Here’s a website with some cool videos that show you the limits of your perception, or maybe open up your perception.

Quirkology

Here is one of the videos. The colour changing card trick.

I noticed an article about the placebo effect in New Scientist recently. Today I found an article about the phenomenon in the Guardian and apparently there’s been a programme about it on BBC Radio 4 as well.

Four weeks later the researchers measured everything again. The group who had been tutored about the health benefits of their work now perceived that they did more exercise than before - unsurprisingly - while the group who were left alone didn’t change. Neither group had changed their actual levels of activity.But amazingly, despite no change in actual exercise levels, in the intervention group, simply being told about the value of what they were already doing caused a significant change for the better on every single one of the objective health measures recorded: weight, body fat, body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio and blood pressure.

Read the rest here: Healthy mind, healthy body

Here’s a blog post with links so that you can listen to the show online. My Placebo programme on BBC Radio4

Scientists are exploring the use of psychedelic drugs such as LSD to treat a range of ailments from depression to cluster headaches and obsessive compulsive disorder.

Interesting to see the mainstream research into hallucinogenic drugs starting again. LSD is said to be really useful for treating depression and alcoholism. I’d always prefer to go down a route that uses our bodies own capacity to create feel good substances (endorphins etc.) but don’t think it should be illegal for people to alter their consciousness in any way they want to.

It’s always funny to see people relying so much on substances to change their mood. For example caffeine and alcohol in the combination of Vodka – RedBull (RedBull is a brand of ‘energy’ drink based on
sugar and caffeine amongst other things).

It’s a popular drink in clubs and pubs. I guess the alcohol is there to lower your inhibitions and the caffeine and sugar to get you to feel energised and happy.

In my opinion the same effect can be reached by jumping up and down for a couple of seconds or dancing. And that’s usually how I do it when I go out.

Read the article at the Guardian: Clinical trials test potential of hallucinogenic drugs to help patients with terminal illnesses

Breaking news! Reliving past traumas over and over as practised in many talk-therapies might not be such a good thing after all!

Following the latest study showing that some anti-depressant drugs are of little clinical benefit for most patients, more and more individuals are likely to seek treatment through various forms of psychotherapy, which collectively have come to be known as “the talking cure”. However, a recent article in the Psychologist journal, entitled When Therapy Causes Harm, cautions that approximately 10% of people get worse after starting therapy.

Read the rest at the Guardian: When it’s bad to talk

Prozac, the bestselling antidepressant taken by 40 million people worldwide, does not work and nor do similar drugs in the same class, according to a major review released today.

Prozac, used by 40m people, does not work say scientists

Yet another story about the power of the Placebo. Now I don’t mean to be negative picking up on these stories all the time. It’s just funny to me that people question that science is social construct when things like this occur all the time. Some scientists say Prozac works one way, the others say something else, and at the end of the day it’s down to what the individual believes.

Don’t get me wrong I think modern science is great. But you’d think that by now we’d realise to what extent science is a social construct, then again the concept of a scientific paradigm is still largely outside the current paradigm. Everyone uses the phrase but few know what it really means. It’s like someone acknowledging that people’s perceptions are biased because of their upbringing, beliefs, culture and mood, except thinking they themselves are exempt from those influences.

Maybe a lot of us just need a sugar-pill to make ourselves feel better, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Look at Dumbo, he had a magic feather to make himself feel better!

In a classroom in South Tyneside, a small group of 11-year-olds is considering the finer points of Stoic philosophy. The teacher, Mrs Carrahar, points helpfully at the blackboard. “Come on now, kids, remember your ABC: Adversity, Belief, Consequence. Sometimes how we feel about things depends on … what? It begins with P … Yes, Darren?” “Perspective, miss!” says a small child. “Very good, Darren!”

Read the rest here: Teaching happiness: the classes in wellbeing that are helping our children

Main stream Psychology continues to forge into bold new territories. Some people are starting to realise that it might be a good thing to focus on what we want to move towards and not just what we want to get away from.

