I Will Harm

In the last post I ended by asking: can our minds deliver a negative reaction to sugar pills? The answer, interesting, is yes. Its called the nocebo reaction (Latin for I will harm). This is an even more confounding notion.
Think of it this way, you take in a sugar pill thinking its some sort of medication - and your mind, essentially, wills and creates a negative reaction. TO SUGAR!
Often times these negative reactions, or side-effects, are associated with the side-effects of real treatment. A strong example of this is that of hormone replacement therapy for menopause. The study (here), conducted by the Women's Health Initiative, had given a large group of women either correct hormones or a placebo for years (an average of 5.7 years!). They then took them off the pills. Upon discontinuing the treatment, moderate to sever withdrawal symptoms were reported by 40.5% of those who were taking the placebo compared to 63.3% of those on hormone replacement.
Think about it! You are taking a pill that they said was a hormone replacement pill, but unannounced to you, you have been taking a sugar pill for nearly six years - the whole time thinking that this little pill are replacement hormones and is helping you cope with your menopause. You stop taking it, and you begin to feel the very same withdrawal symptoms as someone who actually had the chemical hormones flowing through their blood for nearly six years.
My guess is that these women knew of the withdrawal symptoms and figured that the same would happen to them. That is when the mind then takes over and turns it into reality.
Minions, after reading these two posts (placebo and nocebo) you should see that your mind has incredible control over your body and, as an extension, the way you view the world.

"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Talmud

I Will Please

Minions, I am going to break from my recent economic kick with a subject that I know very little. That subject is the mind-body connection. I've picked it because it perplexes me.
Let’s talk about the placebo effect (Latin for I will please). Think about it, you give a person a sugar pill (or some other inert substance) and suddenly their depression is gone. What does this tell us? It tells us that our mind has an incredible amount of control over our bodies, despite what some people think.

Here are some enhancing factors to the placebo effect:
* Color. Red, yellow, or orange worked better as stimulants. While blue, green, or purple worked better as depressants. (here)
* Big rather than small capsules.
* Two tablets are more effective than one.
* Branded proprietary tablets are more effective than unbranded ones. (here)
* The higher the price the more effective. By telling patients that a drug cost $2.50 rather than 10 cents pain relief increased from 61% to 85.4%.
* Injections have larger effect than pills. (here)
* Devices (like sham acupuncture) are more effective than inert pills.
* If administered by authority figures.
* If inert substance is pre-associated in past experience with a real effect. (here)
* Regularly taking placebo pills as opposed to forgetting to take them sporadically. (here)
* Enthusiastic supportive attitude of the doctor about their effectiveness. Example: the response of a placebo increased from 44% to 62% when the doctor gave the placebo with "warmth, attention, and confidence." (here)

All of these enhancing factors help us understand just how much our mind can influence our bodies’ response. The placebo effect happens when your mind delivers a positive reaction to an inert substance. The next question you should be asking yourselves is: do our minds ever deliver a negative reaction?

Baby You’re A Rich Man, Too?

I am a huge fan of NPR's Planet Money and This American Life podcasts, and I encourage all to start listening to them. Anyways, recently This American Life did a collaborative story (Bad Bank) with Planet Money - it was a very well thought out story on the economy. One part really stuck out to me and I felt that I should share it:

