cancer vlog

Successful Survivorship

This is a recording of our first Facebook Live event for Successful Survivorship. My hope is to create a weekly event where you and I get to meet one another for the purpose of support and community. If you do know someone who can benefit from this resource please point them in this direction.

 

cancer anxiety

How to Reduce Anticipatory Anxiety During Cancer Treatment

cancer anxietyFacing the unknown of cancer treatment, it is only natural to experience fear and anxiety. Our mind, in an attempt to make sense of what’s ahead, can come up with all kinds of worst-case scenarios, which deplete and depress us. It is therefore vital that we cultivate resilience and strengthen our support system so we can effectively avoid the pitfall of anticipatory anxiety.

Anticipatory anxiety is where a person experiences increased levels of anxiety by thinking about an event or situation in the future.

Interestingly enough in a research study, highly anxious chemotherapy patients suffered twice as much “anticipatory nausea” (18.1%) than the mildly anxious patients did (9.8%).1 Our brains have a tendency to run non-stop like a hamster in a wheel or a chattering monkey. Fortunately there are patterns and behaviors you can learn to combat these negative thoughts and feelings.

Distorted thinking can perpetuate the fear of cancer treatments. Following are a few examples of how thinking can become distorted. See if you can relate to any of these:

  • All-or-nothing thinking: Seeing things in the extreme. You may think, “If I even start to feel nauseous I’m stopping all treatment.”
  • Overgeneralization: One negative occurrence gets applied it to everything in life. “Why does this always happen to me?” When in reality it hasn’t happened but a few times.
  • Disqualifying the positive: Rejecting positive experiences by insisting that they’re flukes. The opposite of over generalization. “That almost never happens!”

Change Your Thinking

We are, in part, products of our environment. This means that some of our thought processes are learned. Therefore when these thoughts are not benefiting us we can learn new ways to cope. Here are a few that will help with anticipatory anxiety:

  • Behavior therapy attempts to identify and eventually change unhealthy behaviors. Our behaviors are learned. They are reactions to what happens to us. It’s possible to “unlearn” these behaviors to possess better coping skills.
  • Biofeedback can teach you to you use the power of your thoughts to control your body. You’re connected to electrical sensors that give you information about your body so by making subtle changes, such as relaxing certain muscles, you can achieve the desired results such as reduced pain, less nausea, and/or dizziness.
  • Cognitive-behavioral therapy, or CBT, helps people become aware of their negative interpretations. Many times people may not even realize they interpret situations in a negative way. CBT can help people develop more positive ways of thinking, which can reduce psychological distress.
  • Hypnosis, when used as an adjunct therapy to medical treatment, can help in numerous ways. It can help improve patients attitude toward treatment, improve their outlook and even improve their immune response by addressing past life events and trauma shown by the scientific study of Psychoneuroimmunology to suppress the immune system. It can further help resolve and modify destructive behaviors such smoking cessation, curb food intake of sugar and overall improve treatment outcome by addressing treatment side effects so that patients can complete their treatment regiment.
  • Progressive muscle relaxation focuses on slowly tensing and then relaxing each muscle group. This action helps the patient focus on the difference between muscle tension and relaxation. One method is to start with the muscles in your toes and tense then relax them. Do this throughout your entire body all the up to your head. You can also start with your head and neck and work down to your toes. Imagine that when you relax the muscle, all that tension flows out of your body. When you are fearful this gives you something else to focus on and helps you feel the stress in your muscles and then let it go.

Behaviors can change over time with practice. This is not a quick fix but will give you the tools you need to cope with anticipatory anxiety and other challenges you face in life. If you have questions on these treatments, how they are performed, and how they can help you, please contact me right now by email free@avinoamlerner.com or phone 617.564.0707.

