So when people like the folks you’ll read about in the next few chapters healed themselves using the placebo effect, what did they do differently? First, they didn’t accept the finality of their diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment. Nor did they believe in the most probable outcome or future destiny that their doctors had authoritatively outlined.

Priming is, basically, when someone, someplace, or something in our environment (for example, taking a test) triggers all sorts of associations that are hardwired into our brains (that people grading this test think black students score lower than whites), causing us to act in certain ways (not scoring as highly) without being conscious of what

anger, but also on consciously cultivating heartfelt, positive emotions, such as gratitude, joy, excitement, enthusiasm, fascination, awe, inspiration, wonder, trust, appreciation, kindness, compassion, and empowerment, to give us every advantage in maximizing our health.

Once you decide, get a piece of paper and draw a vertical line down the middle. On the left side, write down the two beliefs and perceptions you want to change, one on top of the other.

explained conditioning, the first element, in the discussion about Pavlov in the previous chapter. To recap, conditioning happens when we associate a past memory (for example, taking an aspirin) with a physiological

Therefore, if we repeat what we learn enough times, we strengthen communities of neurons to support us in remembering it the next time. If we don’t, then the synaptic connections soon disappear and the memory is erased.

Their conscious minds may have initiated the course of action, but the real work happened subconsciously, with the subjects remaining totally unaware of how it happened.

So when you change your energy to alter a belief or perception about yourself or your life, you’re actually increasing the frequency of the atoms and molecules of your physical body so that you’re amplifying your energy field

Can we teach them that they are the placebo? In other words, can we convince them that instead of investing their belief in the known, like a sugar pill or a saline injection, they can place their belief in the unknown and make the unknown known?