Can Emotional Trauma Create Cancer?
There are so many things in life that can shake us to the core, destroy our security, and cause us to doubt every thing we used to believe in ourselves. Divorce, death of a loved one sudden or not, abuse, memories from our childhood that bring back fear and insecurities, fires or even a cancer diagnosis to name a few. War or other tragic events can even leave us with psychological disorders like PTSD or post-tramatic stress disorder which according to The National Institute of Mental Health, “PTSD is a disorder that develops in some people who have experienced a shocking, scary, or dangerous event.
It is natural to feel afraid during and after a traumatic situation. Fear triggers many split-second changes in the body to help defend against danger or to avoid it. This “fight-or-flight” response is a typical reaction meant to protect a person from harm. Nearly everyone will experience a range of reactions after trauma, yet most people recover from initial symptoms naturally. Those who continue to experience problems may be diagnosed with PTSD. People who have PTSD may feel stressed or frightened even when they are not in danger.”
The long term effect from emotional trauma, according to the American Psycological Association is, “the emotional response someone has to an extremely negative event.” Often reffered to as shock, symptoms include racing heart, confusion, feeling numb, feeling distracted or being disoriented. These are part of our systems epinephrine surge or the flight or fight response. The problem happens when the event was so damaging to us that it stays in our mind and we just can’t shake it. You avoid people, places or any situation that would remind you of the event, or you have flashbacks and nightmares or the incidence just pops into your mind. You may forget what happened in the event or find yourself stressed when you come across any person, place or thing that could remind you of it. You could keep away from people because you feel shame, anger, guilt or fear bringing self destructive behavior because you just don’t have it in you to do the things that you used to do. You are unable to sleep because you are paranoid and are easily scared or startled, anxious, edgy, moody or just plain numb.
These ramifications of chronic could lead you into sickness or even cancer. When emotional trauma goes unhealed, according to Dr. Veronique Desaulniers, your body remains in a state of constant stress. Many studies have connected stress with lowering immunity and heightening disease. In a recent report, the findings showed how the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) can encourage metastasis. Under chronic stress SNS is turned on all the time altering genetic code.
This in turn leads to a number of pro-cancer responses such as inflammation, immune responses are inhibited, DNA cannot repair as well, cancer cells are not killed as easily, and thru “epithelial-mesenchymal transition,” new cancer stem cells are created.
Dr. Douglas Brodie, MD, is a pioneer in understanding the connection between the emotions, the mind, and cancer. After 30 years of research, he noticed that the majority of individuals diagnosed with cancer have similar psychological traits. Among these characteristics is the experiencing of a traumatizing and emotionally-damaging event roughly two years before getting a cancer diagnosis. Other characteristics are almost the same as long-term emotional trauma mentioned above. A few to note are the tendency to internalize intense emotions, difficulty in establishing closeness with others, and an inability to adequately cope with stressful situations.
The good news, however, is that there are dozens of ways that can help you heal the wounds of emotional trauma and reduce chronic stress that can lead to cancer. Here are four to try:
1-Meditation And Visualization
Radiation oncologist Dr. Carl Simonton and his wife Stephanie, a trained psychologist, are the authors of the book Getting Well Again: A Step-by-Step Self-Help Guide to Overcoming Cancer for Patients and Their Families. This seminal work was perhaps one of the first to document how people can influence their disease process through healing their emotions. Of the many modalities, they discuss are meditation and visualization. In their book, they provide example after example of how meditation and visualization prolonged life, improved the quality of life, and in some cases aided in cancer healing altogether.
More recent research confirms what the Simonton’s wrote about in the late 70s. A 2015 Canadian study observed breast cancer survivors who meditated and those who didn’t. After three months, the meditators showed evidence of longer telomere strands than those who did not practice meditation. Telomeres exist at the end of every cell chromosome and protect the integrity of genetic information. Shortened telomeres are often associated with age and diseases such as cancer.
2-Healing Emotional Wounds
Healing deep emotional wounds through therapy, hypnosis, or specific programs can help heal the lingering effects of emotional trauma, especially if it occurred during childhood.
The experiences you had during your formative years, whether they were positive or negative, formed how you now interact with the outside world as an adult. These belief systems can be changed, but only by working at the subconscious level, which was where they were formed in the first place. “Talk therapy” can be helpful for understanding the dynamics of the event and for breaking unhealthy behavior patterns when combined with other modalities such as visualization. Programs such as The Silva Method can speed up the process as well.
3-EFT
New Physics pioneer Bruce Lipton, author of The Biology of Belief, considers Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), or Meridian Tapping, to be in the category of “super-learning.” This is because EFT reprograms old negative beliefs by working on both the kinesthetic level (through tapping acupressure points) and verbal statements for very rapid results. EFT is ideal as a supplement to other modalities and as a stand-alone for lowering anxiety and stress levels quickly.
4-Exercise
There is a direct link between regular exercise and the regulation of stress hormones. Numerous studies have shown that when animals are stressed repeatedly and not allowed a physical outlet, disease sets in quickly. When animals are provided with a physical outlet to release the stress, however, the damage to their bodies is minimal. Studies also confirm that individuals who walk and jog on a regular basis are more flexible in their belief systems, display greater self-acceptance, self-confidence, and self-responsibility and were less prone to depression.
You CAN Heal Emotional Trauma and Reduce Your Risk of Cancer
Whatever modality you use for trauma healing, remember that the best course of action should include practices that you can incorporate into your regular routine − preferably on a daily basis. The ability to allow emotions to simply flow through you instead of holding on to them is akin to a “muscle” that must be worked every day in order to grow strong.
It may take a little time to see results from your inner work, but you WILL see them. And when you do, you will realize that the state of your life, and your health, has remarkably changed for the better.
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