PCDR stands for Placebo Controlled Dose Reduction. It is where a drug is gradually replaced by a placebo by making incremental reductions in the drug while making incremental increases in the placebo. One of the most successful demonstrations was by Fabrizio Benedetti at the University of Turin School of Medicine. Over the period of 5 […]
visualisation
6 ways your brain can’t distinguish real from imaginary
1) Belief Research shows us that when a person receives a placebo that they believe is a drug, and subsequently experiences a placebo effect, it is because their brain has produced the substances necessary to give them what they expected the drug to do. For example, when you receive a placebo for pain, but you […]
Real vs Imaginary in the Brain and Body
The brain, in many ways, doesn’t distinguish real from imaginary. Take a simple example of stress. Your brain responds to a stressful situation by releasing stress hormones. But your brain also releases the stress hormones when you remember a past stressful event or even when you vividly imagine one. Whether you’re really there in the […]
Can you visualise drugs working?
I recently chatted with a girl who has had rheumatoid arthritis since she was a child. Now in her late 20s, she’s taken painkillers for years. When she was first diagnosed, a nurse instructed her to imagine her painkillers travelling to her joints and then dissolving into little particles and spreading out over the joints, […]
Visualising Illness into Wellness
For several years now, I have been writing about, and teaching, a visualisation strategy of imagining illness turning into wellness. People often ask me how it works. I believe there’s a few things that contribute so I thought I’d briefly sketch out some of them in this blog. 1) Impact on the immune system There’s […]
The Science of High Performance in Sport
Whether you’re playing tennis, golf or even running the 100 metres, there are certain things you can do that can help you to achieve high performance. Here’s 7 of the most important ones: Practice How good do you want to be? One of the most important things to know is that practice lays down neural […]
How a child with Chickenpox stopped itching
As you know, I’m a big fan of visualisation. As I’ve explained before, in many ways the brain doesn’t distinguish real from imaginary. As we imagine something, to the brain, what we imagine is actually happening. In previous blogs I’ve shared scientific evidence of how people have altered physical strength through visualisation, how visualisation can help […]
How to use visualisation to boost your self-love
Lots of people use visualisation. The most popular way is to visualise what you want. Some people picture their ideal house, their ideal car, or a perfect partner who ticks all the boxes, for instance. The idea with this kind of visualisation is to picture what you want, the end result. It’s also useful to […]
How your mind can affect your strength
I’ve written quite a bit about the mind-body connection in my books and in some of my blogs. Among other things, I’ve written about strength improvements through visualisation, rehabilitation following a stroke, and even how to reduce appetite by tricking the mind into thinking you’ve eaten, so I’m always on the lookout for new pieces […]
Does your brain distinguish real from imaginary?
Judging by the brain scans in the image, it doesn’t seem so. The scans are from one of my favourite pieces of research. Volunteers were asked to play a simple sequence of piano notes each day for five consecutive days. Their brains were scanned each day in the region connected to the finger muscles. Another […]