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Remember that epic moment from Space Jam (the first one, of course, with Michael Jordan) where Bugs Bunny gives his teammates that very Michael's 'Secret Stuff,' which makes them incredibly strong and confident? Yes, just plain water. It's probably one of the most famous examples of the placebo effect in popular culture.
There are actually many examples of this effect in the world - and sometimes we don't even realize that we face something similar at every turn. So, today we bring you Bored Panda's secret list... sorry, just a selection of things in this life that netizens seriously consider to be placebo effects.
More info: Reddit
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Homeopathic medicine.
RELATED:
#3
Back in the early 2000s, researchers were testing whether fetal tissue transplants could help people with Parkinson’s disease. Sounds like sci-fi, right? Here’s the kicker: to really test it, they set up a placebo-controlled trial. That means some patients got the actual brain implants… and others got sham brain surgery.
Yes. They literally cut into people’s heads, drilled into their skulls, opened the dura, and then… did nothing. Just closed them up again. All while these people were under the impression they might be getting real treatment.
And the patients volunteered. They were fully informed, and many of them still said “yeah, sign me up.” Because Parkinson’s is brutal, and there wasn’t much else.
What’s even crazier is that the placebo effect was strong. Some of the people who got the fake surgery still showed improvement — like actual, measurable symptom relief. Meanwhile, some of the ones who got the real transplant didn’t do much better. In fact, a few got worse and developed dyskinesias (uncontrollable movements).
The whole thing blew up ethically. Some people called it groundbreaking science. Others called it straight-up medical cruelty. But it did force the medical community to rethink how we test surgeries, especially brain-related ones.
Anyway, just thought that was one of the wildest examples of placebo power I’ve ever read. Imagine signing up for brain surgery and not knowing if it’s real or just a high-stakes illusion.
Petra Peitsch 3 weeks ago
Sometimes, when you are desperate enough, and trully believe in something with a slow chance can happen, it may happen. It's not a rule, it's not scientific discovery, it's not a miracle .... it's just your brain trying to save itself at all costs.
As often happens, it all started on the AskReddit community, where the user u/Educational_Eye_443 just a few days ago created a thread asking: "What is just a placebo effect but most people don't realize?"
The resulting thread went viral with over 6.1K upvotes and counting so far, and around 2K various comments making for a truly heated debate. So now, meet our selection of the most interesting and controversial opinions from this thread!
#4
Giving a small child an ice pack or a bandaid fixed most "wounds." Especially if it comes with a hug and sympathy.
GenuineJen 3 weeks ago (edited)
Yes! I carry fun bandaids around with me for this reason and offer them to moms or dads (etc) when their child has a small fall or bump and they need a bandaid to calm their little one down. Sometimes bandaids are emotional needs.
#5
Most detox teas. People swear by them, but it’s usually just water, caffeine, and the power of believing you’re “cleansing”.
#6
Sugary food doesn't make kids "hyper" but it's moreso that kids are typically given sugary food for special occasions -often with other kids- like birthday parties or weddings or sleepovers etc.
The word "placebo" itself comes from a Latin root, meaning "I will please." Originally, in the funeral dirges of professional mourners in the Middle Ages, who were paid to mourn the deceased at public funerals, there were the words "Placebo Domino" - that is, "I will please the Lord." And, of course, this grief, even if performed at a high acting level, was insincere.
The French philosopher Michel de Montaigne, in one of his treatises, drawing the reader's attention to these mourners as an example of how this fake grief actually helps relatives to endure loss, also wrote: "There are people for whom only attention from medicine is quite effective." Then, in the 18th century, the placebo effect was first mentioned in a medical context.
#7
On one episode of the "Hidden Brain" podcast, they explored the placebo effect and made one of the most insightful statements I've ever heard on the issue.
When doing experiments with a control/placebo group, we always talk about how the d**g/treatment/etc "didn't outperform the placebo."
We should be talking about WHY THE PLACEBO WORKS as good as the d**g/treatment.
The placebo effect is just this thing we know exists and like "wow, isn't that neat?" but we tend to under-research why/how it works, and maybe how we can actually improve it/increase it. I'm ZERO for woo-woo, but you can't deny that placebo effect is actually real.
(FTR, my answer to this is essential oils. People think they "heal." Nah, you like nice smells and you feel better after smelling nice things).
