Hello there. It's Gabby here from Confidence After Cancer, and in today's episode I'm gonna talk about stress. I'm going to talk about why stress can make us ill. I'm going to ponder the question of does stress actually cause cancer? And then I'm gonna think about some ways that we can manage stress. Is it possible to avoid it altogether or can we make it manageable in our lives rather than letting it take over everything?

It seems to many people that stress is everywhere. It seems for a lot of people that stress is just part of life. We've almost become to expect that there's not a lot that you can do about it. It's just the way that modern life is. But is that true? I'd like to think about why we get stress and what that does to our bodies.

and the systems within our bodies. And to be honest, this is something I didn't really appreciate until after I had my cancer treatment and I became on a mission to not get ill again. And I thought about the way that I was living and my lifestyle, and I realized for many, many years I'd been stressed constantly for various reasons.

But maybe you can relate to that. It wasn't until I spoke to a doctor who explained to. , and this was new news to me, that the stress is your body's natural way of dealing with a situation and all your wonderful body is trying to do is to keep you safe. Okay, so if we go back thousands of years ago and think about where we've evolved from when we were cave people living in caves and there was danger outside of those caves.

So our body's instinctive job was to keep us. So in those situations where there was danger, your body's natural response is either fight or flight or freeze. You may have heard of this expression, and basically what it means is when you are in a very stressful situation where you need to do something quickly, for instance, run away from a wild animal, you don't think about it, your body just instinctively goes into fight or flight or freeze mode, and that is just to keep you.

So your brain kicks in and says, okay, what's going on here? We haven't got time to think about what's going on. We are just going to respond instinctively, and that's great, a great response. If there's a wild animal chasing you, you don't need to think about things. You don't need to mo it all over and consider all your options.

You just need all of your energy and all of your blood supply go into your arms and legs so you can run away as fast as you can out of that situ. Or possibly you may choose to stay and fight, but whatever. The brain is very, very clever. It's directing the energy and the blood flow and all of your energy to where it needs to go to keep you safe.

What it doesn't do in that situation is all the natural things that we do without even thinking about it, like breathing. Our bodies are amazing, and I've learned this through my nutritional healing H training that I've done. Our bodies are just wonder. If you think about when you cut your finger, your body's really, really clever.

It sends all the right blood cells to the site. It starts to produce scar tissue, and it starts to heal itself. Your body is programmed to heal itself, but sometimes we just get in the way of that. If you think about the billions of cells that we've got within our bodies, they are constantly dying, renewing, regenerating themselves, and it is said that every seven years you get a complete new.

So the, the you that has sat there now listening to this podcast or wherever you are, is not the same you that was there seven years ago. Your cells have completely renewed themselves, obviously some faster than others was. How does this relate to stress? As I've said, normally without even thinking about it, just as we are now and we are breathing, our brain is doing a great job of running our immune.

Our digestive systems are reproductive systems. So many things that are going on in our body, our hormonal systems. Our bodies are doing a great job of regulating everything that we need to keep us healthy and safe, but we need to think about our immune systems, our digestive systems, and other chemicals within the body.

We're not even aware. . But when we are in stress, the body, again, just trying to keep us safe, says, no, no, no, we haven't got time for all that. We're just gonna focus on getting you away from this danger. We are gonna get focus on getting you to run as fast as you can, and that's really clever because you don't need to think creatively, you don't need to be thinking about lots of other things at that time.

See your blood supply go straight to your arms and legs so you can run away, and that's fine for a short period of. But what if we are stressed over a long period of time? For instance, if you've got problems at work or in a relationship, or you've got financial problems, whatever it is, if that goes on for any period of time, that is not how we are designed to live, and your body simply becomes chronically stressed, and that's a real danger for.

Okay, so this fight, flight, or freeze response is perfect for a short period of time, but if it goes on any longer, you've got real problems storing up because your brain isn't doing what it should do. And somebody said to me the other day, and it really made me think, . I sometimes get my best ideas in the shower and I thought, oh yeah, that's true for me as well.

And then I've got experience of that. And you know why that is? It's because when you're in the shower, hopefully you've left all your worries outside of that door. You've gone in, you're very, very relaxed. And that's when your brain sort of comes to life. It's not doing anything else. It thinks, okay, I've got time now to be and space.

I can be creative. I can solve this problem that you. Maybe you're not even thinking about that problem consciously, but it's there and your brain will come up with solutions because you are relaxed and you can be creative, and you can be your full, wonderful. Inventive self that you can be. So if you've been stressed, you might hear the expression, I really can't see the wood for the trees.

I'm just muddled thinking. I've got brain with fog. Um, I hear a lot of people saying, I've got chemo fog. All of these things come with stress, just muddled thinking, where your brain is just tired, tired of trying to make sense of the world. But the first thing, most important thing to recognize, this isn't how we are supposed to be.

