Besides Achieving and maintaining a healthy body weight can help prevent cancer. Dietitian Diana Steele shares advice on the types of foods you should avoid and the kinds you should embrace for cancer prevention.
Ours is an age that emphasizes impulsive emotionalism over experience. Emotions and experiences are not necessarily bad things, but they should not be set up in opposition to the mind, to reason. In this message, Dr. R.C. Sproul exhorts us to remember that Jesus called us to love God with all of our minds.
Imagine this scenario: the incident of interacting with an “energy vampire” – that person who simply seems to emanate some kind of negative energy you can’t quite put your finger on, but you can feel inside – an energy that disturbs you or makes you too seem negative, down, or angry. On the flipside, you may occasionally walk into a room where the energy is so intense and positive that you can’t help but smile.
How does this all work exactly? How can you feel your partner without them saying anything? How can you sense the negative or positive energy emanating from someone? And what does this have to do with using your mind to heal your body?
In this article, you’re going to take a journey into the invisible, surprising connection between your mind, your emotions, your beliefs and your biology. By the end of this article, you will be fully equipped to understand and explain the powerful link between invisible emotions & energies and visible, tangible changes to a living being’s physiology and biology. You will know how to use emotions, thoughts and beliefs to change not only your own health and body but the health and bodies of those around you.
This article will set you up to be far more aware of concepts often considered “woo-woo” in our modern scientific era, and better able to understand many other spiritual, invisible concepts, including ideas such as the power of gratitude, sound frequencies for healing, and the anti-aging effects of relationships and love. Let’s do this. I first realized the power of emotions and stress to affect disease risk. By Ben Greenfield
When I traveled to Israel for a tour of the country’s unique collection health spas, fitness centers, healing retreats, wellness facilities. In Northern Galilee, I visited the home of a former professional basketball player – Doron Sheffer.
Doron had been an amazing athlete. He was an achiever. A hard-charger. A professional person. As a guard for the dominant college basketball team UConn, he fed the ball to star teammates like Ray Allen and played for legendary coach Jim Calhoun. Sheffer averaged five assists and thirteen points per game, he hit 40% of his three-point attempts and led the UConn Huskies to a brilliant 89-13 record, along with NCAA tournament appearances in each of his three seasons. He then became the first Israeli ever drafted by the NBA when the Los Angeles Clippers selected him in the second round in 1996, but he instead signed a lucrative contract with the Israeli professional basketball team, Maccabi Tel Aviv – which he then led to four consecutive national championships.
But then Doron got testicular cancer. When I sat down with him in his backyard garden looking over the beautiful hills of Amirim, eating a meal of organic figs, goji berries and sweet local almonds, he described how the tremendous pressure, tension, difficulties, frustrations pent-up emotions and stress from the life of a hard-charging professional athlete eventually built up inside him and culminated in disease.
Indeed, scientists also have actually discovered that the emotional stress similar to what Doron experienced can be a trigger for the growth of tumors. As a matter of fact, any sort of trauma, emotional or physical stress, can act as a literal pathway. . . .between cancerous mutations, bringing them together in a potentially fatal combination. For example, at Yale University, scientists have now discovered that everyday emotional stress is a trigger for the growth of tumors. They discovered that any sort of trauma, emotional or physical, can act as a pathway for cancerous mutations.
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been a major part of healthcare in China, and extensively affected medicine and healthcare in surrounding countries over a long period of time. In the fight against cancer, certain anti-cancer remedies using herbs or herbal formulas derived from (TCM) have been developed for the management of malignancies. Furthermore, there are clinical trials registered for the use of herbal remedies in cancer management. Herbal medicine has been used as part of combined therapies to reduce side‑effects of chemotherapy, including bone marrow suppression, nausea and vomiting. Herbal remedies have been – used – as chemopreventive therapies to treat precancerous conditions in order to reduce the incidence of cancer in high‑risk populations.
Emerging evidence has revealed that herbal remedies can regulate the proliferation, apoptosis, adhesion and migration of cancer cells. In addition to this direct effect upon cancer cells, a number of herbal remedies have been identified to suppress angiogenesis and therefore reduce tumour growth. The inhibition of tumour growth — may be due to modifications of the host immune system by the herbal treatment.
