Recent technological advancements in medicine include drugs that can alter mood, emotion and sometimes thinking. As many people nowadays get depressed, having an instantaneous way out of melancholy is desired to cope with the fast paced world of today.Ativan, Prozac, Serafem: just few of the popular antidepressants and tranquilizers prescribed to patients with severe cases that cannot be treated anymore with counseling and coaching. Research shows that these medicines may cause addiction and dependence that can sometimes interfere with normal life once medication is stopped.

Alternatively, most psychologists believe that feelings of intense sadness can be controlled by proper coaching and counseling and that everything is just “in the mind.”

One effective treatment is by tricking the brain with the use of placebos. Placebos are pills disguised to look like a real drug. It is typically made from sugar or starch and technically does not cause any kind of effect to the patient. It can also refer to a fake surgery or therapy. Once taken, the patient will feel assured that the ‘pill’ or ’surgery’ is healing him, in effect, making him feel good.

Placebos are commonly used to people who think they need to take prescription drugs to aid their depression but in reality they don’t as the doctors think so.

Professor Michael Jospe from the California School of Professional Psychology has been studying this subject matter for 20 years now. He said:

“The placebo effect is part of the human potential to react positively to a healer. You can reduce a patient’s distress by doing something which might not be medically effective.”

He also put it in another way. He cited an example between a kid and a Band-aid. The child feels better when the Band-aid has comics or graphics in it. It gives a soothing effect to the kid even though there’s no scientific evidence to prove it.

Practically, the placebo effect can help people feel better and avoid the consequences of a medication’s side effect. This is less costly, safer and this may be all they need.

But ancient wisdom gives us a completely different view.

According to the Buddhist teachings, everyone has the the ability to understand and control their minds and when one has completely understood himself, control comes naturally. But the problem is many are lacking awareness of themselves or the consciousness of being.

Achieving awareness of the mind takes a lot of ways but if we will follow the Buddhist way, meditation is the way to go. Meditation is an act of shielding ourselves from outside forces such as thoughts, feelings, physical pain or pleasure. It is like talking to no one while trying to reach out to someone, in this case, we are reaching for our mind.

Meditation is not just concentrating on ourselves, it is the way of being unconscious about our mind. In our daily lives, we talk, breathe, walk and move unconsciously. This is what meditation is all about, just letting our mind to speak to ourselves in a way we cannot interfere.

Buddha said:

“What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind.”

When one can understand their minds, they can also understand what is bothering them. For example, people suffering from depression can pinpoint the problem which causes them suffering.

After the problem is pinpointed, it is up to the person to change or alter the events that will eventually lead to recovery. No more tricking of the brain, all one needs is a little patience and self understanding.
Sources: www.mayo-clinic.org, www.fda.gov and www.associatedcontent.com