Holistic Cancer Treatment

Social Connections  

Natural Health Actions You Can Take That Cost Nothing But Time

Social Relationships

It has been known for decades that having family and friends improves health outcomes. Good social relationships are yet another aspect of holistic cancer treatment. In the early days of research the idea was that someone was needed to get the sick person to and from medical appointments. But there is no evidence that keeping appointments improves health outcomes.

It is more likely that good social relationships again improve immune function through the reduction of stress and the hormonal cascades that go with feeling good.

I could go provide a raft of medical journal references and mechanisms all written in medical language – because the work has been done – but the issue from the perspective of the person who is ill you need to know that you need good social relationships that improve your quality of life.

What type of people should I have in my social network?

You need the following types of relationships:

·         Someone who makes you feel significant – this is a person who recognizes that you have something to offer, or that they love you as you are. This person makes you feel important.

·         Someone who makes you feel secure. You are certain of them and how they will behave. You don’t have to worry that their opinion of you might change as long as you are contributing in some way to the relationship.

·         Someone who will bring you variety and introduce you to some things that are different. They may challenge and help you see to look at things in a different way.

·         Someone who makes you feel very connected. You feel their love or their affection or even their need for you.

Review your relationships. If you are one of those who have few friends (or few who contribute positively to your improved quality of life) then all is not lost. In Beat The Medical Odds two of the survivors were social loners at the start of their illness. They set out to develop more and improved social relationships and you can too (within the constraints of your illness, of course).

How many do I need for good health?

More is not necessarily better. You are not looking to be the person with the greatest number of friends.

You are looking to have five to nine good quality friends. Five people who meet your needs, and whose needs you meet are better than 50 acquaintances.

A spouse, parent or child who meets one of those needs should be counted in your friend list.

Deal with relationships that still affect you negatively

Any past relationships which leave you feel bad, or angry, or annoyed, or fearful sets in train a cascade of hormones. These hormones have a primary intention of protecting you. However the long term consequences of holding on to negative feelings are that the immune system becomes suppressed.

It is paramount that you work through negative feelings about current relationships. Find support to do this if you need to.

Setting up a holistic cancer treatment for yourself has many factors and one of these is that people should contribute to an improved quality of life for the time you have left. It may be that you decide to restrict the access that negative people have to you.

One survivor put her phone onto automatic answer-phone to screen out a particularly time consuming person who contributed nothing to her life. After three days this "friend" was no longer interested in her.

Another survivor asked the charge nurse of the ward to only allow in those people he wanted. All of the others were told he was too ill to receive visitors. By the time he left hospital many of those negative peole had dropped by the wayside.

Holistic Cancer Treatment really has to be driven by you, or it is not going to make you fully whole.  Become aware of which aspect of your social realtionships need to be remedied and, bearing in mind your physical condition, organise your social connections around YOUR needs, rather than theirs.  Your immune system is then enhanced by good feelings rather than reduced by negative ones.

House, JS, Landis, KR. Social relationships and health. Science 1988;241:540-545.