Are You Your Worst Cancer-Causing Agent?

At a time when we are constantly reading, watching and hearing about potential cancer-causing agents – we need to be extra wary of all cancer risks out there.  Whether drinking out of a plastic water bottle that’s been in the sun too long, eating way too much processed foods or even repeated exposure to radiation – most of us know that if we are not good to our bodies, we stand the great risk of ending up with some form of cancer.

Now, I know in my practice of medicine and more aptly Social Media Medicine, that too many of us tend to look the other way and go about life with a business-as-usual attitude.  But consider this:  why is it that how we manage the things affecting how our health is directly tied to cancer would not also apply to our emotional and mental health?

In a recent issue of Psychosomatic Medicine –  Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine, the topic of how psychological behavior very much impacts the physiological aspects of our brains, and in turn our bodies, has been touched upon. What this means to most of us is that how you think also has an impact on your body’s likelihood to develop cancer.  Let’s think about this for a minute.  Essentially, there is scientific evidence that supports that if you are one of those people that has a constantly negative disposition, then you stand a greater chance of getting cancer!

Though it is a cruel sentiment to suggest that when people have cancer they may very well have contributed to it by virtue of their own attitude – what is wrong with saying the truth?  Society is quick to point out when someone is smoking a cigarette, aren’t they?  And who doesn’t sound out loud and clear how the perils of walking unprotected through a radiation-filled X-ray machine are just about the worse thing you can do for you or your unborn baby?

So my question is this:  If we can unabashedly talk about the things that people eat that are cancer-causing, and the environment in which they can be exposed that are cancer-causing – shouldn’t we also be addressing the attitudes they may be holding that are cancer-causing?

Since it has been shown scientifically that there is a very strong brain-body connection between negative thinking and the decline of overall health, I believe it is imperative that as health professionals we owe it to our patients to shed light on this potential death sentence.  What’s stopping medical practitioners from educating each and every cancer patient with the potential worsening of their condition if they do not hold the right attitude throughout their ordeal?  I won’t even stop there.  In fact, it makes perfect sense to me that every medical practitioner be required to prescribe stress-reducing, anger-managing and attitude-adjusting lifestyles to their patients.  By making this sort of education mandatory upon every patient who is even deemed at risk for cancer, there is a good chance we can save many people from ever reaching the point of no return in the first place.

With all this talk of alternative medicine, the use of medical marijuana and natural therapy to reduce the effects of cancer – I truly believe that by prescribing cancer and pre-cancer patients with a trip (or more) to the yoga studio will do them a world of good.  Not only that, they can literally tap into EFT.  What is EFT?  According to the husband and wife team – authors, energy healing experts, teachers and coaches Drs. Phillip and Jane Mountrose, EFT is defined as a form of psychological acupressure that works by stimulating a series of traditional Chinese pressure points in the body.  The technique does not involve any needles and also incorporates verbal declarations of the person and by the person being treated.  The tapping method, developed by Stanford Engineering graduate and personal performance coach Gary Craig, has proven to work for thousands of people in relieving anything from hang-ups about weight loss, relationships, addictions and even negative thinking.

Against many traditionalist medical professionals’ conventional way of thinking, the new realm of total body health and wellness should encompass spirituality as well.  In my practice as a Social Media Medicine Expert, I openly advocate a total wellness approach as opposed to age-old tunnel-vision techniques that are limiting and often oppressive in the end care of the patient. After all, if we can’t think outside the box, how can we ever expect to live outside a box?