Your Thinking and Your Finances

You're probably well aware that numerous scientific studies support the relationship between the mind/emotions and physical health. There are studies that support the relationship between prayer and healing. Also, there is the placebo effect, and its opposite, the nocebo effect, in which negative thinking actually makes you more sick! In one study, 2/3 of the participants reported experiencing the side effects they were warned about, yet they were only given sugar tablets. In other words, they reported feeling bad, when there was absolutely no physical reason for them to do so. Here's some information on the nocebo effect.

This is from a brief except from a Washington Post article by Brian Reid:

That study is a classic in the annals of research on the "nocebo" phenomenon, the evil twin of the placebo effect. While the placebo effect refers to health benefits produced by a treatment that should have no effect, patients experiencing the nocebo effect experience the opposite. They presume the worst, health-wise, and that's just what they get.

"They're convinced that something is going to go wrong, and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy," said Arthur Barsky, a psychiatrist at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital who published an article earlier this year in the Journal of the American Medical Association beseeching his peers to pay closer attention to the nocebo effect. "From a clinical point of view, this is by no means peripheral or irrelevant" (Washington Post, April 30, 2002).

So, your thoughts, negative or positive, have a definite impact on your health. Could not the same be true for your finances? Think about it.