GenuineJen 3 weeks ago (edited)
For essential oils I agree 100%, but you can pry my eucalyptus and peppermint from my cold, dead hands when my nose is congested.
#8
Chiropractor for the most part. You get a crack a small bit of relief and a p**s poor massage if you’re lucky. Then they book you in ideally next week to scam you all over again. Once had a chiropractor crack my neck so hard he asked me “can you wiggle your toes” i thankfully could and never went back to an osteopath or chiropractor again and with massages and a seeing a physiotherapist I am pain free and have been for decades. But I was in pain seeing charlatans giving out placebo’s and calling it treatment.
Mel in Georgia 3 weeks ago
My dad went to a chiropractor for well over a year for chronic pain. Turns out he had bone cancer - no suggestion from the chiropractor to get checked out.
#9
When I was in labour, nearing the end of it, a nurse told me I can push a button and my epidural dose will safety increase as needed.
Right before I was about to push, another nurse came in and said (about the button), "yeah the placebo effect is crazy".
Ruined everything for me.
In modern medicine, a placebo is used sparingly - mainly as an attempt to reduce the patient's suffering, pain or nausea. However, the main mechanism of a placebo is pain reduction due to the production of endorphins in the patient’s body, since they’re sure that they have been given a real, active medicine.
The authors of numerous studies devoted to placebos and their effects on the human body claim that the clinical effect is usually manifested only in relation to pain and phobias - but still cannot be compared even with the effect of classic painkillers.
However, in the public consciousness, as we can clearly see from this selection of ours, there are much more widespread manifestations of the placebo effect.
#10
Prayer .
Michael Largey 3 weeks ago (edited)
If your god is all-knowing, why do you have to stop to tell him what's on your mind?
#11
Crystals💫 and I collect the c**p out of them.
Allison Slagle (Randomosity) 3 weeks ago
I collect crystals because they're pretty, not because rubbing one against me will cure my headache or cleanse my aura or whatever.
#12
Branded pain relief medication. The ingredient is exactly the same as a cheaper non branded medication, even if the box says it targets a specific pain (e.g. for headache, for muscle ache) it is the same ingredient. The packaging, marketing and price makes people believe that the medicine works better - and studies find that people actually report better relief when taking it. So it subjectively does work better, but biologically it is doing the exact same thing but with an added placebo effect.
On the other hand, supporters of the use of placebos will definitely say - if it all works and really helps people believe in the best (and the basis of the placebo effect is precisely human faith), then what's actually wrong with it?
However, there is also an opposite effect - the so-called "nocebo effect." When a medicine doesn’t have a real pharmacological effect, but at the same time causes a sharp rejection in the patient on a physical level. So, how then can we separate placebo from nocebo? Well everyone has their own opinion on this matter.
#13
Lie detectors.
Lie detectors don't work.
The person administering the test will convince the subject that lie detectors work every time and they are infallible at reading the results.
After the test, the interviewer will press the subject claiming that the lie detector showed a positive result.
All they are trying to do is to elicit a confession, but it is amazingly effective.
Petra Peitsch 3 weeks ago
Lie detectors are detecring the body's response in a stresing situation. Making a lie detection test is in itself a stressing situation, to what every other person will react very individually. There is almost a 90%, that a socio- and psychopat will pass a lie-detecting test, because of their lack of emphaty. Emotions are causing countable changes in a human body, what is measured by a lie-detector. Socio-and psychopaths have very restricted emotions, only regarding to themselves.
#14
Postpartum hair loss products.
The placebo effect people fall for with postpartum hair products is that they start using them right as hair is naturally shedding, but the hair would’ve grown back anyway.
Since regrowth begins a few months later (part of the normal hair cycle), people think the product “worked,” when in reality, it was just their body resetting like it was always going to.
The product gets credit for something biology did on its own.
Mel in Georgia 3 weeks ago
Yeah, a lot of home cures are the result of time only. But believing they work just might just speed healing up. The mind is amazing.
I think you will agree one hundred percent with some of the opinions expressed in this selection, and some of them will be completely unacceptable to you. Well, that's what's great about human communication, that you can always find food for discussion and even debate. So now please just read this list and, perhaps, share your own examples in the comments to the post - and let the debate begin again!
#16
My favorite has always been that some crosswalk buttons don't actually do anything. But it makes people feel like they are in control.
