Mental Health

Address the Distress

As I have discussed earlier, stress can often lead to distress, that is, the way you are responding to some cause, some situation over which you feel you have no control. So, instead of asking, "How can I cope with my distress?" you need to ask, "What specific problem or conflict is making me feel like this?" This is as true for cancer and its treatments as for any other serious illness, all of which can cause depression that is often hard to distinguish from distress. Anti-depressants and stress management techniques only deal with symptom control, so pinning down the

Mental Health

What to Do About Stress

There is always some seemingly minor event to which our response sometimes appears to be out of proportion. Road rage is, I think, the best example. It takes only one straw to break a camel’s back, so when it comes to our health the "trigger" that finally upsets our body-mind’s natural balance and stimulates cancer’s unrestrained and rampant cell growth can be anything from smoking to bereavement, sunbathing to poor diet. In most instances, the interval between the cause and the effect is so great we fail to locate the cause of our disease, blaming it on

Family Health

Stress and Genetics: Factors Influencing Illness

Our immune system is not only affected by our thoughts, words, and external threats, but by our habits: not getting enough sleep, not eating enough, consuming tobacco, alcohol, caffeine, tranquillizers and other drugs. There seems to me to be little doubt that we are built into a pattern of life by the way we live.

Mental Health

Stress: How It Affects Us

In my previous article, I spoke about the way stress can affect our immune system. In fact, anything that inhibits the continued release of CRH lowers our immune defenses, and increases our susceptibility to diseases, inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, and behavioral syndromes such as depression, anxiety and anger.

Mental Health

The Immune System and Stress

By definition, stress means any situation or condition that causes you hardship, disquiet and discomfort. It can take various forms: work-related pressures, relationship conflicts, financial burdens, the loss of a loved one, a diagnosis of cancer.

Mental Health

The Healing of a Serious Illness

In Western societies, good health is taken for granted; ill health is associated with bad habits or bad luck. Many people, doctors included, consider ill health a sign of weakness, and so adopt a paternalistic approach towards people when they are ill, treating them as weak and helpless children, victims, and objects of pity. A life-threatening disease is also an unwelcome reminder to everyone around you of the inevitable passing of life.

Disease & Illness

Quality of Life: An Individual Decision

Few stories I know illustrate more keenly how people move their goalposts in measuring their quality of life than that of Alan who suffered the progressively crippling motor neuron disease (also know as ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and Lou Gehrig's disease).

Family Health

Making the Right Choices About Treatment

Disease & Illness

Myths and Facts Surrounding Cancer

In my previous columns, I listed some of the key questions I believe you owe it to yourself to ask before even contemplating, let alone pursuing, the use of alternative treatments. These are tough questions, but whereas many alternative practitioners rely on anecdote to back up their claims, any successful medical specialists would be willing to provide you with evidence and, if need be, with documentation to support their opinion. When your life is on the line, you need the odds to be stacked in your favor, not against you.

Alternative Medicine

Alternative Cancer Treatment: Additional Questions to be Asked

In my last column, I suggested several questions that need answers before committing yourself to an alternative therapy. But there are three further and key questions that I recommend. Your failure to ask these questions could cost you your life.