It's unexplainable. I'm Noam Hassenfeld.

A couple weeks ago, we were talking about psychedelic treatments for mental health, like severe depression.

And there was this moment that really stuck with me.

This scientist put a bunch of patients under anesthesia.

He gave some of them ketamine, and he gave others a placebo.

But their symptoms got better across the board, even in the ones who didn't get the drug.

It seemed like it wasn't necessarily the drug that was making these patients feel better,

as much as it was their brains, their expectations.

So this week, we wanted to share an episode that really dives into this exact idea,

how placebos and really people's brains are way more powerful than we might think.

It was reported by our former editor, Brian Resnick,

and it's an episode I still think about all the time.

So I'm really excited to share it with you this week.

Okay, here's Brian.

I want you to imagine this.

Let's say you go to the doctor's office and you have this huge headache.

You're just complaining, you're nauseous.

It's just nothing's going right for you.

And the doctor, she gives you a prescription for sugar pills, like,

placebo's, and tells you to take them.

Okay.

How would you feel?

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