1 http://www.drlarrylachman.com/people/the-psychology-of-chemotherapy.php

cancer health

Proven Strategies to Lessen Cancer Treatment Side Effects

Your medical regimen  and often time the side effects that follow will impact your quality of life. Some days are better than cancer healthothers but it’s worth being prepared and incorporate habits and activities that can support and increase your comfort and vitality. The age old wisdom that is outlined below is simple, yet effective. It states that we should be cognizant of everything we put into our body – including our thoughts.

Be Aware of What You Eat

When it comes to food the best thing to do is to prepare it ahead of time. Stock up on organic, healthy foods. You and your family can prepare and refrigerate or freeze healthy meals before you begin therapy. This way you’ll have a lot less work to do when you’re not feeling so great. Ensure the meals are nutrient-dense, and organic (whenever possible) to aid your body in its recovery. Choose a variety of fresh and colorful foods such as:

  • Fruits, vegetables, and legumes
  • Whole grains (Quinoa is a good one. It’s high in protein, gluten-free, easy to prepare and to digest.)
  • Low fat lean proteins: Greek yogurt 2% or 0%, eggs, seafood, lean meat, edamame (soybeans in the pod) and unsalted nuts and seeds.

Some foods to avoid or eat less of are:

  • Sodium (salt)
  • Added sugar
  • Simple sugars (white bread, white rice, candy)
  • Solid fat
  • Alcohol

Eat More Frequently

Good news. You can eat smaller, more frequent meals when you’re experiencing side effects. Try five small meals per day rather than three and see if it helps with any digestive issues. Eating this way can also give you sustained energy throughout your day.

Water, Water, Everywhere

Drink water or other liquids frequently. If you don’t like water, you can get your liquids through soup broths (low sodium, of course), fruit and green smoothies, flavored teas, and more. It’s important to drink a lot of water so you stay hydrated and flush unwanted substances from the body.

Mind Body Connection

Besides eating fresh, healthy, and organic foods, there are some really fun activities to try, whether you’ve attempted them in the past or not. All of these can help keep your mind on the positive healing track. Of course as with any treatment, be sure to verify with your doctor that you are cleared to take part in these treatments.

Exercise

Exercise is beneficial for everyone, but even more so for a patient receiving treatment. Cancer related fatigue is often the most troubling side effect of treatment according to patients. That’s right, even more than nausea, vomiting, pain, or sleep problems, because it affects the ability to perform every day tasks. By getting regular exercise, a patient can sleep better and feel less pain, anxiety, and depression. 1

But what kind of exercise am I talking about? No 5k’s or triathlons, but walking, biking, yoga, tai chi, and water aerobics. Those activities are varied enough that you should not get bored. Each type of exercise can be performed by novices or experts, and each one goes fairly easy on the body yet provides incredible calming and healing benefits.

Additional Alternatives 2

Other important treatments that can provide relief and healing are:

Hypnosis – to work on changing the subconscious so it can work with the body to bring about healing (I think you guessed I’d mention that!)

Massage – yes, please.

Meditation – can help quiet the mind.

Relaxation techniques – uses breath and visualization to calm body and mind

Acupuncture – reduces nausea, vomiting, pain and improves digestion

Aromatherapy – fights anxiety, depression, and high blood pressure 3

Music therapy – benefits patients of all ages and musical abilities. You don’t have to be Mozart or Chopin to reap the benefits. Music therapy promotes wellness, manages stress, reduces pain, and promotes physical rehabilitation. 4

Add these exercises and treatments into your overall healing arsenal to assist you in regaining better health and wellbeing. If you have questions on these treatments, how they are performed, and what they can do for you, please feel free to contact me right now.

1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3647480/

2) http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/cancer/in-depth/cancer-treatment/art-20047246?pg=1

3) http://www.breastcancer.org/treatment/comp_med/types/aromatherapy

4) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3863265/

cancer wellness

The Wellness Blueprint

cancer wellnessWith the onset of illness, emphasis is often placed on treating the physical and biological. This makes perfect sense because that’s where the crisis is most visible; however, there is an inner crisis, an invisible one, that is worthy of attention as well. This inner crisis, I understand from my clients is the most scarring one.

