The Link Between Stress & Cancer & How You Can Fight It
Stress can cause affect your health in many adverse ways, especially if you are a woman. Increased stress has been linked to causing depression, anxiety, heart disease, infertility and cancer. Here is a look at how stress can increase your chances of and cause cancer, and how you can fight stress with some natural home remedies.
Stress Can Increase Your Chance of Having Cancer
It has been suggested that chronic stress in your life can depress your body's immune system and make you more susceptible to becoming ill. Besides becoming ill from a virus or bacteria, you can also be at risk of abnormal cell growths, as scientists have speculated that stress can increase your chances of getting cancer. Previous scientific studies have found that stress is a risk factor for cancer, and psychological stress has been linked to aggressiveness in breast cancer growth.
Your risk of cervical dysplasia and cervical cancer from an infection from the human papilloma virus (HPV) can increase with extra stress in your life. If you have acquired HPV, the virus can remain dormant within your body for some time. Then, a stressful period in your life can cause the virus to become active and cause changes to your cervix cells. It is recommended to talk to your gynecologist or doctor about getting the HPV vaccine to prevent HPV. Your gynecologist or doctor can also test you for HPV, and if you have it to treat it before stress in your life activates it.
Diet Can Help Reduce Stress
An easy way to help reduce the stress and its effects in your life is to take a multivitamin with vitamin C, or eat more vitamin C-rich foods, such as citrus fruits, yellow bell peppers, and kale. Vitamin C helps to regulate and lower the stress hormone cortisol your body produces. The effects of getting more vitamin C in your diet were discovered in a study when individuals under a lot of stress took 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C. These individuals found they had milder increases in their blood pressure, and their stress hormone levels were brought back to a normal range more quickly than individuals who did not take the extra 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C.
Try eating more blueberries and peaches in your diet. These two foods contain nutrients that have a calming affect on your body and help reduce stress. Eating dark chocolate once in a while can also help lower your cortisol levels.
Eating whole grains with your meals will increase your intake tryptophan. Tryptophan is an amino acid that your body converts to serotonin, which helps calm and improve your mood. Along with whole grains, adding oats into your diet can help increase your serotonin production. Eating more oats and whole grains can also help your mood as they are naturally high in fiber. The fiber keeps your blood sugar more level, helping to prevent blood sugar spikes that can lead to your blood sugar crashing and causing irritability in your mood, which can lead to stress.
Tea Drinking Can Help Reduce Stress
When you are under a great deal of stress, you can try drinking Ginseng tea three times a week. Along with the Ginseng in the tea, drinking a warm drink has its own calming effects on your mind and body. Be aware it is not recommended to drink Ginseng tea for more than two weeks at a time, as is only something you should use short-term to help with times of increased stress.
You can also try drinking a cup of Chamomile tea three times a day to help reduce your stress. Chamomile contains the chemicals apigenin and luteolin, which promote your relaxation. A study at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center found that taking chamomile supplements over an eight-week period decreased anxiety symptoms in patients who had generalized anxiety disorder. If you don't want to drink Chamomile tea, you can add it to your bathwater along with lavender and valerian for a relaxing bath. Wrap these three herbs in a piece of cheesecloth, tie it up the bundle, and place it under the running faucet as you fill the bath tub.
Use this to help recognize how stress can affect your health and how to reduce it. Learn more about how your stress is affecting your health by contacting resources like Heart Of Florida OB/GYN Associates.