Last week I wrote a post about stress:
Fact or fiction: Stress causes cancer
I opened by asking these questions:
Can stress cause cancer? Does chronic stress allow cancer to regain a foothold in patients who have already achieved remission? And/or does it reduce the effectiveness of anti-cancer therapies? Conversely, does living a relatively stress-free life help cancer patients live longer?
I then explained that trying to find answers was going to be an ongoing project, because the research isn’t as clear-cut as one might think.
We have heard it so often, I’m thinking that most of us have come to accept it as fact; stress causes cancer.
Well, I’m not sure it is. A fact, I mean.
So I asked my readers (YOU!) to keep your eyes open and let me know if you find any compelling evidence, one way or the other. Are you interested in the potential benefits of meditation? Or is drinking heavily and/or taking extra Ativan enough? (Just checking to see if you’re paying attention!)
Well, I re-visited my post and noticed that no one had commented. No interest in this topic? My ongoing “positive attitude quest” generated more comments:
Does a positive attitude really help myeloma patients live longer? YES!
YOUR MISSION: Help me start a “positive posse!”
Does attitude affect overall survival of cancer patients?
Personally, I think dealing with stress in a healthy way may be even more important than maintaining a positive attitude–or maybe the two are connected?
Please let me know what you think. There is so much to investigate–and only so many hours in a day. I would like to work-on what my readers think is important.
Feel good and keep smiling! Pat
October 8th, 2012 at 3:14 pm
Pat -
I think stress absolutely played a role in my getting the disease — it may even have been the primary factor.
I think that stress management — whether achieved through medication, meditation or simply learning to deal with stress better — is an important part of keeping healthy. And I think maintaining a positive attitude is a key to stress management.
I think it will be hard to prove any of this, but it’s an important topic.
October 8th, 2012 at 3:32 pm
Interesting that you identify stress as one of the primary causes of your myeloma, Nick. Hard to argue about that–your feelings are your feelings. I’ve always looked at it as more of a random type of thing. Maybe that’s why I was more accepting of my diagnosis. I know that has always puzzled you about me. I immediately chalked-it-up to bad luck. But that doesn’t mean that I’m discounting the possible affect of stress on our cancer…
October 8th, 2012 at 5:08 pm
Normally I am very “western” in my approach to this stuff, as you know, but in considering what could have caused it, I have to look at the year before I was diagnosed and recognize that I was barely getting any sleep, and I was under extreme stress both professionally and personally at the time. Plus I was almost deliberately cavalier about my health from an emotional and spiritual standpoint.
I’ve learned a lot since then!!
I’ve never smoked, there’s no MM in my family, I’ve never been around pesticides or industrial waste, etc.
It could certainly be random but I suspect my attitude, sleep deprivation and stress are what caused it.
October 8th, 2012 at 6:05 pm
Hi,
There’s no myeloma history in my family, I don’t smoke, hardly drink and was active but I worked very long hour’s and was on call I was always run down and was constantly mentally supressed and stressed by family and work. The bone pain started when I had just turned 27 I have no doubt that stress and tiedness let this through the net.
October 9th, 2012 at 8:11 am
Nick and Dan-
I was/still am a “type A” personality. We push our selves hard because that’s what we think we are supposed to do–and sometimes because we become addicted to the “juice”–stress junkies! Either way, it is very hard on our bodies…