So, what can you do to address this inner crisis while your medical team does everything in their power to heal your body? How can you reach that place inside of you that scalpel can not possibly cut deep enough to reach, nor can any amount of chemotherapy or radiation penetrate in order to promote true health and lasting healing?

While there is more than one way to scale this mountain, I wish to highlight the road less traveled as the road that leads you to the inner realm of your mind.

It’s Not Therapy

There are only a few medical facilities within our great nation that as a standard of care give attention to the individual patient’s emotional and mental state throughout their course of therapy. While this represents a step in the right direction, this type of therapy engages (primarily) the part of our mind called the Conscious mind, and therefore, can not, by design, penetrate the realm of the Subconscious mind where the fortress of the authentic-self resides. The end result is that patients continue to feel unchanged or untouched from within; therefore fear, worry and self-blame continues to plague them long after treatment has ended.

The road to wellness this post highlights does not cross paths with the Law of Attraction or any other associated metaphysical system. The success of these methods is so hard to measure that it often backfires. Without the ability to measure our progress, we risk feeling even more helpless, inadequate, punished, and less worthy of healing.

So, how do we reach this inner realm of the mind? The answer is so simple you might miss it. We utilize our mind’s ability to “see” in a constructive way, then burn this “vision” into every nerve and fiber in our body. We use our creative ability to form detailed mental images in our mind’s eye and through practice and disciplined repetition plant these images like we would a seed in the fertile ground of our mind, more accurately, the all-powerful part of our mind called the Subconscious mind.

This becomes our road map or blueprint for wellness.

The All Powerful Mind

Before we delve into the “how”, let’s first examine the “why”.

Why is the Subconscious Mind so important for healing and health?

The first thing to know is that our mind is not our brain. The terms “mind” and “brain” are often used interchangeably; however, they each carry different connotations. The “brain” is the tangible and physical organ within the skull. The “mind” is the intangible, or non-physical, part of our being. It encompasses qualities such as “thought,” “creativity,” and “emotion.” Medicine treats the mind and the brain as two sides of the same coin. More contemporary schools see the mind and the brain as architect and contractor. The mind creates the plans, and the brain uses those plans to coordinate mental and physical activity.

The mind itself has two distinct components: the Conscious mind and the Subconscious mind. The Subconscious mind is sometimes called the Unconscious mind in traditional practices. Sigmund Freud compared the whole mind to an iceberg, with the conscious and analytical mind representing the part of the iceberg above the water. The vast part of the mind, the Subconscious mind, however, exists beneath the surface. The Subconscious mind is beyond the reach of conscious thought.

The Subconscious mind is our emotional center, the storehouse of our memories, perceptions, and beliefs. As a result, it is able to exert great influence over our experiences. More importantly, it can exert great influence over one’s cancer recovery. The Subconscious mind is the part of our mind that regulates many of our bodily functions, including immune function. This means that if we perceive ourselves as not worthy of recovery, and if we believe we do not have the inner resources to cope and recover, we will have a harder time truly healing.

The Subconscious mind is important for health and healing because it has the power to turn the invisible into visible. It governs many of our bodily functions. Thus, it has the ability to either inhibit or enhance immune function, diminish or increase our resiliency, and foster or impede our ability to fight and recover from cancer.

Weaving New Thoughts

So, by what means or mechanism, can we harness this amazing ability of our mind to influence the body? Well, if you are like any of my clients, you have utilized this mechanism many times before. I know that for sure because the most common use of this mechanism is worry! Yes, worry. When we worry we utilize this creative ability to explore possible future outcomes. Thankfully, each time we begin to form a new action plan for our mind to follow, we do not stick with these plans for too long. This is why these worry-thoughts and images do not materialize. This, however, does not mean the mechanism isn’t effective, it certainly is.

