"Rethinking the Placebo Effect: How Our Minds Actually Affect Our Bodies"

"Marchant brings to light a striking new dimension of the placebo effect that runs counter to how the phenomenon has been conventionally explained. She writes:

It has always been assumed that the placebo effect only works if people are conned into believing that they are getting an actual active drug. But now it seems this may not be true. Belief in the placebo effect itself — rather than a particular drug — might be enough to encourage our bodies to heal.

She cites a recent study at the Harvard Medical School, in which people with irritable bowel syndrome were given a placebo and informed that the pills were “made of an inert substance, like sugar pills, that have been shown in clinical studies to produce significant improvement in IBS symptoms through mind-body self-healing processes.” As Marchant notes, this is absolutely true, in a meta kind of way. What the researchers found was startling in its implications for medicine, philosophy, and spirituality — despite being aware they were taking placebos, the participants rated their symptoms as “moderately improved” on average. In other words, they knew what they were taking wasn’t a drug — it was a medical “nothing” — but the very consciousness of taking something made them experience fewer symptoms...

positive beliefs don’t just work by quelling stress. They have a positive effect too — feeling safe and secure, or believing things will turn out fine, seems to help the body maintain and repair itself…"

http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/06/23/nothing-jo-marchant-heal-thyself/

I wonder if this is something about mindfully doing something for a problem. Like, I get random headaches and I recognize them as a problem and I am irritated by them while I'm having them. And sometimes I think "maybe I should drink more water" or "maybe it has to do with my sleep quality" or whatever, but I don't have a part of my day when I intentionally do something about them - unless I decide to take some pain meds (which apparently might be diminishing my experience of joy). But I bet if I chose something I do everyday, like washing my face, and thought "this is for my headaches", they might be better - or, at least, it might diminish some of my negative experiences of them.