This Neuroscientist Had A Brain Tumor At 30 — What It Taught Him About Healing

What if the placebo effect isn't a trick, but a real, measurable change in your brain chemistry?

That's what neuroscientist Joshua Brown, Ph.D., told me on a recent episode of the mindbodygreen podcast. Brown studies how the brain processes expectation and reward, but he didn't just research this topic. He lived it.

After being diagnosed with a brain tumor at 30, he went searching for anything that could give him hope. What he found changed what he thought he knew about belief and biology.

We tend to dismiss the placebo effect as a trick, something that happens when people are gullible or suggestible. But the research shows something different.

When you expect relief, whether it's from a sugar pill, a ritual, or a conversation with someone you trust, your brain releases chemicals including endorphins and endocannabinoids. These chemicals produce feelings of happiness and relaxation, and their the the same molecules that pharmaceutical drugs target for relaxation and pain relief.

"The brain has this literally in-your-head biochemical ability to modulate the level of pain you experience," Brown explained.

There's an analogy Brown uses that stuck with me. "You are what you eat," he said, "and the same applies to beliefs."

Just like the food you consume becomes the raw material for your cells, the beliefs you hold become the raw material for your brain's predictions. And those predictions shape everything from your stress response to your immune function.

"The degree to which you can accurately predict what's going to happen next depends on you having an accurate internal model of how the world works," Brown said. Your brain is constantly processing everything that's happened and everything that's currently happening to answer the question: what's going to happen next?

One of the most interesting parts of Brown's story is how much his environment mattered during his recovery.

When he was diagnosed with the brain tumor, he spent time traveling all over the world to visit healing prayer meetings. This isn't because he was certain they would work, but because he wanted to see what was possible.

"The more time I spent in those environments, the more those experiences essentially caused me to update my internal model," he said. "It wasn't that I had to somehow psych myself out or trick myself to believe that miracles happen. It was simply a matter that I had seen so many that it seemed natural to believe that those are more likely."

This makes sense from a neuroscience perspective. We're social creatures, and our brains are constantly reading cues from the people around us. If everyone in your environment is bracing for the worst, your brain registers that as data. If they're holding space for something better, that becomes data too.

Given everything he knows about how the brain works, I asked Brown what practices he uses to prime his own system for positive expectation.

His answer was surprisingly simple: gratitude. Every morning, he spends time actively appreciating what's working. He conducted a large study on the positive effects gratitude has on the brain at the lab he founded, the Global Medical Research Institute.

Brown's research and personal experience shows us that beliefs aren't just thoughts. They're instructions for your brain. Every expectation you hold is a signal about what to prepare for, and your brain will start mobilizing resources in that direction.

The stories you tell yourself, the people you surround yourself with, and the morning rituals that set the tone for your day all have an impact. So while you may not be able to control everything, you can start paying attention to what you're feeding your brain. And it might make a bigger difference than you would expect.