Podcast: Download
Please Support The Show With a Donation
This week we talk to Erik Vance about the power of our expectations
Erik Vance is a native Bay Area writer replanted in Mexico as a non-native species. Before becoming a writer he was, at turns, a biologist, a rock climbing guide, an environmental consultant, and an environmental educator.
His work focuses on the human element of science – the people who do it, those who benefit from it, and those who do not. He has written for The New York Times, Nature, Scientific American, Harper’s, National Geographic, and a number of other local and national outlets.
His first book, Suggestible You, about how the mind and body continually twist and shape our realities was inspired by his feature in Discover.
In This Interview, Erik Vance and I Discuss…
- All the ways that our brain twists reality in order to make what it expects into reality
- How our brains are driven by expectations
- How we take the past, apply it to the present, to predict the future
- Whether we were alive at the same time as saber tooth tigers
- How powerful the placebo effect is
- How the placebo effect actually generates the neurochemicals in our brain we would expect to see
- It’s not that we imagine we feel a certain way; we really do feel it.
- “It’s All in Your Mind” is totally true
- How we have a wave of information from our brain, and a wave of information from our body; where they meet is what we feel
- His experience of being electro-shocked at the NIH
- How our brains don’t want to be wrong
- How we all have different responses to placebo and type of placebos
- The gene that helps predict whether you might be a placebo responder
- Placebo and chronic pain
- Belief and expectation play a large role in chronic pain
- The trouble in creating new drugs given such high placebo response rates
- How nocebo’s work
- How much of our pain is create by our expectations
- The power of hypnosis
- Hypnosis compared to meditation
- How fallible our memories are
- How easy it is to create false memories in people
Sandy Vance says
I recently enjoyed your episode with Laurie Santos, about happiness and brain power. It reminded me of an early podcast you did with my son, Erik Vance, way back on February 28, 2017, just after he published a book with National Geographic Press. I went back and re-listened to that episode, and was delighted (again) by your questions and comments, as well as Erik’s fascinating and sometimes humorous answers.
For the past few years Erik has been an Associate Editor with the New York Times in their “Well” section of the newspaper, working and writing out of his home high in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. Since the time of the publishing of his book, “Suggestible You,” he has researched and written many more articles regarding mental health and wellness, as well as subjects relating to parenting, exercise, and everything that involves living a better, healthier life.
As a (prejudiced) father, I thought you might be interested in this, as Erik always is an engaging podcast interviewee.
Best,
Sandy Vance
Eric Zimmer says
Hi Sandy,
I’m glad you enjoyed it. I loved talking to Erik. If Erik is interested in talking again have him reach out and we can see what might work out.