So thi this brings me onto the question of does stress cause cancer? And of course, I'm not a doctor, but I've been studying this for many, many years. So my answer would be, well, yes it does. Indirectly you may not be able to pinpoint the events that started your stress, although some people can. And we also think about the fact that it has now become accepted, a sort of common knowledge that one in two people will, in their lifetime develop some sort of.

and that just feels very, very wrong to me. And possibly. Do you think that's because of the way that we are living where stress has become the norm, where everybody that you know says, I'm so stressed, I'm so stressed, I'm stressed at work. I'm so busy, of course, and I'm not here to tell you what to do. I'm here to invite you to think about this.

Are you stressed? Are you living in a way that's not supporting your. Where your body, your beautiful body, can just heal itself in a beautiful, natural way. Okay, so I've talked about before how you can have the best diet in the world. You can eat the best food, you can be on the best drugs that offer your condition, but if you don't address the underlying stress that's caused you to get ill in the first place, where are we going with that?

I talked before about when you are in fight or flight. Your digestive system is not gonna be working to its full effect. And that is when I've heard of people who have really, really good diets who are almost suffering with, uh, malnutrition because their body is not absorbing all the nutrients in that wonderful food that they're eating because they're so stressed.

Okay, so what are the things that we can do about this? There are lots and lots of things that you can do, but the most important thing is to understand this is a very personal thing for. , and I'd ask you, what do you do to relax? What do you do that makes you happy? Because you need to do more of that.

Okay, I've got some suggestions. And I'm not here to preach to you or tell you what to do. You must pick and choose what works for you. Do you need to get out in nature more? Do you need to do more exercise? Do you need to connect with like-minded people? And I would really encourage you if you are not connected with people who've got the same values and the same focus as.

Find your tribe. Find people who are interested in what you are interested in. People who are on the same wavelength as you. People who energize you. Don't drain your energy. Those are the people you need to be spending time with. Are you spending time with people who make you laugh, who make you forget your troubles?

I hope you do. I've got some dear friends that make me laugh, and I make it my business now to make sure I have time in my busy schedule to spend. Meditation works for many people. To be honest, I struggle with meditation, although what I've learned to do now is to listen to a meditation soundtrack. Just put headphones in and listen to that calm, soothing voice, and that really helps me.

Or the other thing I like to do is to meditate. It's just to watch a candle and don't be too distracted by the fact that these thoughts keep coming and coming into my mind. That's fine. Just sitting for five minutes a day can do the world of. . The other thing that you can do to relax is being creative.

I've talked before about how using different parts of your brain, and sometimes your brain will kick in, maybe in the shower when you relax. So if you can enjoy being creative, it may be writing music, it might be dancing, it might be writing poetry, it might be listening or appreciating all of the things that other people have created.

Spent some time doing that. The other big thing that I would counsel used to do is to curate your. And what do I mean by that? If you are thinking very carefully about the things that you are watching and listening to and thinking about every day, so for instance, for me, I know that listening to the news on the television doesn't mean no good at all.

It doesn't uplift me. It makes me fearful if I watch it for too long. And so I choose to have minimal impact. We're watching the news on the tv, but everyone is different again. And I would say curate your input also about social media. . I love social media. That's great. And, and wary of my social media becoming an echo chamber.

I try not to just listen and follow people who have got the same points of view of me. However, it's difficult when you follow some people on, on social media and you are seeing things that you find offensive or you've seen things that make you angry. . You know, I've got a keen and interesting politics, but I've realized that some of the people I follow, they're quite angry.

And you could say rightly so with what's going on in the world, we should be angry. But that anger and that energy is not what I want to be bringing into my life, and particularly just before I go to sleep. And so I'm very conscious of what I listen to and what I reader in the evening before I go to bed.

And the other big piece of advice that I would give you is stay curious. There is so much in the world that you can learn so many things that you can get involved with. And for me, I've learned this from my grandchildren because I'm seen through their eyes again. You know, my children have grown up and I've almost forgotten what it's like for a five year old, for a seven year old, for a young person to to be totally in awe of the magic in the world.

And so for me, I love that the secret to enjoying life is staying curious and to carry on. And I am currently learning emotional freedom technique, which you may have heard of E F T or tapping. Uh, it's a wonderful technique used for relaxation and there's lots of of it on YouTube. You can just follow somebody along and want some more experience with it.

I'll share some experiences about that. So I hope I've given you some food for thoughts. and just to think about for a minute why stress might make us Ill, and also think about what are the things that you can do, because I do think that's a very positive thing. Once you stop and think about it, there are lots of things that you can do.

I'm off now to sort some of these things out. I'm going to go and read a nice book. If you need any help with anything, I would love to hear from you. Thank you so much for listening to my podcast. It really means a lot. Take care, Milo, and I hope we speak very soon. Stay safe, stay sane. Take care. Goodbye.