So, let’s try this, instead of sending worry-thoughts through this mental machine of yours, take a moment (10 to 15 seconds at the most) to see yourself in your mind’s eye already healthy, recovered, well and happy. Place the emphasis on seeing your desired outcome of health and healing.

There is NO way you can do this wrong or fail. If 15 seconds of visualization is too long of a time, make it 5 seconds. If visualization does not come easy to you, write things down on a piece of paper. Write something like “in ___ months from now I will feel…”. Describe in as many details as you can how you want to feel both physically and emotionally. Once you have that down, write it again and again in PRESENT TENSE as if it already happened.

Now, please note that simply holding the image of your desired outcome in your mind once or twice is NOT going to help you at all. In fact, minuscule practice may backfire and serve as a “proof” of failure, suggesting you are not worthy of healing and recovery. You need to work on it and rehearse your image and outcome again and again in much the same way athletes rehearse for their performance. Run this image few times a day until it feels just right. Burn it into your memory and nerves because only then will your Subconscious mind accept it and act upon it.

When it feels effortless, spend more time rehearsing, add more details, and make use of all of your senses. Immerse yourself in this new reality of yours until you own it. For example, how strong and agile will you feel in your body three month from now? What it would feel like to be back where you want to be? Doing all the things you want to do?

Do it Your Way

Finally, there are many protocols or names on the internet for harnessing the power of your mind for improvement. Most, however, do not work to affect change directly within the Subconscious Mind.

Self-Hypnosis is one protocol which is easy to learn and apply, especially when you are physically less active or bedridden. Want to learn more about Self-Hypnosis? Need help applying this method? Send us a note and we’ll be happy to share with you a short guide for home practice of self-hypnosis.

For further information call 617-564-0707 or write me at Free@AvinoamLerner.com

The Appleseed Project 2016

The Annie Appleseed Project

If you are interested in learning about Complementary Medicine for Cancer, there is no better place for you to do so then The Annie Appleseed Project website.

The Appleseed Project 2016

Ann Fonfa and Avinoam Lerner at The Appleseed Project 10th Evidence-Based Conference for Complementary Medicine for Cancer

The Annie Appleseed Project was founded in 1997 by Ann Fonfa, a breast cancer survivor herself. The purpose of the project was and still is to inform, educate, advocate and raise awareness around (Complementary Alternative Medicine) CAM for cancer. Through its annual conference on Evidence-based Complementary & Alternative Cancer Therapies the project offers patients, caregivers and medical providers the opportunity to join, share and learn from one another.

My acquaintance with Ann started back in 2011 when I was invited to place an article in the Conference magazine. This year (2016) I was fortunate enough to be one of the presenters and share with the audience some of my case studies on hypnosis for cancer recovery.

Below, you can find the presentation in a PDF format. Since the conference was videotaped, I will post the video as soon as they’re done with the editing and I have the final version.

It was a real treat to be a part of the Appleseed community this year. I met some very courageous people and can only hope I have inspired few to take action and learn how to mobilize their mind and inner resources to promote wellness and advance recovery.

If you have any question with regard to the presentation below, please feel free to contact me.

Annie Appleseed Conference Presentation:

https://avinoamlerner.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Clinical-Hypnotherapy-for-Cancer-Recovery.pdf

Impact of Hypnosis On Immune Function and Health

https://avinoamlerner.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Impact-of-Hypnosis-Relaxation.pdf

Efficacy of Hypnosis for Cancer

https://avinoamlerner.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Efficacy-of-Hypnosis-Cancer2001.pdf

Hypnotherapy for the Management of Chronic Pain

https://avinoamlerner.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Hypnotherapy-for-the-Management-of-Chronic-Pain.pdf

Beneficial Effects of Hypnosis during Tumor Treatment

https://avinoamlerner.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Effects-of-Hypnosis-and-Adverse-Effects-during-Percutaneous-Tumor-Treatment.pdf

Imagery and Hypnosis in cancer Treatment

https://avinoamlerner.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Imagery-and-Hypnosis-in-cancer-Treatment-1997.pdf