Earlier this year, researches at University of Southampton in the U.K. studied the effectiveness of acupuncture on patients who were both believers and skeptics — unsurprisingly, the latter group saw less of a benefit from their overall treatments.  Felicity Bishop, PhD, author of the published study, discusses how people who perceived a positive change experienced it throughout their lives, not just in day-to-day experiences with pain.  According to a second doctor, even patients who received a placebo, or fake treatment, seemed to feel better.  The moral seems to be “think positively and good things will happen.”

There will always be someone eager to prove that a method won’t help, or to push for more traditional medical solutions to problems, but at the end of the day, who’s to say what the best course of action truly is?  Don’t follow a course of treatment you don’t believe in.  As long as you feel content with the management of your chronic pain, that’s the important thing.

Have you ever had experiences with acupuncture or other unorthodox forms of pain management?  Comment and tell us about it.

Read the full article here: Acupuncture Less Effective For Skeptics