However, precise mechanisms underlying the therapeutic effects of herbal remedies remain poorly understood and are yet to be fully elucidated. The present study aims to summarize the current literature and clinical trial results of herbal remedies for cancer treatment, with a particular focus on the recent findings and also development of the Yangzheng Xiaoji capsules.
The findings show the conditions for developing cancer can be significantly affected by your emotional environment, including every day work and family stress. In other words, your risk for developing cancer can be positively or negatively affected by your emotional environment, including everyday work, physical, emotional and relationship stress.
The traditional Chinese medical view of cancer etiology has long held emotions are a major contributing factor for cancer. namely emotions. For example, author Sun Binyan writes in his book “Cancer Treatment and Prevention.“
“According to our understanding of the tumor patient, most also have suppression of the emotions. They tend to hold in their anger. Although some patients have good results after treatment, emotional stimulation may cause them. . . . to decline again and then the previous treatment would have been in vain. While some people also have a severe phobia about cancer. Before they know the real disease, they have a lot of suspicions. Once they know they have cancer, their whole spirit breaks down. This kind of spiritual state is very bad for the treatment.” https://www.acupuncturetoday.com/mpacms/at/article.php?id=28009
In the book “Prevention and Treatment of Carcinoma in Traditional Chinese Medicine“, Jia Kun formula and gives ten recommendations for prevention. Also in addition to good environment and personal hygiene, proper amounts of physical activity and rest, healthy food & good eating habits and avoiding smoking, he states that:
“Emotional changes, such as worry, fear, hesitation, anger, irritation & nervousness should be prevented. Mental exhaustion is harmful and life should be enriched with entertainment.” Chinese medicine authors Shi Lanling and Shi Peiquan also mention the etiology of various cancers in their book “Experience in Treating Carcinomas with Traditional Chinese Medicine.”
“The etiologic factors of the disease involve chiefly the disturbance of the seven emotions, especially melancholy, anxiety, and anger, which are liable to impair the spleen and the liver. Impaired by melancholy and anxiety, qi will be stagnated and the spleen will lose the function of transformation and transportation, leading to disturbance of water metabolism and the subsequent accumulation of phlegm-dampness, while, impaired by anger, the liver qi will be stagnated. The stagnated liver qi, as qi is the commander of blood, may give rise to blood stasis if not relieved in time.
Thus, emotional disturbance, in-coordination between the ascending-descending movement of qi of the zangfu organs, sluggish flow of qi and blood, and the ensuing obstruction of dampness, phlegm, and blood stasis are the fundamental pathogenesis of the disease.”
In their section on treatment of breast cancer, the authors refer to a discussion in a Ming Dynasty text by the surgeon Chen Shigong (1555-1636 A.D.) indicates that breast cancer “results from anxiety, emotional depression, and overthinking which impairs the liver, spleen, and heart and causes the obstruction of the channels.” This text is also mentioned in The Treatment of Cancer by Integrated Chinese-Western Medicine, and is translated as follows:
“Breast cancer is due to worry and melancholy. Lots of ideas hanging around make one feel dissatisfied. Perverse flow of liver qi to the spleen leads to the obstruction of the channels and collaterals and congelations due to excessive accumulation.”
In addition, the book “Cancer Treatment with Fu Zheng Pei Ben Principle” presents a section on etiology of cancer, and describes the following with regards to emotional disturbances:
“TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) embodies changes of spirit and sentiment as the seven emotions: pleasure, anger, grief, fear, yearning, sorrow, surprise, all of which are emotional, physiological reactions of an organism towards external changes in its environment. Emotional disturbance refers to reactions, either excessive (excitation) or insufficient (inhibition) which will ultimately lead to disturbances in the flow of qi and blood and the visceral functions, with subsequent illness.
TCM claims rage harms the liver, excessive stimulation harms the heart, grief harms the spleen, great sorrow harms the lungs, and fear harms the kidneys. Though not necessarily precise, this belief definitely points out that emotional injury will affect the physiological functions of the qi, blood, viscera, and channels, and lower the body resistance, resulting in disease. The human body is susceptible to cancer when under emotional stress or disturbance.”
