Mental Magic

Unsplash / Vlad Tchompalov

Did you know you can get drunk on tonic water?  

OZ’s Shelby Smith recently spotted a discussion of the placebo effect. When a patron asks for a gin & tonic, some unethical bartenders will simply wash the inside of the glass with gin, dump in ice cubes, tonic, and a little lime, and serve it as a gin & tonic.  Most customers can’t taste the difference. But, sure enough, after a couple of those non-alcoholic drinks, they are slurring their words and staggering toward the restroom.

The author describes a number of examples of placebo-like things at work – for example, how restaurant lighting, the weight of a glass, and the design of a laptop affect our perceptions.  

And, yes, the placebo effect works in medicine, too – even when patients know they are taking a placebo. There is a push in medicine now to make placebo treatment a standard part of care – not for conditions like cancer or heart disease, but for issues like chronic pain or insomnia, where the brain essentially can be rewired.  In those cases, feeling better is less about the potency of the medicine, but more about the ritual of taking the medicine and the emotional comfort of having a caring medical professional look out for you.

Cheers.