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Areas › Your body › Touch and bodywork
That dummy half is the interesting number. It tells you how much improvement can come from attention, hope and being taken seriously, before any device is switched on. The active group did better on how they were doing overall but not on specific symptoms, which is usually the shape of a general lift rather than a targeted effect. None of that makes it worthless. It does mean holding expectations loosely.
The Qur'an calls itself 'a healing for what is in [your] hearts' (Quran 10:57). Hope and attention are not nothing, and it is worth being honest when they are doing most of the work.
يونس
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلنَّاسُ قَدۡ جَآءَتۡكُم مَّوۡعِظَةࣱ مِّن رَّبِّكُمۡ وَشِفَآءࣱ لِّمَا فِي ٱلصُّدُورِ وَهُدࣰ ى وَرَحۡمَةࣱ لِّلۡمُؤۡمِنِينَ
People, a teaching from your Lord has come to you, a healing for what is in [your] hearts, and guidance and mercy for the believers
Qur’an 10:57read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A meta analysis of massage for cancer pain found real reductions in pain while noting that nobody can be blinded to receiving a massage and that trial quality was uneven. Comparisons against a convincing dummy are exactly what these fields find hardest. It concerns massage rather than brain stimulation, and the methodological problem is the same.
Lee SH, Kim JY, Yeo S, Kim SH, Lim S. (2015). Meta-Analysis of Massage Therapy on Cancer Pain.. Integrative cancer therapies doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
With a handful of people and a strong dummy response, a result cannot tell you much yet.
Ordinary harmless sensation competes with pain on its way up. Rubbing, squeezing or stroking near a sore place gives the nerves plenty of other traffic to carry.
The best ending is often that therapy stops and the practices carry on. People finish their sessions and keep the yoga, the bodywork, the acupressure, the sitting quietly.
Most of us hold a whole day around the eyes without knowing it. Scrunch them shut, open them wide, then rest your fingertips lightly over them for a few breaths.