Women who undergo IVF increase their chances of pregnancy if they are also treated with acupuncture, a new analysis suggests.The benefits may be large — a 65 per cent increase in the chance of becoming pregnant, and a 91 per cent increase in the number of live births.

Read the rest here: Course of acupuncture may raise success of IVF treatment by 65%

I only started to become interested in acupuncture after I started using EFT which is sometimes referred to as an acupressure technique. One of the explanation for EFT is that it involves manipulating the energy that flow through meridians which are pathways in your body. I don’t know if that’s how it works. But it’s interesting to note the similarities.

An interesting side note is that in the Chinese martial arts I practice we are sometimes shown nerve points which are very sensitive and hurt a lot if you happen to get pocked or prodded there. That knowledge must come from Chinese medicine.

With regards to the above article; what baffles me time and again is how some of these phenomenon are dismissed as a mere placebo. Fine, but what is this amazing placebo affect and shouldn’t we be investigating it?

In the second part of the documentary Frontline Persuaders, marketers explain how advertising has moved away from explaining the features of products and towards the emotional benefits that a consumer gets from buying products.

The idea is to create meaning system for consumers through which they get identity and an understanding of the world. Douglas Atkin explains how he started to research cults, fans and devotees in order to find out how people become involved in them in order to create that devotion in consumers for brands. People that love Harley Davidson, Mac’s and the Grateful Dead all have something in common that explains their rabid devotion.

Douglas breaks it down into two key points:

1. People want to belong.

2. They want to make meaning (of their lives and the world around them).

It’s easy to think of brands and advertising that try to sell you a lifestyle, a belief-system, a way of thinking about life and the world. I don’t know how you’ve experienced advertising but I’ve always found it pretty transparent. ‘Buy this and you’ll be cool, you’ll be part of the in crowd’. And to be honest I’ve always found it pretty offensive. Someone is telling me what I’ll BE when I buy their product!?

The creepiest part of this documentary is the engineering that is applied to the Song Airline brand. In stead of saying something is great, employees are encouraged to say: ‘That’s so song’. I don’t care what kind transcendent lifestyle experience it is to fly with Song, that’s all it is at the end of the day, an airline. All in all, highly pretentious. And as the presenter points out, despite millions spent on marketing and advertising you’d find it to difficult to come by evidence that shows how successful this kind of marketing is at selling particular products.

What is does succeed in doing however is creating the mindset in many people that purchasing certain things and services actually enhances you personally in some respect. Don’t buy into that.

PBS has a really good 90 minute documentary on their site about how advertisers, marketers, think tanks and politicians are using the latest ideas in psychology and memetics to persuade you to buy their products or vote for their political party.

Frontline Persuaders

I’ll write an analysis of some of the concepts and ideas presented in the documentary at some point.

Although hypnosis and trance have been in use for thousands of years, it still suffers from many misconceptions and misunderstandings that shroud it in mystery for the average person. But slowly mainstream science is starting to investigate it more thoroughly and you can read about the latest research at Mind Hacks

The editorial of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute discusses a recent study that found that hypnosis can be successfully used in breast cancer surgery to reduce pain, nausea, painkiller use, tiredness and emotional impact of the surgical procedure.

I’m still incredibly fascinated by the fact that someone speaking to you in a certain way can affect your mind by literally changing where blood flows to in your brain.

To be honest, on my more paranoid days I wonder if certain groups of people have been using hypnosis on an unsuspecting public for a while. Just listen to the ‘unspeak’ of politicians or the mesmerising phrases used in advertising. Maybe they just spread a meme that ridiculed the idea to keep people from taking it too seriously?

If you want to learn this powerful skill (drug-free pain control / powerful sales techniques / protection from unwanted influence / engaging copy-writing) then I suggest you check out probably the best course by the best Hypnotist around:

Igor Ledochowski’s Conversational Hypnosis