You have probably seen your fair share of emotional debaters arguing both for and against the more commonly used treatments if you frequent communities revolving around medical ailments, aesthetic enhancement, or any other relevant topic.
As someone who used to have extreme health anxiety and anxiety in general I think I can shed some valuable insight on the topic for those who may be in a similar situation.
Let’s get into the Psychology of Side Effects.
- Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links so we may receive compensation if you sign up for or purchase products linked below from Amazon or other affiliated companies. Full Affiliate Disclosure. This post does not contain medical advice, we, Hardmaxing.com, are not medical doctors, this information is for general and educational purposes only. Full Medical Disclaimer.
Introduction
There’s a lot that goes into the Psychology of Side Effects and the three main factors I can think of would be the placebo effect, anxiety, and the truth of the matter (data).
There are so many books, techniques, frameworks of thinking that have drastically helped my anxiety but those are all topics for another time.
I just think so much conversation online is impacted by these biases. We may not even be acutely aware of ourselves but as someone who was on the other side and shifted my mindset I see it all the time.
Anxiety
Anxiety is a huge aspect in my opinion. You see a lot of guys on hair loss forums spamming posts with the question “sides?” as if there’s some magical number of people using finasteride without sides in their brain that will allow them to start using the medication without anxiety.
I’ve seen the same thing on forums centered around other conditions, diseases, etc. It’s like a hivemind of anxiety.
This is not rational thinking – rational thinking would be looking at the overall data and piecing together different findings and what’s known about the thing itself to make an informed decision based on your goals and individual risk tolerance.
Making a rational, informed decision will save you so much time, energy, and worry. If it goes bad then it goes bad but at least you know you made an informed decision to the best of your ability and needs at the time or you chose not to proceed and don’t have any regrets because you did the due diligence.
I’m fairly qualified to talk about this as I used to be an extremely anxious person – so anxious that I stayed inside for 2 years straight, was constantly in my head, and couldn’t even sit in class without shaking and sweating.
I also had extreme health anxiety – I lived in those types of communities for years before I realized the problem wasn’t with my body but with my mind. The people who hyperfocus over these things are likely going to amplify those things heavily in their mind.
Do you ever see those people who unknowingly do something dangerous or risky for years and seem totally indifferent about it when informed? Obviously that’s not optimal for various reasons but I think the overall mindset of not being overly concerned and paranoid about the tiniest details 24/7 is something we can all learn from.
Another example – how is it that some guys magically approach women while others analyze what to say and stumble over their words in a shy manner – is it luck or a mindset difference?
These people have a state of “zen” or of not caring that I think is really valuable for people on the other end of the spectrum to be aware of even if the “zen” stems from ignorance or lack of care.
For those with health anxiety or just anxiety in general – I’ll be writing a bunch of stuff on what really helped me as well as my full story, great books and resources, etc. I know how debilitating it can really be at the extremes even when everything in life is seemingly fine externally.
Placebo
Placebo is a big thing as well – it’s a well studied effect and is something I think that is indicative of a greater mindset shift.
The Oxford English Dictionary describes the placebo effect as “a beneficial effect produced by a placebo drug or treatment, which cannot be attributed to the properties of the placebo itself, and must therefore be due to the patient’s belief in that treatment.”
If you are aware that something may have negative side effects you’ll likely be hyper aware that something negative is potentially happening even if you aren’t explicitly concerned.
I recommend reading this overview on the subject from the National Library of Medicine.
This effect is well known to impact people at baseline – now imagine if you take into account medications or treatments/techniques which are impacting your physiology to a fairly large extent.
You can see just how clouded things may become.
Truth
I say all of the following to then still say this: there is of course truth to be found in countless user anecdotes and even more so in the scientific data.
Do you see people complaining about dry eyes or depressive moods from Vitamin D? Probably not – Vitamin D is not something that’s generally recognized as contributing to these things. If there was truth to this we would’ve probably heard about it by now.
My point is that there is likely truth in things if it’s talked about enough – to an extent. My other point is that the mechanism of the drug is relevant to the potential side effect profile.
Accutane is literally designed to decrease oil production so dry eyes as a potential side effect is logical. Finasteride lowers DHT to an extent and may increase estrogen by proxy in those susceptible – does it make sense that this may alter the male mood or sex drive?
You aren’t being objective if you completely deny that some of these interventions cause side effects – but on the other hand if you look at the vast amounts of data we now have a still want to make an argument that they are bad for the majority you are just as wrong.
Then you can look at actual studies – if a study shows something then you should probably take that into account with a fairly large amount of weight. Good studies with large amounts of data points are some of the best ways to predict what may happen for the majority of people.
If you want to ignore these things on either side it may be a mistake.
Conclusion
At the end of the day this is all a risk vs reward scenario and something people need to decide for themselves based on their goals and preferences.
My main point in writing this is to inform those about the psychology of side effects.
If you’re like how I was you may want to treat something but are irrationally worried about side effects or things going wrong.
This is especially true for those with anxiety at baseline.
Looking at this stuff logically, solving my real problems (anxiety) allowed me to improve all of these other aspects of my life. Something to be aware of at the least.