Think Pinker

According to China Daily a direct link has been established between psychological distress and breast cancer. According to BioMed Central young women who have had severe emotional events in their life, are considered to be at high risk and they should be treated accordingly.

This isn’t the first study to conclude stress can increase ones risk of developing breast cancer. Swedish Research has shown that women are twice as likely to develop breast cancer if they are under high levels of stress.

Situations considered stressful include tension, anxiety, fear, and sleep disturbances related to work or family. One of these studies was conducted over 40 years ago and came up with the same results – stress is bad. Why didn’t it get the exposure it should have? Well because it was thought there were a lot of other factors that contributed as well, so that stress itself would not be the underlying factor.

Since that very early study many studies have been conducted that continuously show that you are twice as likely to develop breast cancer if you are stressed. That means although you might not be able to take stress out of your life, it’s important that you lean how to release that stress so that it doesn’t make you sick.

Each of us handles stress differently. For one a stressful situation might be the loss of a job, while for another it might take a divorce to feel stressed. That means it’s important for you to know what stresses you and to learn how to relax. Learn not to sweat the small stuff. Live by it! It could be the difference between breast cancer and no breast cancer!