I believe in the placebo effect, and that it is a greater effect than can be explained with simply "they are just confused". But I think trying to weild it is like trying to use religion as a tool. There is at least as much power in religious beliefs but if you pray instead of taking medicine you need you will die. I think that the power of religion is also not well understood and 99% of religious claims are bullshit and so are 99% of "alternative medicine" and "alternative spirituality" claims. Some are people being superstitious and attributing good or bad results to actions erroniously. Some are people trying to sell you crap or manipulate you. And some are just trolls trying to fuck with you, like the people telling you to tape onions to your feet. Before you turn to any of that you should fist put the effort into being a healthy weight, doing some regular excercise to have tone muscles and release anabolic steroids regularly, suplement vitamin D in the winter and have regular compasionate human contact.