Cancer Prevention News, Part 2
Updating basic guidelines with recent developments
Earlier this month, we published a blog post that focused on antioxidants in relation to the basic cancer prevention guideline to "eat right and exercise.”
Although we at Slidell Memorial Hospital have the expertise and technology to be a regional leader in providing state-of-the-art cancer services to our patients, we would rather help you avoid a cancer diagnosis in the first place. To that end, we will continue to bring you more of these "updates” to keep you informed about recent research or recommendations that could help you stay healthy and cancer-free.
First, let’s quickly review those basic guidelines we talked about in the last piece:
· Don’t smoke
· Maintain a healthy weight
· Eat right and exercise
· Reduce stress
· Cover up in the sun
· Get immunized
· Don’t skip regular check-ups
Today we are covering the latest news regarding how you can "Reduce stress.”
Make sure your stress-reduction strategy isn’t adding to your stress.
If your first reaction to the recommendation above is "Huh?” consider the fact that many people use technology to unwind, let off steam, or "relax,” but rarely consider the ways in which things like video games, social media, or even television can actually increase stress levels.
It’s only a game (not an excuse to snack or avoid exercise).
Let’s start with video gaming.
First of all, there’s nothing inherently stressful or wrong with game-time. In fact, research has shown that for some people, gaming lowers stress hormones. What can make it stressful depends on the individual player.
If, for example, you play games at the expense of physical activity, the stress reduction value of the gaming drops because it keeps you from doing something much healthier and more likely to reduce stress for your whole body, not just your mind.
Second, if you mindlessly snack while playing, you might overeat, or eat the wrong (junk) foods, which adds to the stress on your system, possibly causing you to gain weight, or simply replacing nutrient-dense calories with sugar, salt, fat and other types that can increase your cancer risk over time.
Finally, if your personality is such that competition, losing, or not hitting the score you want to hit frustrates you, or leads you to think about the game even after you’ve stopped playing, you may want to reconsider the strategy overall. Better yet, find a different type of game that is less competitive.
Again, this is an individual thing, and only you can decide how you feel before, during, and after a gaming session, but take a few moments to do that gut-check: do you really feel relaxed and centered, or agitated, aggressive, and unable to let go of those feelings easily?
If it’s the latter, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t play video games, it just means you should find another outlet for stress reduction, and should moderate your time spent gaming to make sure you’re not playing at the expense of that other activity.
It’s called "Social Media,” not "Fight Club.”
Social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even texting can be wonderful tools for helping us connect to friends, loved ones, and other support networks.
As such, they can help reduce stress by providing you with avenues to connect with people you might not otherwise get to see or talk with, people who can provide moral support in times of trouble, advice or decision-support, and even help finding a job or resources to address other stressful conditions in your life, like unemployment.
The big caveat to all that though is "when used in moderation,” and "when used in a consciously constructive manner.”
What that means is, using any of these media to either start or participate in heated arguments, or exclusively to consume or participate in gossip or "drama,” is not only going to raise your stress levels to an unhealthy degree, it is likely to bleed into your offline life, creating stress for your interpersonal relationships (if you carry a negative attitude off screen, and into real life), or havoc in your professional life (if you spend so much time caught up in the drama, you fail to be productive, or if you get caught badmouthing your boss or co-workers and lose your job).
Research backs up this recommendation. Researchers have found that use of social media sites like Facebook increase stress levels and anxiety, contribute to sleep loss and depression, and for people with already high levels of anxiety, this can be a real problem. Users may think they are going online to "relax” or "socialize,” and in fact, both their reasons for gravitating to social media, and the moods they take away from it, have the opposite effect.
Facebook increases people’s anxiety levels by making them feel inadequate and generating excess worry and stress. Social media provides constant updates. This motivates many people to continually check their status and newsfeed on mobile devices. Some people feel a constant impulse to check for updates, only feeling relief when they turn off the mobile device. In this study, over half of the respondents felt uneasy when they were unable to access their social media and email accounts.
Additionally, two-thirds had difficulty sleeping due to anxiety and other negative emotions after they had used the sites. The constant updates also led many respondents to frequently compare themselves to others, leading to feelings of inadequacy. This anxiety and worry creates chronic stress that could lead to health problems, including mental health issues.
None of this is to say that social media is inherently bad for you, or that it in itself causes stress. Like video gaming, what matters is how using social media affects you. The point is, if you are using it for "stress reduction,” or "stress relief,” be sure it’s really serving its purpose and not just quietly making you anxious and more stressed out.
They call it the "boob tube” for a reason.
Now before we get started on this section, we are not trying to say there’s nothing of value on television; the question is, does television offer stress relief or reduction, or doesn’t it?
If you asked the average person to list the ways they relax after a hard day, for example, they would probably include "watch some TV” on their list of strategies, but these same people might be surprised to learn that—depending on their personality, choice of programming, and underlying reason for choosing TV over other activities—they might just be adding to their stress levels.
As Time magazine recently reported, researchers found that particularly busy and fatigued people actually felt guilty about spending so much time in front of the TV:
In their study, published in the Journal of Communication, the scientists surveyed 471 people about their previous day, how they felt after work, and what media they turned to at the end of the day.
People who felt especially wiped out saw their media time as a form of procrastination, and felt they were avoiding other important things on their to-do lists.
These participants were likely to describe "giving in” to media use, and that feeling prevented them from benefiting from the down time and relaxing. "We are starting to look at media use as a cause of depletion. In times of smartphones and mobile Internet, the ubiquitous availability of content and communication often seems to be a burden and a stressor rather than a recovery resource…”
There is good news: the same researchers found that the choice of content made a difference.
Watching intellectually stimulating programs (a documentary on the History Channel, for example), or pure entertainment like concert events and movies (again, depending upon whether the person watching finds the story or subject matter entertaining or stressful), can reduce the perception that you’re "wasting time,” and increase the degree to which the activity relaxes you.
So if watching TV is your stress-reduction method of choice, just be sure to choose wisely, and monitor your own feelings as you do—if you start to feel like a failure, or procrastinator, either change the channel, or turn it off and find something else to do.
No, we’re not saying technology causes cancer!
We’re not even saying technology causes stress; we are simply pointing out that it’s important to make sure the things you’re doing to reduce stress are actually workingfor you, not against you.
Technologies like video games, social media, and television don’t "cause” stress anymore than forks cause weight-gain; it’s the interaction between people and these technologies that can be problematic.
So remember to check your own feelings, be mindful about your usage, and at the first sign of increased stress, seek out other ways to unwind. There is no one right way to reduce stress, only the way that works for you!
Also remember that our goal at Slidell Memorial Hospital is to inform, educate, and keep you healthy! So check back frequently for more updates and tips on how to reduce stress, or follow any of the other cancer-prevention guidelines on our list.