How Meditation Can Help Reduce Cancer: Link Between Stress and Cancer
- Brisbane Meditation
- May 23
- 2 min read
The link between stress and cancer has a growing body of evidence.
This blog outlines 3 key studies which show how meditation can help reduce cancer by being a tool for stress management, as stress leads to many internal issues that we're only starting to discover.
From Stage 4 Cancer to Stage 0!
I was recently listening to an interview with Dr William Li on Dairy of a CEO podcast, specializing in chronic disease and blood vessel growth - both linked to cancer.
He has seen examples of stage 4 cancer reversing into no cancer at all!
This requires particular treatment, but what I found most interesting was how our diet deeply impacts our immune system and ability to heal, and how stress can cause cancer due to inflammation.
1. 🧬 Meditation Reduces Inflammatory Gene Expression
“Mindfulness-based interventions may reverse the stress-induced upregulation of pro-inflammatory genes.”
Carlson et al., 2014 – Cancer journal
A research study found that mindfulness meditation based cancer recovery and supportive therapy was found to chance the gene expression in survivors of breast cancer.
The meditation and therapy helped reduce the genes which promote inflammation, which is commonly associated with cancer recurrence.
2. 🧘 Meditation Improves Immune Markers in Cancer Patients
“Meditation improves cellular immunity and may be useful in cancer treatment support.”
Black & Slavich, 2016 – Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Another study has shown how meditation improved peoples immune function by increasing natural killer cells in the body in cancer patients.
Cells that kill other cells plays a role in mitigating the development of tumors
3. 😌 Stress Reduction Improves Quality of Life and May Impact Tumor Progression
“Psychological stress can modulate tumor biology... stress reduction may slow progression.”
Reiche et al., 2004 – Brain, Behavior, and Immunity
Studies have shown that chronic stress promotes tumor growth via the HPA axis and inflammation.
With meditation and stress-reduction techniques, these systems can be modulated.
How Meditation Can Help Reduce Cancer
Managing your stress is not a guarantee that you won't have cancer, but these studies are clearly showing how meditation can help reduce cancer by being a tool for stress management.
When you eliminate the source of stress from your mind by discarding it from your mind, then you will no longer stress, and this looks like it could possibly have a positive impact in reducing cancer.
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