Dr. Ellen Langer

It doesn't seem that way because we're calling them, but most people now have smartphones.

It's very easy.

You set your smartphone to ring in an hour.

You ask yourself, how is it now?

Better or worse than before?

Set it now for two hours and ten minutes.

Just vary the time.

um and uh you will be better even if it doesn't completely go away although we have very positive um and very positive findings this is powerful you know and the thing about a placebo that's kind of interesting because when we um the bbc did a version of a replication of the counterclockwise study and i remember there was an actress who was one of the participants

and she got better and she couldn't understand it.

She said, you say it's placebo, but arguing because placebos are bad.

Placebos to people are bad only because the people who started talking about them were pharmaceutical companies.

I want to bring this drug to market to make a fortune and this damn thing, this placebo is just as good, so then I can't bring it to market.

But if you think about it, and then people say, it's only psychological, as if, wait a second, you know, physical is real, you know, psychological not, you know what I'm saying?

They're both the same.

Do our thoughts influence our... It's all happening more or less simultaneously.

Really?

Yeah.

You know, I raise my arm, that's affecting my wrist, my forearm.

It's all happening essentially at the same time.

I can't believe that I couldn't find who did this study where they did the biochemistry of a teardrop and that a teardrop of sadness is biochemically different from a teardrop of happiness.