Alex Blumberg (host): ...But beyond the balance sheet, David Beim [Columbia Business School Professor] has a much more profound reason why banks shouldn't lend. He shows me something on his computer.
David Beim: Ok, so here is a picture, a graphic, and a chart that goes back to 1916 and up to…
Alex Blumberg: We’re in his office, and we’re looking at a graph, and it's, basically, a measure of how much debt we the citizens of America, are in. How much we all owe--on our mortgages and credit cards and auto loans--compared to the economy as a whole, the GDP. And for most of history, the amount we owed was a lot smaller than the economy as a whole. This ratio, household debt to GDP bounces along around between 30 and 50 percent, for most of the '30s and '40s 50s, 60s, and 70s, right into the 80s. Then it breaks through 50 % in the 80s, starts heading up in the 1990s. And then ..
David Beim: From 2000 to 2008, it just goes, almost a hockey stick, it goes dramatically upward.
Alex Blumberg: Like a rocket.
David Beim: It hits 100% of GDP. That is to say, currently, consumers owe $13 trillion when the GDP is $13 trillion. That’s a 100 % of GDP owed by individuals. That is a ton.
Alex Blumberg: I'm going to ask a leading question, because I’m looking at a graph right now. Tell me professor, has there ever been a time where we owed that much before?
David Beim: I’m glad you asked me that. And guess what? The earlier peak, which is way over on the left part of the chart, where debt is 100% of GDP, was in 1929. This is a map of twin peaks. One in 1929 and one in 2007.
Alex Blumberg: Does that chart scare you?
David Beim: Yes. That chart is the most striking piece of evidence that I have that what is happening to us is something that goes way beyond toxic assets in banks, it’s something that had little to do with the mechanics of mortgage securitization, or ethics on Wall Street, or anything else. It says the problem is us. The problem is not the banks, greedy though they may be, overpaid though they may be. The problem is us. We have over-borrowed. We have been living very high on the hog. We are, our standard of living has been rising dramatically over the last 25 years, and we have been borrowing much of the money needed to make that prosperity happen.
Alex Blumberg: And so, when you see Congress, sort of saying we need more, we need to make sure there are strings attached to this money, to make sure the banks are lending it out, that doesn’t make any sense.
David Beim: It makes, not only no sense, it makes reverse sense. It’s nonsense. Because what the banks have done is already lend too much. The name of this problem is too much debt. I really think that's the heart of what's wrong with this. We have over-borrowed, and we have done that over many, many decades. And now it’s reached just an unbearable peak where people on average cannot repay the debts they’ve got. In the face of that, it is no solution to try to lend more.

I don't mean to get on a pulpit or anything, but those who belong to the same religion as me (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) have heard this over and over again. The quote oft heard is "live within our means." The earliest I could find it in print was in an April 1957 General Conference Talk by Ezra Taft Benson (here). Fifty-two years ago. Perhaps its time we start listening.

You Only Give Me Your Funny Papers

Now that we have completed the Show Me The Money series, lets focus on you, my minions. How can you get paid more? How can you avoid getting laid off? How can you get promoted? In troubling economic times sometimes mere survival is the name of the game. To receive positive answers to those questions we must identify what management values (additional reading - Show Me The Money: Economics of Exchange) in order to increase your value. Answer these questions:

• Do you add directly to the companies bottom line? How much?
• Do you directly make (or save) them money? How much?
• How good are you at what you do?
• If you quit today…
○ how long will it take to find a suitable replacement?
○ how long will it take to train this replacement?
○ how much would the company lose in profits in that time?
• How often do you actively use your brain while at work?
• Are your job tasks easy to learn?
• Are the requirements for the job in great supply (high school diploma)?
• Do you consider your tasks easy or difficult? Note: time consuming is not difficult.
• Does management think that every time they hear from you that they are going to have to put out a fire for you? OR, do they know that you have already put out the fire and redecorated while you were at it? Management wants solutions, not problems.
• Are you an asset or liability to the company as a whole? To your management? To your customers/clients? To those you manage?
• Do you make your management look good?
• Are you good for your word?
• Are your managers aware of your abilities and accomplishments (work related)? Note: Tread lightly on this issue, it could backfire.
• Do you play well with others?
• Are you indispensable to your manager as a person? Employee? Contributor?

These questions will help you determine your value within the corporation. If you feel that your value is low, increase it! Ask for more responsibility, seek out problems and solve them, be the best [insert job position here] in the company, and make your manager look good. Do what it takes to get the better position, increase your pay, or avoid the chopping block.

One final question for you to stew on:
Think of a top paid professional athlete (Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, etc.). Why are/were they so successful? How would they answer those earlier questions? How can they do better?