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by Michelle Hancock
Not a day goes by that the word “cancer” doesn’t scare thousands of Canadians. Like a dreaded scourge, it hovers over us, presumably just waiting to claim its next victim.
But according to scientists in the growing field of mind/body medicine, the disease is not as much an external force as you might believe. Fear and anxiety–our thoughts and feelings–can impact our health just as much as a long list of cancer risk factors. “Psychoneuroimmunology”’ is the scientific term to describe the study of the mind/body connection. Carl Simonton, MD, is an oncologist who pioneered research in this discipline as early as the 1970s. His book, Getting Well Again (Bantam, 1978), shows how “an individual’s reaction to stress and other emotional factors can contribute to the onset and progress of cancer [while] positive expectations, self-awareness and self-care can ontribute to survival.”
Alternative Therapies – Meditation, with Dr Kathy Sykes
- Matthieu Ricard (French) - translator for Dalai Lama – Nepal, Kathmandu, meditation
- Dr Herbert Benson – the relaxation response - book
- Marharishi Vedic City
- Transcendental meditation, impact on coronary health
- pubmed.gov for papers
- “reviews” collate information from a number of papers, periodically
- Professor Mark Williams, Oxford
- Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT)
- Anti-depression/clinical-depression
- 80% mindfulness meditation, 20% cognitive therapy
- Uses meditation similar to that taught by Mattiau in Nepal
- Buddhist practices
- focus on breathing
- Observing without trying to fix
- Seeing thoughts as just thoughts
- Reduces risk of recurrence by up to 50% in patients who have had 3 or more depressive episodes
- Helps other anxiety – can help everyone (universal anxieties, self-doubts etc, awareness)
- Available to some on the NHS
- Dr Richard Davidson, University of Wisconsin – Madison
- Meditation shifts brain activity over time from left-hand-side to right-hand-side
- Dr Sarah Lazar
- Meditation over time is associated with increased cortical thickness
- Effects are cumulative (“every minute sitting counts”)
- Cortex associated with attention and sensory processing
- alters ability to concentrate
- alters response to “sensory” stimuli – physical sensations (pain, hunger etc) but also emotional sensations (fear, anger etc)
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Circadian rhythm experiment going well but stayed up too late last night.
- Fri: start … sleep 19:15
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Sat: wake 06:30, sleep: 8:30
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Sun: wake 4:15 then doze on and off to 6:20, sleep 22:15 (45 minutes later than planned)
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Mon: wake 6:50 with alarm, sleep 21:45 (hopefully)
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Could use capturing sunrise/sunset figures alongside these to identify any correlation
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Received reply from Dr Wozniak about circadian rhythms and mental alertness, needs a proper read to make sense of it
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Today wasn’t good for the soul
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Tried too hard to “carry on regardless” which actually just delayed release of work stress and delayed return to productivity. Work fears became focused (unhealthily) inwards as personal professional doubts, which then clouded everything. Could use active focus on externalising more.
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Research funding position is slightly bleak. Long term research path will need to be identified early to tackle this. It probably doesn’t need to be a concern at this stage; look far enough down any country road and you’ll find a tractor.
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Will it be possible to “stick it out” until next year? Need to monitor decreasing resilience to upset (such as today) and waning patience; this isn’t a test, just a means to an end. There are others.
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Would like to meditate more, would like flat to be tidier
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Still managed to squeeze in a morning walk and jog through the woods and half way around the playing field; a good start to my first work-day under the circadian rhythm experiment.
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Haven’t decided whether notes like this are better here or in my paper notebook, we’ll see.
