. But it does show that the mind is the ultimate healer.