Indeed, one major published study in China involving a significant population of approximately 750,000 individuals in Beijing attempted to determine if psycho-social factors contributed to the incidence of primary lung cancer. They reported three factors positively associated with the occurrence of lung cancer: 1) a burst of emotion that could not be controlled; 2) poor working circumstances, including poor relationship with coworkers; and 3) a depressive feeling for a long time.
Western research has gone on to support the idea that depression can impair immune system functions. For ex., it has been shown tumor-relevant lymphocyte subpopulations, also known as natural killer cells (NK cells, which can attack cancer cells), have receptors for various neuropeptide proteins, including those released during stress. This means that NK cell activity can be influenced by emotions.
The level of NK cell activity has been shown in research to be a good predictor of breast cancer and a loss of NK activity. . .in cancer patients has been shown to be correlated with psycho-social measures such as level of patient “adjustment” (avoiding showing distress at the cancer diagnosis/treatment – e.g. “internalizing” the stress), lack of social support, and symptoms of fatigue or depression.
Another recent report analyzed the findings of close to a hundred studies demonstrate how the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), “fight & flight ” portion of the nervous system can actually encourage metastasis when chronically elevated. During acute stress, the SNS becomes active. However, as soon as a stressful event has passed, the body returns back to homeostasis within about an hour.
However, under chronic stress, the SNS is “turned on” virtually all the time, and in this chronically stressed state, adrenaline and noradrenaline can alter genetic expression via the same protein-folding mechanisms you’ve already discovered in this article. Also this genetic alteration can lead to a number of pro-cancer processes, including activation of inflammatory responses, inhibition of immune responses and programmed cancer cell death, reduction in the cytotoxic function of NK cells, and also inhibition of DNA repair, stimulation of cancer cell angiogenesis, and activation of the “epithelial-mesenchymal transition,” which is one of the ways new cancer stem cells are created.
Now here’s the deal: I’m personally a very hard-charging guy focused on personal and professional excellence in everything I do. But I truly believe that unless you are able to relax, to breathe, to de-stress and to simply stop and smell the roses, you’re going to be the kind of person who eventually develops a chronic-stress related disease that forces your fast-forward life into slow-motion.
So you have to put the brakes on before your body puts the brakes on and forces you to stop, perhaps with the flu, perhaps with back pain, or perhaps with cancer.
Make sense?
The ultimate question is: how can you do this? How can you slow down before your body forces you to slow down? How can you somehow dig yourself out of a hole of a constant barrage of emails, text messages, phone calls, over-exercising, eating to train and training to eat, and going to bed late, 24-7 self-quantified biohacking, trying to “have everything,” getting up early and still somehow managing to squeeze in some semblance of quality in your friend and family relationships?
This is exactly what Doron figured out, and this man’s new approach to life, his answers, and his new aura of peace and calm spoke heavily to me. He defied conventional medicine and naturally healed his body of cancer, and his approach to life is now refreshing, relaxed and incredibly peaceful. When I visited Doron at his peaceful home & private health resort “Hyuli” in Amirim, in the mountains of Northern Israel.
I was surrounded by a laid-back, de-stressed community of aromatherapists, massage therapists, herb gardens, spas, a health food shop, an organic olive oil shop, art galleries, restaurants and wellness bed and breakfasts. These mountains are where Doron slipped away from chronic stress, reinvigorated his body and also underwent his own “spiritual cleanse” to win his battle against testicular cancer.
Now that you understand how your thoughts, stressors, emotions and beliefs affect your biology, it’s time to identify both the positive and the negative emotions and stressors that either allow you to use your body as your own pharmacy and heal yourself from the inside-out, or to think yourself into a state of illness and disease.
Among known and avoidable risk factors causing cancer deaths in Chinese population, the most important are chronic infection (29.4%), tobacco smoking (22.6%), low fruit intake (13.0%), alcohol drinking (4.4%), low vegetable intake (3.6%) and occupational exposure (2.7%). However, rankings are different when stratified by gender.
The top six factors in men are tobacco smoking, chronic infection, low fruit intake, alcohol drinking, low vegetable intake and occupational agents; whilst those in women chronic infection, low fruit intake, tobacco smoking, low vegetable intake, occupational agents and environmental agents. Because prevention (such as changing lifestyles) is a long term effort and the effects will not been seen in the near future, then secondary prevention, which is known as early detection & early treatment, is the most effective measure for cancer control and prevention in China.