Translational Immunomics of Cancer Immunoprevention

Abstract

Mindfulness techniques have been found to be effective in a number of healthcare settings. Some examples of these settings include: • The experience of pain and the activation of the brain to a pain stimulus can be lessened by just one hour of meditation per day. 1,2 • Increasing resilience to stress. 3,4 • Resultant changes in grey matter in the regions of the brain responsible for emotion, learning and memory processing, even after a brief period of meditation. 5 • A 42% decrease in severity and frequency of symptoms in people with irritable bowel syndrome who had undertaken mindfulness training. 6 • Improving quality of life through minimising the negative impact of flare-ups in ulcerative colitis and helping stress-coping mechanisms. 7 • Improving psychosocial adjustment to breast cancer diagnosis 8 and in women receiving radiotherapy for breast cancer. 9 • Improving maintenance of dietary change after diagnosis of prostate cancer. 10 • Improving immune function. 11 Maintaining a healthy weight The subject of maintaining a healthy weight became of interest to me in clinic as the pattern of people regaining lost kilograms was unpredictable and occurred despite the fact that they knew what to eat, had the skills to make better food choices, and had training on goal setting and how to cope with setbacks. The hurdles to sustaining a healthy weight I most often see are: binge eating habits, body image dissatisfaction, a goal that is purely about dress-size with an assumption that size 10 is the key to happiness, poor quality of life, at least one area of life that was cause for great dissatisfaction, a disabling health issue, emotional eating, Mindfulness has a foundation in Buddhist traditions, but nowadays has found a place in many secular settings. Mindfulness may be applied in all aspects of life — in the home, schools, workplaces, psychology, healthcare, and so on. This article briefly explores what mindfulness is. Specifically, it discusses the use of mindfulness to change people's connection to food with a view to influencing their eating-related behaviour. The food choices people make are based on culture, traditions, habits, environmental cues and appetite. Mindful eating may be another tool for training clients to use in their quest for healthier eating choices. 168 | vol21 no3 | JATMS