Suggestible You

The Curious Science of Your Brain’s Ability to Deceive, Transform, and Heal

De: Erik Vance

Narrado por: Richard Powers

This riveting narrative explores the world of placebos, hypnosis, false memories, and neurology to reveal the groundbreaking science of our suggestible minds.

Could the secrets to personal health lie within our own brains? Journalist Erik Vance explores the surprising ways our expectations and beliefs influence our bodily responses to pain, disease, and everyday events.

Drawing on centuries of research and interviews with leading experts in the field, Vance takes us on a fascinating adventure from Harvard's research labs to a witch doctor's office in Catemaco, Mexico, to an alternative medicine school near Beijing (often called "China's Hogwarts"). Vance's firsthand dispatches will change the way you think - and feel.

Continuing the success of National Geographic's brain books and rounding out our pop science category, this book shows how expectations, beliefs, and self-deception can actively change our bodies and minds. Vance builds a case for our "internal pharmacy" - the very real chemical reactions our brains produce when we think we are experiencing pain or healing, actual or perceived.

Supporting this idea is centuries of placebo research in a range of forms, from sugar pills to shock waves; studies of alternative medicine techniques heralded and condemned in different parts of the world (think crystals and chakras); and, most recently, major advances in brain mapping technology.

Thanks to this technology, we're learning how we might leverage our suggestibility (or lack thereof) for personalized medicine, and Vance brings us to the front lines of such study.

©2016 Erik Vance (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Interesting parts & some idea gems but didn't "wow" me.

Good listen, decent narration, a few gens of ideas but, overall, nothing incredibly impressive about the content or performance.

ok - helpful perspective

ok but not great. somehow it missed the mark for me. kind of seemed like a case where the book title was in search of a book. some interesting stuff for sure but I found myself trying to get through it rather than wanting more.

Understanding why the mind is a great servant

So here is the thing: much of the wellness community relies on placebo effects.

If you understand placebo, and nocebo, and your significant resources re healing then you can make better wellness choices.

No miracle cures here, but significant awareness of the power of mind to remedy (or not) the body is discussed.

Super interesting and worth your time.

Educational!

Very informative and thought provoking! I loved this book! It shows us how powerful our thoughts and mind can be!

Good ....

Found this book fascinating but was annoyed at the authors blind refusal to see any non placebo benefit in traditional medicine, there are thousands of double blind placebo controlled studies on all sorts of thing that have shown positive results. He is certainly not as open minded and he keeps saying he is, to the extent he discounts half of modern medicine as well. He goes a little too far from the center and dumps everything into the placebo basket. The science and the people he interviewed where very interesting.

Is The Power Within Us? Well, Maybe...

Vance starts this book with the story of how he was cured of a deadly disease through his Christian Scientist background. A story of faith. And that's what flows through "Suggestible You". It's a story of placebos, curses/hexes, hypnosis, suggestibility, and even false memories.
The placebo effect gets the vast majority of airtime, but the anecdotes are compelling. I just listened to an NPR episode of a writer who helped come up with a Write Better, Quicker placebo and who wound up, hilariously, abusing it, so this was all fairly fascinating.
Most of the book is history and stories, but the latter two hours or so are how we can harness them in our daily lives. We can get through food cravings because the placebo effect has the effect of raising dopamine levels, just like food. We can run faster, have better sex, live with less pain, and we can even question our bad memories of trauma, our lousy childhoods.
Paul Michael Garcia does a decent enough job, but I dinged him a star because what humor is in the book is kinda sorta just lost. I mean, how can you make the comparison of having pain tolerance and listening to a Justin Bieber album unfunny? Uhm, Garcia can...
A decent enough book, just be prepared for a lengthy, lengthy discussion of placebos and how, basically, we're responsible for ourselves and our states of health.
Fascinating in its discussion of how Parkinson's disease can be helped, fascinating on how memories can be clouded, but it's a bit like a two-by-four over the head.
Still, who likes side-effects when there's the chance we can live without them?
It's all a matter of expectations and suggestibility. I suggest the listen, but I also suggest it as a sale item rather than a full credit. Unless you're looking for relief that's in your hands...

I didn't know I was so gullible.

If you could sum up Suggestible You in three words, what would they be?

fascinating, entertaining, educational

Who was your favorite character and why?

Luana Colloca and her enthusiasm for placebo response and pain.

Have you listened to any of Paul Michael Garcia’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Haven't before but think he did a good job on this book.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I was fascinated.

It could be more objective

It feels like it would be better if the book was reduced by a third. It would be easier to understand and consolidate the ideas. It would get the listener/reader not to lose interest.

too true. now to apply the wisdom ...

should be required reading for medical school... gets a bit too scientific for the layperson briefly and too quick to expect explanation for things that work despite being unexplained... but it's a wonderful start.

Worth reading.

OK so I got this book on a daily deal with Audible and it is always the book that I would go for. I wasn't sure what to expect but I have to confess I did find it very interesting and definitely learned a thing or two. The narration is fine, actually it's very clear. It was definitely time well spent. I can see myself possibly even referring back to it and checking it out again in a couple years giving it another listen.