Natural Cancer Treatment: Meditation

Major religious traditions have known for millennia that meditation can improve health. While some medical practitioners are still skeptical about its usefulness this is largely because they are not aware of the amount of evidence there is in the medical literature. Meditation not only changes the electrical activity of the brain but impacts on both the hormonal cascades and the immune system.

When I first started as a researcher I was told in no uncertain terms that there was no evidence that stress contributed to ill health. Now it is known that stress suppresses the immune system through multiple processes including encouraging the white blood cells to die off. They call this stress induced "apoptosis of lymphocytes and development of immune supression by means of glucocorticoid pathways". Please bear with me and put up with some big words. I have found that most doctors and many ordinary people won't believe it is effective without these convoluted expressions.

Researchers have also been able to show how meditation can increase the relaxation response and undo many negative effects of stress. It always makes me smile when a statement such as this is blithely disregarded by my medical colleagues. However, if I quote from a paper and say how stress activates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, or that "cortisol is also a powerful immunosuppressant and this may undermine the capacity of NK (natural killer) and cytotoxic T-cells to eradicate tumor cells" then I can have a more productive conversation with them.

In addition to these biological effects meditation has been shown in research to reduce negative moods of depression, anxiety, anger, irritability and confusion in patients with cancer.

Most people feel much better after becoming regular meditators. They come to a greater sense of peace about their situation and their lives, have a greater sense of trust in the world, and improved coping capabilities. And each of these emotions not only make you feel better, but they have a positive flow on effect to your hormones and immune system.

One of the issues surrounding self care in cancer is the hope and expectation that some special pill, potion or magic herb, or in this case, meditation might be the cancer equivalent of antibiotic use in tonsillitis. Unfortunately there are no promises for recovery from cancer - not even from medicine and chemotherapy. Chemotherapy contributes an average to only just over 2% to the 5-year survival rate. This means that many survivors are recovering as a result of their own innate immunity.

Therefore anything that might increase one's innate immunity and anything that can upregulate the cancer fighting cells should be considered. The wonderful aspect of natural cancer treatment is that there are no bad negative side effects.

Meditation is just one of these upregulators of the immune system. Meditation need not cost any money. It can be undertaken in a great many environments without additional resources and in my opinion it should be in the front line of any self care. Look out for other upregulators of the immune system, such as good social support, enough Vitamin D3, bright colored fruits and vegetables and exercise. With cancer, and indeed with any chronic or terminal illness you need every possible assistance to improve your chances of improved short and long term outcomes.