Transcript

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You're listening to better than before breast cancer with the breast cancer recovery coach, I'm your host, Laura Lummer. I'm a certified life coach and I'm a breast cancer thriver. In this podcast, I will give you the skills on the insides and the tools to move past the emotional and physical trauma of a breast cancer diagnosis if you're looking for a way to create a life that's even better than before breast cancer, you've come to the right place. Let's get started.

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Hey there, friends, welcome to episode 421 of better than before breast cancer. With me. Laura Lummer, the breast cancer recovery coach. Before we get into today's episode, I have a question for you. Have you left a rating and review for the show if you watch it on YouTube? Have you subscribed if you get something out of this podcast, if you enjoy the show, if you're a new listener and you find something helpful and today's episode, which I know you will I would appreciate it so much. If you could take the time to leave a rating or review, give the show a follow wherever you listen to it, if you watch it on YouTube, hit that button because it helps so much. It helps other people to find this show, and that helps them to have access to information that might support them in their journey to wellness. So if you could take the time to do that, I appreciate it so much. Thank you in advance. All right, let's talk about something that we don't see on scans or lab reports or anything like that, but it plays a huge role in how we feel and how we heal and how we experience life, and I am talking about belief. Now, when I was first diagnosed with cancer 14 years ago, I truly believed, especially with my background in western wellness, that it was all about supplements, food, exercise, and I quickly and painfully discovered that the more important thing was, what was going on in my head and what I believed and how I saw life and how I thought about life. And in fact, I've invested a lot of time and a lot of money into the work that I do on my mind to change the way that I look at things so that I could live the life I wanted to create. So we're going to talk today about something called the nocebo effect, which is when expecting a negative outcome actually creates one in your body, and how that is just as real and powerful as the placebo effect. But we're also going to talk about why it's so hard to shift our thinking, especially when we bake in things to our day to day, thoughts like trauma and fear and uncertainty, which is totally understandable. We're going to talk about that. We're going to dig into the neuroscience of belief and the psychology of rethinking, and how just one small, believable thought can literally change your biology, your physical self. You know, when people come to coaching, they oftentimes, and I think probably more often, start with me because they're in a painful situation, and they want help and they want support into working their way through and getting advice or support or guidance from someone who's walked that path. Others who come to me are looking for to create something right. They want to create something new and shift their life in a way that they don't know how to shift right, but they want to create something new. And so one, their mind is kind of getting out of pain, and another, their mindset is in creating something new. But both share a common thing that beliefs and thoughts are getting in the way of their joy, their happiness and the health and the life they want to live. So I want to talk to you. I'm not only going to talk to you about this Nocebo and placebo, but I'm also going to share with you what you can do about it, a simple, simple practice that will shift your brain and shift your beliefs and support you in feeling the way you want to feel, and support you in living the way you want to live. So let's start off. Let's talk a little bit about the nocebo effect. So you've probably heard about the placebo effect. This is kind of similar to talking about eustress, which is positive stress, and regular stress, which can cause problems. So the no SIBO effect was looked at in a 2007 study that was published in the journal Science, and what they did was look at how our expectations can impact physical pain. In this study, researchers told participants that a harmless cream was going to cause pain when they applied it to them. And guess what happened? The people in that study who believed that were more likely to report pain even though the cream was completely inert, they actually did brain scans that showed increased activity in the areas associated with pain perception just from. Become the expectation of pain, and the researchers concluded that what we believe can activate the same pathways as actual physical harm. Wow, that is so huge. This is something I work with people on all the time, especially when our thoughts get stuck in something. Let's say we have a new diagnosis. We've got a PET scan, a CT scan, blood work, something like that, coming up, and we're running that Netflix original series. We're thinking forward about how bad this is going to be, or what we can expect to go wrong with it, and it actually harms ourselves physically, even though it hasn't happened, even though it isn't true, which is why it's so important to work on being present in the moment and talking your brain through what is actually true, what is actually real, because most of the time that's a lot less scary than the stories we create about what's coming. So in another study that was published in the Journal of Neuroscience in 2011 they found that when people were warned that a treatment might cause negative side effects, even it was just a sugar pill, if it was just a sugar pill they were getting, they still experienced those side effects. The belief