It can be hard to maintain friendships as adults‚ but little kids dont seem to have that problem with their best friends. One parent shared the most adorable video of their son reuniting with his buddy‚ and his reaction was too precious! As soon as the little boy saw his friend in the distance‚ he started shouting his name and running toward him. Then‚ the two kids hugged as though they hadnt seen each other in years! In the clip‚ the parent explained that these best friends had been separated for a few months. When youre a little kid‚ that may as well be a lifetime! The cute reunion footage has been going viral online‚ and commenters thought the encounter was incredibly sweet. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Pubity (@pubity) Kids friendships are the purest‚ wrote one user. Another said‚ The sound of his little shoes while hes running omg so cute.According to the video‚ the boys parent captured the moment sometime in 2020. Its possible that the two kids couldnt see each other because of social distancing regulations. If that was the case‚ its no wonder that these best friends hugged each other so hard they almost fell over! Screengrab from InstagramEveryone knows how much it hurts to be separated from the people we love. Were so glad that these best friends got their reunion!You can find the source of this storys featured image here. The post Little Boys Reaction To Seeing Best Friend After Months Apart Is Everything appeared first on InspireMore.

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If you went to the doctor with some physical problem IBS‚ say‚ or painful arthritis; maybe even something as serious as Parkinsons disease youd probably be a bit annoyed if you were sent home with medication you later found out was little more than a sugar pill. Especially if you had been charged a few thousand dollars for the privilege.But would your reaction be justified? True‚ the placebo effect is often thought of as being in opposition to real medicine it is‚ pretty much by definition‚ a medication that contains no active ingredients. But research is increasingly showing a more nuanced picture: that placebos can not only be pretty effective treatments in their own right but that charging more for them might actually make them work better.Fancy placebos work betterMost of us dont like to think of ourselves as shallow. Well‚ bad news: you are‚ and the placebo effect knows it.Depending on the condition being treated [] pills of certain colors and descriptions are more effective than others‚ explained psychologist and author Christian Jarrett in a 2019 article for the British Psychological Society. For example‚ he wrote‚ blue placebo pills [make] better sedatives than pink ones‚ and branded placebo pills [are] more effective than those without any labelling.Similarly‚ a placebo you believe cost more is more effective than one youre told was cheap. Consider the results of one 2015 study‚ for example‚ which told Parkinsons patients they were testing a new injectable treatment for the disease: the regimen involved two shots‚ one which patients were informed cost $100‚ and another they were told cost $1‚500.In fact‚ both were saline but that wasnt what was important. What the researchers were in fact measuring was whether there was any difference in how well the expensive drugs worked compared to the cheap ones. And the answer was quite a resounding yes: all the patients saw an improvement in motor function Parkinsons is unusually susceptible to the placebo effect‚ probably because of the specific neurological pathways it affects but those who received the expensive dose first got better than those who didnt.People probably feel more effect from higher-priced homeopathic preparations‚ too‚ although they';re the same distilled water as all the rest of them‚ wrote medicinal chemist Derek Lowe in a Science comment piece on the experiment. In fact‚ so ingrained into us is this idea that expensive things should work better than cheap or unbranded alternatives that it can even show up outside of medicine. Being told youre playing sports with Nike-brand equipment will make you perform objectively better than using the same product without the famous label; using ear plugs you think were made by a company like 3M will‚ somehow‚ improve your ability to block out distractions more than if you think theyre a generic brand.Similarly‚ if you tell people that they';re drinking expensive wine‚ they report that it tastes better than the cheap stuff‚ even though they both came from the same bottle‚ Lowe pointed out. [It] raises some interesting philosophical points when you';re reporting a sensation like taste‚ there';s no way to distinguish between what';s objectively in the substance being tasted versus what being added by the mind. Some parts of medicine are closer to that than we like to think.Complicated placebos work betterIt kind of goes without saying that surgery is not always going to be the best treatment for some illnesses. But as it turns out‚ the placebo response doesnt know that so if youre trying to trick yourself into getting better without any real treatment‚ it may help to make your fake therapies more invasive.Not all placebos are pills. They also include minimally invasive surgery‚ acupuncture needles that dont pierce acupuncture points‚ manipulations‚ and others‚ wrote Jeremy Howick‚ Director of the Oxford Empathy Programme at the University of Oxford‚ in a 2019 article for The Conversation.Some evidence suggests that injections are more effective than pills‚ he explained‚ and sham surgery is the most powerful placebo of all.Theres no obvious reason why a saline shot should be more effective than a sugar pill but experts think it has to do with how effective we think a treatment ought to be. The more powerful we imagine their effect will be‚ the larger the benefit‚ Jarrett wrote. This means that four placebo pills have a larger effect than two; and placebo injections [] are more powerful than pills.So powerful is this cognitive bias that in certain cases‚ fake injections can be more effective than real pills. And for the most powerful results of all‚ reach for the scalpel just dont actually do anything with it. In three-quarters of patients‚ simply thinking they had surgery will be enough to make their symptoms improve; for pain relief‚ meanwhile‚ theres essentially no difference in the effectiveness of fake surgeries and real ones.One of the most astonishing demonstrations of the placebo effect that Ive come across [] involved placebo brain surgery‚ Jarrett recalled. Specifically‚ the research showed that patients with Parkinsons Disease who undertook a form of placebo brain surgery (supposedly‚ but not really‚ involving the injection of stem cells) showed greater symptom improvements than those patients who received the stem cell treatment‚ but didnt think they had.And lets face it: while it neednt be anything dramatic that raises your expectations of a treatment even just a doctor taking extra time to explain it‚ or seeming enthusiastic about it its easy to see why fake brain surgery would elicit the biggest placebo response. After all‚ Jarrett pointed out‚ what could elicit a greater hope for a treatment effect than the elaborate paraphernalia and protocols involved in experts operating on your brain?Placebos work‚ even when you know what they areOf course‚ even despite all this evidence that placebos can work‚ you might still be annoyed if you received one in lieu of real medicine. Its the principle of the thing‚ right? Sure‚ the sugar pill might work but it was a lie.Well‚ it doesnt have to be. In fact‚ its long been known that placebos can reduce symptoms of both mental and physical ailments even when theyre labeled as placebos. [It] turn[s] our understanding of the placebo effect on its head‚ said Ted Kaptchuk‚ director of the Program for Placebo Studies and the Therapeutic Encounter at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. ";The placebo effect is not necessarily elicited by patients'; conscious expectation that they are getting an active medicine‚ as long thought.Theories are split on how this works‚ by the way. Some argue that theres something to do with the ritual of taking a treatment any treatment‚ even one you know to be useless that prompts the brain to recalibrate the levels of disease in the body; others put the effect down to a greater self-awareness induced by cognitive dissonance at the treatment. As one study put it in 2022: Facing the paradoxical conundrum of being offered inert pills to treat their symptoms made them seriously reflect and contemplate not only about placebo effects but also about their own symptoms‚ their habits and their personal influence on how they feel.But regardless of why it happens‚ its evidence that placebos are not necessarily the opposite of medicine‚ so much as they are an intrinsic part of it.You';re never going to shrink a tumor or unclog an artery with placebo intervention‚ Kaptchuk said. It';s not a cure-all‚ but it makes people feel better‚ for sure.[But] you can';t throw the placebo into the trash can‚ he added. It has clinical meaning‚ it';s statically significant‚ and it relieves patients. It';s essential to what medicine means.All explainer articles are confirmed byfact checkersto be correct at time of publishing. Text‚ images‚ and links may be edited‚ removed‚ or added to at a later date to keep information current.The content of this article is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice‚ diagnosis‚ or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.