[2020-08-12] Perpetually upbeat
A cancer survivor told me not to Google and, for the most part, I've followed her advice.
But today I went in search of the answer to a question that I thought I already knew the answer to. The question: can a positive attitude improve the chances of surviving cancer?
The answer I expected to find was yes. However, that wasn't the case.
What I found is that there is neither evidence that a negative attitude can cause cancer (reassuring for any worrywarts out there) nor evidence that a positive attitude can increase the chances of beating cancer (disappointing for the perpetually upbeat like me).
In Cancer and the not-so-positive power of positive thinking?, published by the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, writer Alexis Dobranowski states: "There’s no scientific research to suggest that being sad, worried or anxious causes cancer or causes cancer to worsen. And there’s no evidence to show that thinking positively leads to a better cure rate."
Similarly, in Attitudes and Cancer, the American Cancer Society wrote: "many people want to believe that the power of the mind can control serious diseases. This is a comforting belief that can make a person feel safer from the risk of serious illness. If it were true, you could use your mind to stop the cancer from growing. But the down side of such beliefs is that when people with cancer don’t do well, they may blame themselves."
This was echoed by cancer survivor Mary Elizabeth Williams in Surviving Cancer Without the Positive Thinking. In this interview published in The Atlantic, Williams responds to a question about resisting the tyranny of the positive attitude:
There’s this assumption that because you got better, you did it courageously. But that’s not my story. I didn’t "warrior" my way into getting better. It was not my achievement; it was science’s. Whenever I hear someone say "I beat cancer," it just feels so disrespectful to others, such as my friend Debbie. It divides us into winners and losers. I know it’s not deliberate. We want to make meaning. We want to make sense of it. But you see how random [survival] is. I have known people who were healthier than me and younger than me who tried, I think, harder than I did to fight their cancer but who didn’t live.
But it wasn't all doom and gloom.
Writing in The Philadelphia Inquirer, cancer survivor Jane Ashley noted in A cancer survivor: Why positive thinking really matters that while no studies support that positive thinking is a factor in being cured of the disease, she did find value in maintaining a healthy outlook. She wrote:
So is there a reason to have a positive attitude? Absolutely. A positive attitude helps people cope with a disease which strikes without warning and can recur despite aggressive treatment. Elizabeth Edwards said it best, "A positive attitude is not going to save you. What it's going to do is, every day, between now and the day you die, whether that's a short time from now or a long time from now, that every day, you're going to actually live."
And live I shall.
For the past four years, I have had a very demanding job. I've sacrificed sleep, time with my family and leisure activities to support the mission of helping Canadians maintain and improve their health. But more than helping Canadians at large, as meaningful as that was, I was supporting individuals--my bosses, my colleagues and my employees.
Many days I was tired. Some days I was down. Occasionally I felt defeated. But on the vast majority of days, I chose to be kind and positive and giving. I found that smiling and showing gratitude made me the happiest. And it made my relationships stronger and more productive, both at work and at home.
I expect to take the same approach to my new job--fighting cancer. I can't be anything but who I am: three quarters optimistic and one quarter realistic.
Yes, cancer sucks. And tackling it will be hard. And I know that some days, I'm going to feel rotten.
But I intend to keep putting beauty and love out into the world and to accept all the beauty and love that come back to me, including these gorgeous photos of Sultan Farm Sanctuary that Laura Stephen sent to me today. Thank you, Laura, and thank you everyone who has contacted me.
