There is a legend about the owner of Chateau Cos d’Estournel coming to India in the mid-nineteenth century to sell his wine to the Maharajas, one of whom loved the perfumed wine but told him, ‘the problem is our people are not allowed to drink alcohol so how I can recommend this wine to them,’ to which the owner used to say, ‘but Your Excellency, with my wine, you don’t need to drink it-only the seductive bouquet is enough to enjoy it. (As narrated by Jean-Guillaume Pratt, the current CEO on those lines).
Today the scientists would perhaps tell him that merely thinking about a glass of this Super-second, a Second Growth from Bordeaux would be enough to at least relax your stressed mind- quite like yoga and meditation.
Writing in the Current Directions in Psychological Science journal, researchers from Victoria University in New Zealand said: "the effects of suggestion are wider and often more surprising than many people might otherwise think."People are so suggestive that simply believing an alcoholic drink will make us feel better or socialize more easily at a party will greatly raise the chance of making it so," researchers said.
The Daily Telegraph reported that this is because we expect that alcohol will make us more relaxed, for example, we automatically respond by becoming more open and chattier in a subconscious attempt to meet our expectation, psychologists explained. Although most people would put the effect solely down to the alcohol, some studies suggest that our expectations of how the drink will make us feel, also play a key role.
Various other studies have shown that the power of suggestion can help people perform better in tests and even influence how well they respond to drug treatments, also known as the "placebo effect".
Authors cite a study in which people who took a dummy drug which was allegedly supposed to make them feel more alert began to pay closer attention in a monitoring test because they expected the drug would make them do so. Asked how they felt after taking the drug, the patients said it made them feel more "alert" and "focused" and gave them "greater clarity of vision", reporting what they expected the effects of the drug would be.
In India, where many people come home to the Hard Day’s Night and instantly open a bottle of Scotch and soda, vodka, gin or hopefully now a glass of wine, thinking it would relax them, need not do so. They can simply sit in a corner and think of a glass of nice wine like Cos d’Estournel.
Although not specified in the report, one would assume that the study implies that One has already gone through the experience of relaxation and one needs to think about a favourite wine that one has already tasted-the Cos may be a good example of that wine.
DelWine continues to recommend 2 glasses of wine (preferably red and fine wine) for men and one glass a day for women. If you do yoga regularly or meditate, you could consider adding the routine of fantasizing about drinking a glass of wine in the alpha state, if your teacher or consciousness so allows you and religion or social mores do not prohibit you from doing so- editor |