Can Stress Cause Cancer?
Cancer patients are often left with feelings of extreme helplessness. This experience of hopelessness, in addition to feeling overwhelmed by social and often financial constraints, can culminate in a state of severe psychosocial stress – or simply “stress.” While stress in and of itself can significantly detract from quality of life, research has also linked stress in cancer patients with decreased survival.
What is “Stress?”
In 1936, an Austro-Hungarian scientist named Hans Selye published the first treatise on stress. Through a combination of lab work and observation, he discovered what he called a “non-specific response of the body to any demand for change,” but which he later dubbed “stress.” The stress response […]