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You Can Heal With Your What?
The common place between pharma and faith.
Shaughnessy & Chris Putsch
August 14, 2024
Welcome healthy friends,
What do religion and pharmaceuticals have in common?
The power of the placebo! In religion it is called faith, in medicine it is called the placebo.
Here is what we will dive into today:
Placebo Story
Source Drop
The Placebo King
If you are to click on one link today, click on this one. It is a 30-second clip explaining a daily habit that will change your life.
Storytime:
A woman named Altha was diagnosed with breast cancer and tried everything to heal it. Nothing worked so her family called upon the town’s ‘healer.’
When the healer arrived, he sent Altha on a journey. He said,
“To heal you must travel to this mountain with this fountain of water. It is a 24-hour walk away. When you get there, take three sips of water and bring three sips worth back with you.”
So, Altha walked for 24 hours, reached the fountain, and took 3 sips of the water. She then filled her bottle up and walked back home.
When Altha returned, they checked her for cancer. No signs of cancer. It was gone.
Altha, her family, and the town rejoiced! They were in awe and started celebrating this mystical water and the healer.
But then the healer interrupted,
“Stop. You misunderstand me. It was not me nor the water that healed you, but rather the belief that it can. This is ordinary water, and I am an ordinary man. The journey and action of drinking the water was enough effort to make you believe that you are doing something to heal yourself. But it was the belief that you were healing that led you to heal. ”
The End
We have all heard miraculous healing stories like this but what is it? As our analytical world likes to point out, where is the science?
Well, funny enough this analytical world which only believes things when there is a peer-reviewed study, actually has conducted thousands of peer-reviewed studies on this thing, kinda accidentally.
It is called the Placebo. The double-blind placebo-controlled studies are considered the ‘golden standard’ in clinical research. The reason it is called double-blind placebo-controlled is because they compare the actual medicine to a fake placebo version. And over 70% of the time there is a placebo!
So if belief is creating such an impact without trying what would happen if we tried? What if we put all of our attention on the belief that we can heal?
More on the placebo
What is a double-blind placebo-controlled study?
Placebos Prove So Powerful Even Experts Are Surprised; New Studies Explore the Brain's Triumph Over Reality (1998 NYT Post)
10 Mind-Blowing Effects of the Placebo Effect
Belief requires practice.
This is why we built Upspace, the Spotify for your health.
Find guided practices like workouts, meditations, or recipes to take your health into your own hands.
Those who are familiar with Dr. Joe Dispenza’s work might be familiar with the miraculous healing stories that take place at his retreats.
My good friend went to one and said someone in her group entered the retreat in a wheelchair and left walking!
And last month, a groundbreaking documentary was released explaining these anomalies. It is called Source.
The University of San Diego partnered with Dr. Joe Dispenza to document what was going on in the brain and body. They now have substantial evidence proving the power of the mind, meditation, and the placebo.
More on Meditation
10 Key Takeaways from Dr. Dispenza’s The Source Documentary (2024)
Stories of transformation using Dr. Joe Dispenza’s work including healing breast cancer.
Huberman Lab: How Meditation Works & Science-Based Effective Meditations
This week’s healthy hero of the week has a wild story.
In 1986, Dr. Joe Dispenza was in the biking portion of a triathlon in Palm Springs, California. As he made a turn, a Ford Bronco going about 55 miles per hour hit him from behind compressing 6 vertebrae in his spine.
The doctors said he’d never walk again and that he’d need a radical surgery called a Harrington Rod surgery.
He had a profound thought that led him to not get the surgery and check out of the hospital.
“The power that made the body, heals the body.”
Over the next 6 weeks, he visualized reconstructing his vertebrae. Then finally he was able to get through the entire visualization without distraction. And when he did, something clicked. In 10 weeks, he was back on his feet. In 12 weeks, he was training again.
He made a deal with himself that if he was able to walk again he would spend the rest of his life studying the mind-body connection and mind over matter.
And since then, that is what he has been doing. He now shares these healing practices with the world.
More information about the hero
Watch Video: Dr. Joe Dispenza Heals His Back With His Mind - Clip from HEAL Documentary
Follow Dr. Joe Dispenza on Instagram
Joe Dispenza Collection 3 Books Set (Becoming Supernatural, You Are The Placebo, Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself)
That’s all for today! Best of luck on your health & habits journey 🏳️.
Till next week 🫡
🐶 Chris & Shaun 🐺
P.S.
If anybody knows Dr. Joe Dispenza, let us know! We’d love to get some of his meditations into the Upspace app for you all to complete!