itself triggered a physiological response, including increased anxiety and measurable changes in neurotransmitter activity, measurable changes. So that means, if this is not just in your head, it is in your body, the nocebo effect activates the stress response, cortisol rises, inflammation increases, and symptoms show up that align with the belief of harm that is so powerful, and this is why it matters in real life, because when we bring these thoughts into our everyday life, let's say that you want to start a new program. You want to change the way you're eating. You want to reduce sugar intake. You want to try fasting. You want to incorporate workouts, but people share scary stories with you and their own beliefs. And I'll give you a couple of examples that I hear pretty commonly. People want to explore fasting, especially if they have a new diagnosis, their families, their loved ones, their friends are already worried about them, and then they say, Well, I've heard about this thing called fasting, and I'm going to try that, and people will freak out, you're starving yourself. Don't do that, because we associate oftentimes being sick with feeding. We feed people because food can equal love, and we want to give love when we think people are sick, and so we panic at this idea of going without food, especially since we have live in a culture where food is just no pun intended, literally shoved down a throat every two seconds on TV shows, everywhere we go, right? So a ketogenic diet is another good example. People will often say, Well, if I do that, you know, I've heard that my cholesterol is going to go up or that I'm going to get the Keto flu. And a Keto flu is something that some people can experience. If they're not going through adapting the diet in an appropriate manner, and they're not paying attention to hydration and electrolytes and their macronutrients. But when they believe that this is going to happen, they will often experience it. It's kind of like when we believe it, our mind looks for evidence to prove it's true. Our mind says, See, this was a bad idea. I knew it. I told you so. But ask yourself, this, is it actually the change that caused the pain, or is it the fear of the change that came along with that that caused the pain? The nocebo effect tells us that fear, worry and doubt are not just emotional. They become physiological. They become physical, and that's why it's so important for us to understand both the nocebo effect and the placebo effect, because the power of a believing something will help when we believe it in a positive manner, right? This is the placebo effect, the effect that activates healing. There was a study that was published in 2001 in the Lancet and it found that patients with pain conditions who believed a medication would help them actually showed improvement even when they were only given a placebo, so their brains actually released endorphins and natural opioids, again, not because of the substance, but because of the belief in the substance. Positive outcomes and placebo responses happen when we truly believe deep down in the thought that we're choosing, and this is where so many of us get stuck. This was something that I had to work really hard on after my stage four diagnosis, because I'm in a system that believes widespread metastatic disease is going to kill you, right? That there's no healing, there's no cure. But I wanted to believe in healing. I wanted to believe my body can. Completely recover from this, and as I told myself this, I noticed blocks came up, and that feeling came up is like, I don't know, is that really true? So there, there's where the work is, and there's one of the reasons why I invested so I have invested so much time and energy into what I want to believe until it becomes true for me, right? So why is it hard to do that? Why is it so hard to choose different thoughts and believe them? Well, if you have ever tried to shift your mindset, maybe to think something more positive or something more hopeful, and you found the same experience that I just shared, they just don't buy it. You don't believe it. Know that that is totally normal, and there's a reason for that. Our brains are wired for what's called cognitive stability. That means we tend to cling to what we already know even when it isn't serving us. And that's what psychologists call cognitive inertia, right? You're getting stuck in a thinking pattern. So there was a study I'm going to share a lot of studies with you, because as I started to go down this path of research, it's absolutely fascinating, absolutely fascinating to me. So there was a study that was published in the frontiers in psychology in 2023 and it explained that cognitive inertia can keep us looping in old thought patterns even when we consciously try to change. So it's like trying to redirect the Titanic, right? Redirect a freight train that's got trucks that have been laid down to go one direction for 30 years. It takes effort, awareness and time, right? So I often use this example. If we want to change the way we think, if we want to change the way our mind works, we have to view our mind the same way we view our physical body. So we take our physical body to the gym, we implement a fitness routine, we implement a new nutrition plan. We get in great shape. We're jacked. We've been doing this for two years. We're looking good. Something goes off the rails, and we fall away from that practice. What happens? We fall back to a sedentary life. We fall back to, maybe not the best eating practices. What happens to our body? It goes back to the same way it was before we got jacked. Right? Same thing with our brain. If you're 3040, 5060, 70 some years old, and you've been thinking one way for so long, that's not going to change overnight. You got to lay down new tracks. And this is what I think is part of the problem with the integrated approach to healing. This is