#17
My favorite placebo is my daith piercing for my headaches. I swear up and down that when it was out that my headaches were dramatically worse. Idc if it’s real because I think it works
ElfVibratorGlitter 2 weeks ago
My mom (who's super conservative and hates body piercings) actually told me about this as a way to help my headaches. If it helps you and doesn't hurt anyone else. 🤷🏻♂️
#18
Not so much a placebo, because there is an effect, but it's just not what people think. When people claim that fasting "gives me so much more energy!" What they are actually experiencing is impaired cognitive function, similar to being drunk or high, from depriving the brain of glucose.
Petra Peitsch 3 weeks ago
Fasting deprives your body from getting energy. Energy getting by food. When you are eating normal again, you'll obviously feel more energy, than the days/weeks before. But those people are confusing the cause with the effect.
#19
When I decided to quit smoking, I used nicotine patches to wean me from the habit of smoking. (For those who don't know, nicotine patches work by supplying nicotine while you break the habit of smoking. Then you step down to the next lower level of nicotine, eventually getting almost none, then you quit the patch.) First you break the habit, then you break the a*******n.
I looked at the gel on the patch, and noticed it was just nicotine in this stuff like petroleum jelly. I decided "it's kind of like a lotion!" So whenever things got stressful and I **really** wanted a cigarette, I'd rub that patch, telling myself that I was rubbing in more nicotine, like a lotion. I also noticed that my arm got warm from rubbing the patch, so that was opening my pores to allow more nicotine in!
It got me through those urges to rip off the patch and go smoke!
BrownEyedGrrl 3 weeks ago
I'm glad you took the patch off before smoking. My boss didn't. He died at 42 from nicotine poisoning.
#20
I think alcohol can be a placebo, I feel like people act drunk way too soon sometimes over way too little and over very little degrees. Not always and not all, some are truly sensitive, but some, I feel like it is obvious that they just give themselves the "permission to act drunk".
#21
That a tissue paper thin toilet seat cover will protect you from germs, viruses and dirtiness when using a public toilet. (I think this is more of an American west coast thing.)
#23
I think the sudden urge to belt out Pure Morning is probably the Placebo effect.
#24
Most polivitamins. Not enough to cure deficiencys and mostly useless.
Petra Peitsch 3 weeks ago
And that's the trick. Even just 1 kind of vitamin products are not so really effective. Better, tha nothing, but not really worth the costs of it. Having fish 1-2-3 times a week, will be cheaper, than Omega3 for a month.
#25
Many people firmly believe in the effectiveness of certain vitamin supplements, herbal medicines or alternative therapies for various ailments. Although in some cases there may be active ingredients with some effect, in many others, the improvement that people experience could be mainly due to their belief in the treatment, that is, the placebo effect.
People invest a lot of money and trust in these products, often without realizing that the benefit they feel might not be due to the intrinsic properties of the product itself, but rather the expectation that it will work for them.
What do you think ?
The Dave 3 weeks ago (edited)
What is it with the BP staff and the word “netizens”? I propose a BP drinking game: 3 drinks for the word “netizens”. 1 drink for censored non-cuss words. 2 drinks for making a political comment on a non political post. 5 drinks for any comment calling out BP for censoring stupid crǎp (like the word crăp). Chug when someone types “should of”. I’m open to any additions to this.
WindySwede 3 weeks ago
hey netizen, don't f*****g drag politics into a commie post, also bp stop censoring my free speech t**d! /S! (see the /S!) 🙃
Load More Replies...
CatD 2 weeks ago
Vitamins do help, especially if you don't eat a good diet, but you can óverdose on them.
Load More Replies... The Dave 3 weeks ago (edited)
What is it with the BP staff and the word “netizens”? I propose a BP drinking game: 3 drinks for the word “netizens”. 1 drink for censored non-cuss words. 2 drinks for making a political comment on a non political post. 5 drinks for any comment calling out BP for censoring stupid crǎp (like the word crăp). Chug when someone types “should of”. I’m open to any additions to this.
WindySwede 3 weeks ago
hey netizen, don't f*****g drag politics into a commie post, also bp stop censoring my free speech t**d! /S! (see the /S!) 🙃
Load More Replies... CatD 2 weeks ago
Vitamins do help, especially if you don't eat a good diet, but you can óverdose on them.
Load More Replies...
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