What if the most powerful drug you could take didn’t come from a prescription — and you already had access to it right now?

In this episode of Whole Again, Michael O’Brien explores the fascinating science and personal impact of placebos and nocebos — how our beliefs, expectations, and even lucky socks can change the way our bodies respond to challenges. You’ll learn why mindset isn’t just “positive thinking,” but a measurable force that shapes recovery, resilience, and well-being.

• Understand how the placebo effect works — and how to harness it for your healing
• Spot the “nocebo” patterns that might be quietly holding you back
• Discover why your personal rituals, symbols, and mantras matter more than skeptics think

Take a deep breathe and learn how to choose beliefs that boost your body’s healing potential and stop reinforcing the ones that hold you back.

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With Whole Again: A Fresh Approach to Healing, Growth & Resilience after Physical Trauma through Kintsugi Mindfulness, listeners explore resilience through personal stories of trauma, scars, and injury while learning to overcome PTSD, imposter syndrome, self-doubt, and perfectionism with self-compassion, self-love, and self-worth. Through insightful discussions on building resilience, resilience building, resilience and fitness, fitness and resilience, stress management, mindfulness practices, and digital wellness, the show offers practical tools like breathwork, micro-dose meditation, grounding techniques, visualization, and daily affirmations for anxiety relief and stress relief. Inspired by the art of kintsugi, the podcast embraces healing as a process of transformation, encouraging a shift in perspective from worry and being overwhelmed to gratitude and personal growth. By exploring the mind-body connection, micro-dosing strategies for emotional well-being, and holistic approaches to self-care, this podcast empowers listeners to cultivate emotional resilience and live with greater balance and intention.

 In this episode, you'll discover one of the most effective drugs you can take.

Hey there, it's Michael. Welcome to Whole again. A show about helping survivors of physical injury and trauma reclaim their strength and resilience through the wisdom of kazuki. Today we are gonna talk about doing drugs, not anything illegal, of course. Actually, we're not even going to talk about actual pills or capsules.

We're gonna talk about drugs that impact our mindset. You'll discover the power of a placebo as well as a no sibo and how that. Shifts your mindset. But before we dive in, I wanna share how you can sign up for those really cool text messages I've mentioned over the last month or so. People say it's the message they need to hear right when they need to hear it.

So if you'd like to sign up for them, they're free. They come about three times a week. Just send me a text. You can type in whole again, and the number is 8 6 6 6 1 2 4 6 0 4. I'll say that one more time. 8 6 6 6. 1 2 4 6 0 4. Now let's dive in and talk about drugs. I don't know about you right now, but the song I Want A New Drug by Huey Lewis in the News is going through my head as I record this.

So my apologies in advance if that song plays on repeat throughout the day for you. But let's talk about placebos in No Sibos. I'd like to share a story from my corporate days when I worked in the pharmaceutical industry. I was responsible for a product for Alzheimer's disease and in the clinical trials that proved its effectiveness, there was an active treatment group, the actual product, the actual medicine, and there was a placebo, basically a sugar.

The trials were designed to show what the treatment effect was. Basically, how many people improved that took the real medicine, and how many people improved taking the sugar pill, the placebo? Well, with one of our clinical trials, 86% of the people who took the real product got better. But here is something else.

68% of the folks that took the placebo also got better. They thought they were on the actual medicine. Crazy, right? Here's a pro tip I'll share with you. When you talk to your medical team about a particular treatment, ask them how well did people do on the placebo? Their answer will tell you more about how effective the medicine they're talking about.

Giving to you will actually be a placebo is something that creates a positive effect. As it did in that clinical trial. 68% of the people thought they were taking the real deal, even though it was a simple sugar pill. So placebo's work because we believe in the treatment. We believe there's something there.

Again. Again, it could be a simple sugar pill or it could be some of the supplements that we're taking. Heck, it could just be your favorite ritual or your lucky socks. I know I have a pair of lucky socks. I would always wear them to physical therapy. I thought they brought me good luck when I went to pt and the thing is, those things shouldn't work, but they do.

Because we believe they're gonna work. And when our mind believes that it's gonna work, in many ways, our body starts to believe that they might work. Now, on the other side of the coin, because there's always another side to the coin, and this one is just as powerful as the placebo, it's something called the no sibo.

