Cancer and Personality
The personality of an individual is no more than a byproduct of that individual's thoughts. In other words, that individual has become what that individual thinks he or she is—a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Studies have shown a close correlation between cancer and personality, that is, the mind.
According to the Chicago Study on cancer, chronic depression plays a pivotal role in the development of cancer. The research findings indicated that the ability to express anger and the fighting spirit against cancer can significantly affect the outcome of the disease. As a further testament, cancer patients who are determined to conduct their own therapy treatments (although this is not what their doctors want) are most likely to get better.
Other cancer studies also indicated that even cancer denial is an effective cancer-coping mechanism in some cancer patients.
In short, your personality, developed and determined by your mind, is critical to the prognosis of your cancer, and hence its ultimate recovery.
Cancer and the Body and the Mind
According to best-selling author Wayne Dyer, “the positive effect of kindness on the immune system and on the increased production of serotonin in the brain has been proved on research studies.” In other words, the mind does have a positive impact on the functioning of the immune system, and hence your combat against cancer.
According to Alastair J. Cunningham, Ph.D. of the Ontario Cancer Institute, cancer patients who had worked the hardest at transforming themselves psychologically in their fight against cancer lived at least three times longer than what their doctors had predicted. Therefore, it makes sense that those cancer patients who have fought the hardest psychologically live the longest. Unfortunately, not too many cancer patients will do just that—fighting their cancers with all their might; many of them simply give up half way, and give in to cancer.
There is often a close connection between the body and the mind. The body affects the mind as much as the mind affects the body; it may be a case of the chicken-and-the-egg.
The Physical Effect of the Mind
Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) is a study of how the mind can affect the immune system. There is increasing scientific evidence that the immune system learns to recognize cancer cells and therefore has the potential to destroy them before they become lethal; that may explain the spontaneous remission of established malignant cancers in some cancer patients.
Chronic stress is one of the major factors contributing to the development of cancer because under duress, the nervous system secrets the hormone cortisol that weakens or suppresses the immune system.
Although the exact mechanism by which emotions and depression may affect the development and prognosis of cancer is relatively unknown, evidently the mind can positively or negatively alter the beginning and outcome of cancer.
Read my book: Congratulations! You've Got Cancer!
Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau
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