just my opinion. We are so trained to believe in the way our medical system treats disease, right? Which it does standard of care system treats disease oncology is tumor focused and tumor centric, and there's nothing wrong with that, but because our thought pattern goes that way that the things we do treat the disease, it's more difficult for people to understand the naturopathic side of integrative care, which is that this isn't treating the tumor, this is supporting the body, right? And so this, I think, is why so many people say, Oh, that's misinformation. Because they think that we're fighting over how to best treat a tumor, and that's not the case at all, right? So when we start talking about thinking, we have to realize that we have these tracks laid down, and we've been trained to believe, think and look at things from a certain lens, and so that's not just going to change immediately. So there's another concept that's called belief perseverance, and this was described in 1994 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and what it found was that people tend to stick to their original beliefs even after receiving clear evidence that those beliefs are false. Why? Why? Why would we do that? Because the brain doesn't like uncertainty. It likes to be sure. It prefers to be sure, even if it's wrong. So if you've been thinking or you've noticed that that's really hard to just think differently, this is why you're not lazy, you're not unmotivated. You're asking your brain to do something that's uncomfortable and unnatural change the way it thinks. Right? So that is not a hopeless situation, because there is good news. Your brain is very adaptable, and that's where neuroplasticity comes in. So in the journal Nature Reviews neuroscience in 2019 there was a study published that showed practicing new thoughts and beliefs over time can reshape neural pathways, and the more you repeat a new believable thought, the stronger that pathway becomes. Okay, so here we come again. Consistency. Keep showing up. Consistency. Keep the practice. Will the brain slip back into old thought patterns? Yep, Yep, absolutely. 100% of the time expect it to happen, but when it does, we've got to catch it. Say, Oh, nope. We're laying down new tracks. We're going the other way. You. So there was a researcher, Carol Dweck, and she has famous work on growth mindset that was published originally in 2017 in child development. And this work found that people who believed they could change their abilities literally performed better. The brains responded with more engagement, more learning and more resilience. And then there was a 2025 study that was published in The Guardian and this was based on Imaging Research, and it showed that people who identify as optimists activate similar brain patterns when they imagine the future. So specifically in the medial prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that is involved in decision making and motivation. These patterns were observed in brain scans. How fascinating is that? What that tells us is that how you think about your future shapes how your brain prepares to live it. How freaking cool is that that applies to everything, everything, everything, in every aspect of life in how we want to eat and how we want to live and how we want to work and how we want to think and how we want to feel. It applies to everything. So we support our brain in preparing it to create that life. So we've got a very important question here. What if you want to believe something and you don't know how I hear this all the time. I don't want to think like this. How do I change it? I want to believe that way, but how? Where do I even start? Well, here's a simple exercise for you. First of all, become very aware of the thought that's holding you back. All right, write it down. I say this ad nauseum to my clients and my members, write it down, say it out loud. When we just keep things in our head, can we have some awareness? Yeah, but it doesn't teach our brain in the same way as it does when we write it down. So get the thought that's holding you back, right? Look at the thought that's bringing up the fear, the scarcity, the self doubt, the self loathing? Look at it and then ask yourself, Is this thought helping me or is it hurting me? Okay, so let's take a thought, for example, on I'm going to use something that most of us can use as a practice, which is reducing carbohydrate intake. Refined carbohydrate intake, right? So we want to change our diet. We want to reduce carbohydrate intake. What do I hear? So so often? What do I hear? But I can't imagine my life without a croissant. Wait, no, I can't not eat pasta. What? Right? So we have a thought that says, Life Without carbohydrates or life without pasta, let's just fill in a blank. Life Without pasta isn't going to be fun if you really want to support your wellness and your healing, and you really believe and you know, and you've seen evidence of it, right? So we see the evidence, but again, our brain says, no, no, that won't apply to me, but you see the evidence of it. You make a decision, I really want this, but you have this thought. So look at that thought. Write it down and ask yourself, Is this helping me or hurting me? And then what other thought could you believe? What's a bridge between that thought and the place you want to get to? And I say bridge because you're not going to go from i can't enjoy life without pasta to life is going to be fantastic without pasta. I'm going to feel so much better. You're not going to get from one place to the other with true, honest belief. So what about a bridge thought? And a bridge thought is something like this, it's possible that if I stop eating pasta, I'll feel better, right? I can look around. I can hear stories. I see people who testify to this low carbohydrate way of eating and getting good results. So Well, it's possible, it's possible that