a clinical view of mind & belief

http://chriskresser.com/the-placebo-effect-and-the-power-of-belief-in-healing

"...And the idea is that the clinical encounter between the doctor and the
patient turns out to have a real, measurable, objective effect on the
treatment, and we’ve seen — Neuroimaging studies have been done now in
the past decade that have shown activation of neural pathways in the
brain involving endorphins and dopamine that are elicited when subjects
receive a placebo, and that’s especially true when they think that
they’re getting an active ingredient."

and "It’s pretty well known now, as I just mentioned, that the color of pills
affects the outcome of a treatment, and that effect is widespread
across all different cultures. For example, in Italy blue placebos make
really good sleeping pills for women, but they had the opposite effect
on men. Like, they actually gave men worse insomnia. And they were
really trying to figure out why this would be until somebody pointed out
that the Italian soccer team’s color is blue and, you know, Italian men
are crazy for soccer, it gets them really excited, so the theory was
that the association of Italian men with blue was as a really
stimulating color, and that actually affected the outcome or the effect
of these placebo treatments."