Placebo: a beneficial effect produced by a placebo drug or treatment, which cannot be attributed to the properties of the placebo itself, and must therefore be due to the patient's belief in that treatment

For example, when a physician suggests with confidence that ‘this pill will help you’, the symptoms often improve due to the patient’s positive expectations.

Nocebo: A growing body of evidence is emerging for a phenomenon known as the nocebo effect. This is when a person is conditioned to expect a negative response, or to anticipate negative effects from an experience. (taken from the National Institute of Health)

According to this 2016 NIH study, the nocebo effect is stronger than the placebo effect.

This leads to the statement that humans are prone to think more negatively.

I could end this post right there as this last idea loops right back to the definition of nocebo. You think negatively because you are conditioned to think negatively and the only thing you ever think about are the thoughts in your head.

You might be saying, ‘Not always. Sometimes I think about what other people tell me.’ Once they’re in your head, you have accepted them as food for thought.

One of the trending concepts today is generational trauma. Countless studies provide evidence regarding the amount of information stored in your DNA from earlier in this lifetime as well as previous generations. At the same time, research substantiates the effects emotions have on brain development beginning in utero

Neuroplasticity is a phenomenon throughout life. And depending on your emotional reactions, and in this case, the ones taking place in your mother as you were nestled in her womb, they affect the types of neural pathways produced which imprint your brain development.

There is NO blame in these discoveries and claims. It’s a fact of nature and as you and I were born, the brain was essentially on guard. And if your mother had a rough pregnancy as mine did, you may have been more emotionally reactive than another child.

This emotional reactivity remains consistent as we grow.

Young children do not have the capacity to reason things through like adults. We sense and read the world through nonverbal communication. Again, depending on the emotional reactivity levels wired in the brain, the impact varies between people.

Therein lies the ease with which we lean towards negativity. It’s the default mechanism known as the stress response. Yet, we’re not taught this because it’s not part of mainstream discussions. And to complicate matters, this emotional reactivity is compounded by physical stressors i.e. microbes, accidents and trauma as well as environment factors like chemicals and heavy metals.

The stress response is on 24/7 and primed for protection.

And negative thinking (not clinical negativity i.e. hostility or depression) is a form of self-protection as it provides you with perspectives to consider about concepts, people, places and activities. The challenge all of us face is getting stuck in the rut of negative thinking as it becomes habitual.

In a recent conversation on negative self-talk on Clubhouse, I shared the following:

This developing stress response alters various brain pathways (neuroplasticity) which leads to many mood dis-orders and mental health concerns, including addiction. As we know many substances are considered addictive as they also contribute to the changes occurring in the brain, the one chemical never discussed is cortisol … the infamous stress hormone.

Consider for a moment. If you’re exposed to stressors, your body is releasing inflammatory forms of cortisol for protection purposes (everything the body produces has important uses, they’re just not required 24 /7 unless you’re truly injured) which means your brain is adjusting rapidly. Negative thinking unknowingly prompts the production of cortisol. If cortisol changes the very same brain structure as an addictive substance, it’s fair to say you are addicted to cortisol and negative thinking is an addictive behavior. This is why we’re prone to negative thinking.

It’s also why the nocebo effect is so strong.

At the same time, false hope and false despair are worthy rivals for inadvertent harm. A patient or health professional cannot rely on the knowledge of how an illness or treatment goes for some people or how the last case responded to a certain protocol.

Even though ‘we’ know the basis for how the brain develops, your brain is unique to you as is your body. As investigations into intergenerational trauma deepen, there is now converging evidence supporting the idea that offspring are affected by parental trauma exposures occurring before their birth, and possibly even prior to their conception. Confirmation of this information being stored in your DNA and affecting genetic expression via the epigenome (methylation pathway) continues to surface.

Yet, your epigenome is unique to you as it is affected by the unique way your brain was wired prior to birth. In fact, nothing about your system operates independently or as a general rule. While you may be part of the human species with similar body parts and appearance, you are distinctly different in the way your body and brain processes information albeit food, beverage, air, or thoughts.

Knowing this gives rise to the most important concept in health and wellness …

Personalize … Personalize … Personalize

This means taking the time to gather as much information as possible about the individual … emotionally, physically, habitually, historically … in order to work with the whole person. Treatment of this nature introduces the contemporary rule of Customized Care and the empowerment of the individual as well as the body’s natural abilities to restore wellness

It employs communication, compassion and understanding as well as leadership as a means of breaking the addictive habit of going down the rabbit hole of inflammation, degeneration and long-term ill health. And in no way does any of this take the place of medical advice or treatment. This is meant to shift the allopathic general rule towards a more functional model that gives you and others the chance to live a healthier life.

And with this said, YES, genuine essential oils are a part of this equation because used according to the Revolutionary Aromatherapy model, they not only relieve symptoms, they activate the mind to redirect the processes in the brain to produce neural pathways that enhance mental clarity and emotional regulation.

Ask me how during your Discovery Call. Click here, it’s only 15 minutes of your time!