It's opposite. It's when a negative outcome happens because you expected it to happen. You believe something would hurt or fail or go wrong, and your body being the amazing vessel it is, even though it doesn't work as well as we want it to, sometimes follows the script that we laid down. It's the self-fulfilling prophecy.

That's what a no SIBO is. Unfortunately, I don't have much data on this, but I have a hunch that we might take more no Sibos than placebos. In essence, our nervous system believes what we practice and what we expect to happen. So if we think good things are gonna happen, our nervous system and our body can start to believe that something good will happen.

Of course the opposite is also true. All this means that our thoughts, our stories, our mindset, they're not just noise that swirls in our mind that we don't wanna tell anyone about. In a lot of ways, their invitations to the body. After all, the body is keeping score, and it listens to our play by play as it does.

This is why I stress that everything that happens to us is neutral until we label it. Once we put a label on something, we give it meaning, and once there's a meaning, then we create a story. So if we can pause when something happens just long enough to take a few deep breaths, we create some space. And in that space, there's a chance to reflect.

In that moment of reflection, we can choose our labels wisely because we know they will create a story and our mind and body start to believe the stories we tell it. But before I go any further, I will also say that there are no guarantees in life. You can come up with the most beautiful label and the most wonderful story about how this is going to happen for you, and it might not.

You can also come up with a story that something horrible will happen to you, and it might not, but the chances are that if we take a placebo, something good might happen, and the chances are if we take a no sibo, something unfortunate might happen, but nothing is 100%. Nothing is an absolute guarantee.

Life. Life life is uncertain regardless of how many pairs of lucky socks that we have. I'd like to share something else that maybe not everyone will agree with. If it helps you, it's real. Even if no one gets it, it's still real to you, even if there's no scientific study to back it up, even if it's just a ritual.

Or a moment or a mantra or a supplement you take, for example, I take ag one in the morning every morning. I believe it's doing something for me, but I don't really know, but I believe it is, so I continue to take it. In other words, if it helps you move forward in your healing process, who's to argue? Let the doubters doubt.

You can do your thing. Now, I will say, I don't think we should ignore science. We love science here at whole again, so we wanna stay with science, but it does mean all of this, that we can stop apologizing for what works for us. It also means that we can stop minimizing our internal wisdom. The body knows, I believe.

So let's make this practical, 'cause I like to make things practical and relatable. What are your placebos? What are the things that you believe in? Things that you take, rituals that you do day in and day out. How are they helpful to you? And what are your no Sibos? The thoughts, the stories, the expectations that can make you feel worse?

The cool thing with all of this. There's gold in this, right? As they say, you get to choose which one you reinforce. You get to choose whether you reinforce the placebos you take or the nocebos that are present for you. You have the power to write that story. Reinforce things that help you establish a positive mindset that can help your mind and body, your heart and soul, and help you along the way to the person you're becoming.

So again, you don't need to convince anyone else. You just need to own what helps you heal. If wearing the same sweatshirt to treatment makes you feel brave, then it freaking matters. So wear the damn sweatshirt. If tapping your heart before a hard conversation calms you down, that matters too. Stay with it.

If visualizing gold, light is in your spine and that brings you energy, it helps you feel supported, keep doing it. 'cause your brain loves belief and your nervous system listens to every word you tell it.

Thanks again for being here, and thank you again for being a fellow survivor. In this episode, you discovered the power of placebos and no Sibos and how mindset and what we believe matters to our healing process. And always remember that you've got this, and here I've got you. And if you wanna receive those wonderful text messages that remind you of this, just when you need to be reminded of this, you can send me a text.

You can just simply say hi or whole again. And the number is 8 6 6 6 1 2 4 6 0 4. And I'll set you up.

And if you wish to learn more about creating beautiful ripples and how to prevent a bad moment from turning into a bad day, please visit my website, Michael O'Brien schiff.com. And sign up for my newsletter called The Ripple Effect, and join us each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday here at Whole Again, and discover how you can heal, grow, and become more resilient and celebrate our scars as golden symbols of strength and resilience.

Until then, remember, you can always come back to your breath. You've got this. And we've got you.