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AFTER CANCER: RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STRESS AND CONTROL OF CANCER. MIND AFFECTING HEALTH

What Is the Relationship between Stress and Control of My Cancer?

Stress is only one factor that affects health. There are unsubstantiated claims that too much negative stress or poorly handled positive stress can affect your immune system in an adverse way. It is suggested that a depressed immune system cannot fight infections or control cancer cells as well as a healthy immune system.

Solid data correlating stress and cancer in humans are lacking. There are no scientific data to support the notion that stress is a cause of cancer or a cause of recurrence. Anecdotes are not scientific evidence.

Stress only affects your health; it does not control your health.

Could My Mind Have Caused My Cancer?

Your mind affects your health, often in profound ways, but it does not control your health. Wishing yourself to get sick, either consciously or subconsciously, will not cause you to develop cancer. Having cancer does not mean that you, either consciously or subconsciously, wanted to get cancer. Many factors within and beyond your control determined that you developed cancer and when you developed it.

Your mind affects your health by playing a role in your choice of diet, use of alcohol or other harmful substances, participation in an exercise program, and choice of job or living arrangements. These factors are known to influence your risk of developing cancer.

Your mind affects how you interface with your life. If you react to difficulties with genuine calm and hope, your body’s reaction will be very different from what it would be if you reacted with anxiety or bottled-up anger. There is scientific evidence for the health benefits of joy, laughter, love, and relaxation in your life. Unpleasant stress, chronic anger or frustration, and major loss are harmful to your health.

Your overall happiness and your ability to deal with stress are only two factors that affect your health. A well-balanced life does not make you immune to cancer. If you cope poorly with difficult life circumstances, you are not guaranteed a short life. If the mind controlled health, happy people would never die from cancer. Depressed, rejected, abandoned, or grief-stricken people who had difficulty coping would all die prematurely of heart attacks or cancer. But we all know people who were genuinely happy before they developed cancer, and many miserable people who lived to a ripe old age.

Scientific studies that have tried to look at the relationship between the development of cancer and a person’s state of mind, or a person’s life stresses, such as losing a spouse or becoming unemployed, have given conflicting results. Even the studies that support the association between stress and cancer provide no scientific data to show that stress causes cancer or its recurrence.