How is it possible to "trick your brain"?

Question

My friend told me that chewing too much gum is bad for a person because it tricks one's brain into thinking that the person is eating something; thus the brain get the digestive system going and the stomach acids pumping, which is bad because that person really isn't eating anything.

Regardless if this is true or not, I've heard many other scenarios like this one where one somehow "tricks his/her brain". My question is, how is this trickery even possible? If YOU know that you aren't eating anything, how is it possible to trick your brain, which is essentially you, into thinking that you are. If you know something, shouldn't your brain know it too?

Answer 1

Lots of people believe in the psychosomatic "abilities" of the brain. Your brain functions 24/7 in ways that you don't even realize. Every time you do something involuntary (like breathing) you are using your brain. To answer your question specifically about gum chewing, there are lots of involuntary bodily reactions that may "trick your brain" without filtering into your consciousness. For example, if you smell someone baking cookies, you'll probably salivate without actually having to THINK about the cookies. Does that make sense?

Just in general, though, your brain can overpower what makes sense biologically in a lot of different ways. To me, the most interesting is the placebo effect which you might be interested in. Basically, if a person believes that he/she is being given a treatment or a cure for an illness of some sort, even if he/she is actually taking a placebo (like a sugar pill) the illness might actually be cured just because that person's brain is telling the body that it has been cured.

I'm sure someone could give you a more scientific answer, I was just trying to put it in everyday terms. Hope that helped!

Answer 2

Maybe because there is such a thing as the subconscious. These are the things that are happening in the brain that you are not aware of. Also there is the autonomic (involuntary) nervous system that helps run important processes in your body (like digestion). You do not have full control over this. Another example will be optical illusions. You see what is really not there (isn't this "tricking the brain")>

Answer 3

These are "mind hacks" that are a positive application of this characteristic of the mind. For example, "tricking" it into not fearing an action item I've been resisting.


If you tell your brain that smoking is good for you and picture yourself as cool with a cigarrette in your hand -- then creative visualization is a lie - and you may die. If you are fat and feature yourself as thin -- so that you exercise and eat well -- you'll likely get thin. It's all a matter of how true is your image.

Here's another example:

Herbal Synergy: What Came Next

Cordiphene Industries has developed a way to combine gentle appetite suppression and energy boost of chá de bugre with the effects of Hoodia Gordonii, the popular African herb that tricks your brain into feeling full. This unique formula makes you so uninterested in eating, you have to practically remind yourself that it’s time to eat. Then, when you do eat, your portions are naturally much smaller.


Actually, it’s been observed in studies that eating smaller portions, five or six times a day, can help BOOST your metabolism into high gear. As you feel like eating less, just eat smaller meals more often during the day. Your body then experiences a change in the way it burns calories. The act of eating multiple times a day (not loads of junk food, but normal meals in smaller portions) tells your body to burn calories.


You can trick your brain … people do it daily at work … and the results can be deadly. How so?

The brain play tricks when you make it think what is not … really is.

Fact is … your spatial intelligence plays vivid images onto mental screens in your brain – and eventually you begin to believe and act on these images … whether they’re accurate or not. Manipulate images to lie?

You’d be surprised how the brain begins to rewire itself to act on false visual information that it’s fed. It gets scarier…. Let me give a potent example.

Donatella Versace’s staff cover the message SMOKING KILLS on each pack of cigarettes before she sees it. There’s more.

They replace the genuine death warning with a fine sticker that highlights her DV monogram decked in a fine medieval script. So Donatella sees DV Marlboro Reds, each time she slips another cigarette into her mouth.


Yikes – what does that say about lies in the workplace? Do you see how faulty traditions can begin to trump current research? Eventually … like Donatella … you believe lies and teach your brain to do the same. Maybe that’s also what led this business celebrity to say … "Happiness is a word I do not believe exists."


How Sight and Sound can Trick your Brain


Auditory and visual information in the brain can conspire to trick us into seeing things that are not there, according to new research that suggests our senses are more intimately linked than previously suspected.


Researchers found that subjects shown a single flash of light sandwiched between two tones in quick succession reported seeing an illusory second light flash.

Reasoning for this is neural pathways directly linking the auditory and visual portions of the brain.

Answer 4

Ever hear of mind over matter? drugs are used in certain surgeries performed when the patient needs to be conscious. These drugs give the pt the impression that they are not experiencing pain, I read about that somewhere quite a few years ago! This is one example of tricking your brain!