it could happen for me, right? I don't know if it's going to feel good, but I'm willing to experiment with it, right, examining different ways of thinking, but finding that thought that really resonates with you, you'll know, because that thought will give you a feeling. Right? When I work with my clients, I say we have an emotion, right? An emotion, sadness, excitement, anxiety, depression, that emotion, as we've just learned with the nocebo effect, causes a physical reaction, a sensation in our body. So, you know, it's a believable thought, when you have that sensation, that's like, hmm, yeah, that landed, right? That landed. I feel good about that? So I'll choose that thought, and then we repeat that thought gently. Often, write it down. Every day, write it down. I believe it's possible that I will feel better if I donate pasta. We're teaching our brain. This is something I want to try. This is something I'm open to learning about. So one small thought repeated with curiosity can create an entirely different lived experience. And you know, you don't have to be a master of positive thinking, and you definitely don't need to do the whole fake it till you make it. Because fake it, in my opinion, is isn't what works. You just need to believe something that feels honest and slightly more hopeful than. And where you are now. So when I wanted to believe that I'm a person who healed from stage four breast cancer, even though my body was full of cancer,

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what I turned to was stories radical remission, the Docu series, radical remission, stories of hope, stories of healing. And I looked and I said, it's possible for humans to heal from stage four cancer. This person did it, that person did it. It's possible for people to heal. That was believable for me, because I could see evidence of it, right? So your thoughts don't just float around, they land in your body. So even believing it's possible for me that I felt a lightness, I felt I felt hope. I felt a little more hope than thinking I'm screwed, right? A lot more hope than thinking I'm screwed. But these thoughts, they shape your nervous system, they impact your hormones, your energy, and they impact your health. So let's do a little homework this week. Ask yourself, what's one small thought you can believe that might make space for something new, the new thing you want in your life, whatever that thing might be, and then let that thought just walk with you. Just be with you. You don't have to fix it. You don't have to change anything. You don't have to judge it. You don't say, I've been thinking this for a week and nothing's changed, right? We just want to keep it with us and be gentle with ourselves, and then offer ourselves something more than just fear, something different than fear, right? This is very important. So try that exercise out for yourself. Try finding that one thought, write it down, and then try finding a new thought that supports you. Now, as I've said so many times in the show, this needs support. This process needs you to show up for yourself. And a lot of times accountability and support and skills and tricks like this one of having a bridge thought can help you there. So if you need help with that, come to the breast cancer recovery coach.com come to my website and find something that will support you. In fact, when this podcast comes out, I'm running a special because this comes out in July, which is my 14 year anniversary, my awakening day, right from the day that I was diagnosed, or the month that I was diagnosed originally with cancer. And I have programs that you can pay whatever you want for. I have creating a life you love in 160 hours a week that helps you look at your thoughts, helps you be intentional about how you live. I have becoming you 2.0 that walks you through eight different steps of why you're living the way you're living now, how you want to be living differently, and how you want to get there. I've got a manifest program, and I've got the brass ring, which is the better than before, breast cancer, metabolic health and mindset, membership, group, coaching, personal coaching, tools, videos, so much to support you. Tools, community and the understanding of how to create space for you to think differently and to heal. Right? It's not about forcing you to think positively before you're ready. It's about finding something that's true for you and making small shifts, right? And if this episode resonates with you, if this thinking resonates with you, share it with someone that you love, someone who might support you, and you can work together to help shift to these mindsets, someone who might be stuck in that cognitive inertia, because it this doesn't just happen to those of us who have a cancer diagnosis. It happens to anybody who has a human brain, right? You never know what a new belief can open up. So why not try to explore them? Why not try to look at yourself and say, Is this Nocebo of fight this habit of thinking the worst things or being stuck in fear. Is it creating pain and suffering that I could do without, that I no longer have to live with? And wouldn't that be amazing? I think so. I know so, because I've done this work for myself. All right, friends, go to the website, the breast cancer recovery coach.com go to the show notes, click on the links, read the research. Understand for yourself what these studies say. You don't have to just listen to me and believe, from my experience, find what works for you and supports the belief in your brain so that you can create the life that you love. And I'll talk to you again next week. Until then, be good to yourself. You've

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tamed the voices in your head. You've put your courage to the test, laid all your doubts to rest. Your mind is clearer than before, your heart is full and wanting more. Your future's at the door.