You Are the Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter

by Joe Dispenza

You, and every other human being, are shaping

your brain and body by the thoughts you think, the emotions you feel, the intentions you hold, and the transcendental states you experience. You Are the Placebo invites you to harness this knowledge to create a new body and new life for yourself.

Renewal is built into the very fabric of our bodies, and degeneration and disease are the exception, not the norm.

Joe teaches us that we can steer this process with intention, assuming the powerful position of driver of the vehicle, rather than the passive role of passenger.

The discovery that the number of connections in a neural bundle can double with repeat stimulation revolutionized biology in the 1990s. It earned its discoverer,

the neuropsychiatrist Eric Kandel, a Nobel Prize. Kandel later found that if we don’t use neural connections, they begin to shrink in just three weeks. In this way, we can reshape our brains...

By changing your internal state, you can change your external reality. Joe masterfully explains the chain of events that starts with intentions originating in the frontal lobe of your brain and then translating into chemical messengers, called neuropeptides, that send signals throughout your body, turning genetic switches on or off. Some of these chemicals, like oxytocin, the “cuddle hormone” that’s stimulated by touch, are associated with feelings of love and trust. With practice, you can learn to quickly adjust your

set points for stress hormones and healing hormones.

With the openhearted delight and open-minded experimentation of a child at play, Joe began to push the envelope, wondering just how fast radical healing might occur if people applied the body’s placebo effect with complete conviction. Hence, the title You Are the Placebo reflects the fact that it’s

your own thoughts, emotions, and beliefs that are generating chains of physiological events in your body.

self-directed neuroplasticity