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The Power of a Pill

The use of powerful drugs to control pain, and even change our perception of the world, is well known. In most cases we understand why they work. But how can we explain the converse: that our expectations can change the way a pill affects us?

A harmless, normally ineffective, coloured sugar pill called a placebo, which itself has no physical effect on our ailment, can in many cases, make us feel better. It turns out that about one in three patients are placebo responders.

The pain-relieving affect of a placebo may arise from the brain’s release of substances called endorphins. These chemicals are the bodies’ own opiates, which have the power to block pain and affect our mental state. Powerful opiate drugs, such as morphine, fit snugly into certain sites when they enter the brain, much like a key fits into a lock. Their presence interferes with signals flowing through the brains’ neural network mercifully blocking pain signals. Natural endorphins mimic the action of narcotics like morphine. They are produced by the pituitary gland, often in response to stress or mental processes.

In addition to relieving pain, endorphins play a role in affecting our mood. They are generated after long periods of vigorous exercise, which suggests they may be responsible for the ‘high’ experienced by long distance runners.

So next time you feel better after taking a pill, recognise that its value may be all in your head!

Normally, we don’t like to be deceived. It irritates us when products or services are misrepresented and we end up paying for something that is less than we thought we had bargained for.

At the same time, many of us choose to deceive ourselves in certain areas. Like the relief from pain a placebo gives us is the respite from psychological discomfort of honestly facing unpleasant facts about ourselves or our circumstances.

Addicts of various kinds are often slow to accept the truth about their dependencies. Blaming others or circumstances is so much easier than facing the facts about their weakness. But this isn’t just about addicts. Their plight simply intensifies something that is true of all of us.

Finding and working on our weaknesses is hard work indeed. It often requires superhuman insight, resolve and strength to deal with negative areas in our lives which need to be dealt with. Sometimes this is because we subconsciously perceive that our dysfunctional way of relating actually gets us what we want. Sometimes we simply have become so used to certain responses that though inappropriate they provide a comfortable “known” from which to operate. The thought of change is threatening.

One of the areas in which many people choose to deceive themselves is the spiritual. Ignoring God does not make Him go away. Naturalistic explanations can provide some answers, especially those which answer the “how” questions about life. When we confront the “why” questions, we have to turn to the faith dimension.

In a sense we all live out of the faith dimension. We all choose a set of underlying assumptions whether it is that there are only material explanations for the universe, or we admit the possibility of a spiritual cause behind the material universe.

The question we have to ask ourselves is “Am I willing to confront the possibility of ‘something’ beyond the confines of the usual modes of observation and investigation?”

David Humphreys and Ron Hughes
© August 2004