Cancer .. Who Is At More Risk? by Ambreen Riaz

Basically, cancer is a sort of physical symptom of prolonged internal emotional stress. Almost everyone faces stress and trauma in their lives. But the way we handle the stress matters the most. If we suppress our feelings then it leads to the development of internal stress.

Researchers have found that people more susceptible to cancer have certain common personality traits. These are listed below:

• They are highly conscientious, caring, dutiful, responsible, hard-working, and usually have above average intelligence.

• They often worry for others.

• They exhibit a strong tendency towards carrying other people’s burdens.

• They always want to make others happy.

• They often lack closeness with one or both the parents, which, later in life, lead to lack of closeness with spouse or others who would normally be close.

• They have a long-standing tendency to suppress toxic emotions – anger, resentment and/or hostility.

• They react adversely to stress, and often become unable to cope adequately with such stress.

• They usually have experienced a damaging event about 2 years before the onset of detectable cancer and are unable to cope with this traumatic event.

• They don’t have the means to resolve deep-seated emotional problems and conflicts.

These type of people tend to become the caretakers of the world. They go out of their way to show compassion & care for others but feel reluctance in asking for help from others. Not being selfish is highly commendable in our culture, but limits should be set for it. There is nothing wrong with caring for others, but when the susceptible person derives their entire worth from their role as caretaker then the problem arises.

A consistent feature of susceptible people is that they tend to suffer in silence, and bear their burdens without complaint. These burdens weigh heavily upon them through a lifetime of emotional suppression.

Most of the cancer patients usually had experienced a highly stressful event, usually about 2 years before the onset of detectable disease. This traumatic event is often beyond that person’s control – such as death of a loved one, losing a job etc. The susceptible person loses the ability to cope with these extreme events and finds no other way to cope.

Major stress suppresses the immune system and does so more overwhelmingly in the cancer-susceptible person than in others. Excessive levels of stress, personal tragedies, losses etc combined with the underlying personality weakens the immune system allowing the cancer to thrive.