Positive thoughts/real or pollyannish

I'm guessing you're not asking about the power of suggestion making cancer go away...

I try to be a Glass is Half FULL kind of guy whenever possible.

logoslidat said... What do you all think? Is a positive attitude just a technique to make us feel good or can it really change the dynamics of this coward called pca. I'm out for an early morning YES to the world, see you later!! "...an early morning YES to the world..."  That sounds great!  Just curious, what form does your "YES to the world" take? While your question was specifically related to " positive attitude ", I would like to respond to the request you issued "What do you all think?" by commenting (perhaps largely for the benefit of newcomers) on a closely related topic of stress reduction benefits.  Newcomers are often focused more narrowly and urgently on forms of aggressive treatment that they quickly overlook the value of stress reduction (and other lifestyle changes of diet and exercise).  Many of those of us who have been around a little longer have absorbed these tactics into our lives, although some guys simply have been unable to overcome the "inertia" in their lives to make the lifestyle changes even when confronted with evidence of their benefit . In simple science terms, your immune system is like a guard ready to defend your body from attacks of pathogens and for prevention of cancer cells.  Cortisol, the "stress hormone", if produced in large amounts, harms your immune system.  In other words, if you want to help fuel any cancer, elevate your stress levels! In fact, if you want to promote prostate cancer development or progression, here's a list of "to-do's" I've seen published:  eat lots of red meat and pork; drink lots of dairy products and chow down on cheese; cut way down on vegetables and fruit; don't exercise, aim for a high stress lifestyle , and stay away from fish, tomato products, vitamin D, pomegranate in any form, green tea, vitamin E, selenium and certain other nutritional items and supplements.   Well, I digressed into the negative...back to the positive.  There has been a lot of research into prostate cancer and environmental issues and our lifestyle choices (nuitrition, diet, exercise and stress)...look at pubmed.com.  Much of the research looks at these in combination, but there is a powerful body of knowledge that exists.   Dr Charles "Snuffy" Myers, a highly regarded prostate cancer specialist (and himself a survivor of an aggressive case of PC), has published a "Comprehensive Management of Prostate Cancer" document which specifically calls out "Stress and Its Management" as an important element for comprehensive prostate cancer care.  Myers writes: "I think you would be foolish to depend on surgery or radiation therapy as the sole tool to combat prostate cancer. As you will see, a combination of sensible diet and stress management has already been reported to slow the growth of prostate cancer from a median doubling time of 6.5 months to 17.7 months... You need to put in place a program that will slow or even prevent late recurrence of this cancer. This becomes even more prudent when you realize that the same program that makes sense for prostate cancer has proven benefits for the prevention and management of hypertension and atherosclerosis." Wise words.  In fact, I think his "Comprehensive Management of Prostate Cancer" document is an important "must-read" for all PC patients.  Here's a link:   http://www.yananow.net/MyersManagement.pdf   Anyhow, logoslidat, positive attitude and stress reduction are not exactly the same thing, but I believe they are closely related, and enough supporting research has been done for me to recognize their benefit.    "YES to the world!"   I like it!    

Cancer is cancer, once its in your body, thinking good thoughts or bad toughts isn't going to change the physical nature of it. Of course it's better to have a positive attitude in life, but I think a person is only fooling themeslves if they think their attitude is going to change it.

My radiation oncologist had a talk with me about why people take supplements and so forth, and it came down to that most people, men in particular, with cancers, don't like feeling like that they are not in control of it. So they do things, and invent things, to make them think they have some control over their cancers. Her attitude was that if it made them feel good about their situation, then its not going to hurt ,but if they really thought it would control or lessen their cancer, they were only fooling themselves.

As a nurse, my wife works a lot with the long-term elderly and the re-hab elderly, and she would testify, they lose good patients all the time that had wonderful faith, family, and positive attitudes, and they die off quickly of whatever ails them, just as she has patients that are in terrible health situations with hateful attitutudes, negative about everything in life, no support from family, yet they live on year after year after year.

The point to me, is that any cancer is a real disease, and each person's body reacts differently to it, look how much we see of that here among just us here at HW. Once the cow is out of the barn, or cancer in this case, all the wishful thinking and after the fact lifestyle changes arent going to change the dynamics of having cancer. It will still be a person by person battle and journey. Just my take.

Faith helps, certainly doesn't hurt, and a true miracle can sometimes happen to a person, but it kind of like banking on the Powerball to get rid of your debts, it might happen, but probably won't. So it leaves us learning about our disease/cancer, and trying to make the right decisions in treating and living with it, and after finding good doctors if you are fortunate, being compliant to their care.

Back in the mid 1970s the Denver Broncos had a Dale Carnegie graduate as their head coach. He was positive about everything. So much so that he had his players ridiculing his words in the locker room, thus forcing the owner to replace him with a more down to earth realistic head coach who immediately took them to their first Superbowl.

If positive thinking makes you feel better fine but so would a strong evening martini.

Post Edited (realziggy) : 4/2/2010 2:53:39 PM (GMT-6)

Yeah, spring seemed to have skipped western SC here too. Was 88 degrees today, way way above normal, had to crank up the AC in the house, something not use to doing in early April.

I have to agree with Dave in that positive attitude has no effect on PCa. However, stress can have physical effects that could negitively affect PCa growth. Also, I firmly believe, and there are studies that support the fact, that there are things that you ingest that promote the growth of PCa and things that inhibit the growth of PCa. To suggest that diet or suppliments have no efffect on the progession of the PCa is inaccurate.

I'm a real big fan on the "power of suggestion." I'm the type of guy that starts feeling better sitting in the waiting room at the doc or dentist office. Many a nurse has had to pinch me (which can be fun depending on who's doing the pinching) to get my blood pressure up.

P-O-Suggest is what helped me quit smoking.

On the downside, I once had a dentist ask me if chewing gum gave me headaches. He said that the way my crooked/out of alingment molars are, he guessed that repeated chewing would cause headaches. I quit chewing gum for years... 

When I have a positive attitude I tend to take better care of myself than when I am stressed out and thinking negative and have a "don't give a crap" attitude. I think this is one of the most important aspects of attitude for me and one that could certainly affect my general health and my prostate removal recovery in particular.