#318 Breast Cancer, Stress and Trauma - It Didn't Start With You
Today, we're diving into a fascinating topic: how generational trauma affects our epigenetics, and the profound impact stress has on our bodies.
Generational trauma, a term that's gaining more recognition, refers to the emotional and psychological impacts of traumatic experiences that are not just lived by one generation but are passed down through the next.
This isn't merely psychological; it's embedded in our very biology, in our epigenetics. Epigenetics is the study of how our behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way our genes work. Interestingly, these changes do not alter our DNA sequence but can change how our body reads a DNA sequence.
Research has shown that the stressors our ancestors faced, the hardships, and the emotional turmoil, can leave a mark on our genes, influencing our health risks, stress responses, and even our behaviors.
This understanding tells us that our family's past trauma may play a role in our own health story, including our journey with conditions like breast cancer.
The good news is that awareness is the first step towards healing.
By acknowledging the roots of our stress and understanding its biological basis, we can begin to heal not just our minds but our bodies.
In this episode, we'll explore strategies for recognizing signs of generational trauma, methods to address and heal these deep-seated issues, and how we can alter our epigenetic expressions for better health. Our bodies may carry the stories of our past, but they also hold the potential for healing. Together, let's embark on this healing journey, transforming the legacy we pass on to the next generation.
Referred to in this episode:
Ways to work with Laura
Studies:
Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance: Prevalence, Mechanisms, and Implications for the Study of Heredity and Evolution
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Read the full transcript below:
Laura Lummer 0:00
You're listening to better than before breast cancer with the breast cancer recovery coach. I'm your host, Laura Lummer. I'm a certified life coach, and I'm a breast cancer thriver. In this podcast, I will give you the skills and the insights and the tools to move past the emotional and physical trauma of a breast cancer diagnosis. If you're looking for a way to create a life, that's even better than before breast cancer, you've come to the right place. Let's get started.
Laura Lummer 0:33
Hello, friends, I'm Laura Lummer. And you're listening to Episode 318. And today is our Tuesday terrain talk. This is where we talk about things that you can do tangible things that you can do to have an impact on your body's ability to stay healthy, well achieve optimal wellness. This isn't about treating cancer, this is about making the body as healthy as it can be by addressing the opportunities and we have so many of them that we can address in our lives. Now we got to be careful, because what we're going to talk about today are the top two categories that I see scoring high in the train 10 assessment, which means when women go in and they take this assessment, it gives them a score, saying the highest scoring areas are areas where we could stand to make some improvements in our lifestyle. And overwhelmingly those two top two categories are mental and emotional wellness and stress management. And I want to talk about today how those actually impact our health. And how it did it start with you. And this is why I think this is important. As I was thinking about this, as I saw these results, and I was thinking about doing an episode on these two categories. I was in a call and talking to someone talking to a client about the impact of stress and trauma. And she asked me, which is a great question. And she says, Well, if stress and trauma have that big of an impact on our healing and on our body's response to things and they can affect cancer. Why do babies have cancer? Why are people born with cancer? Why do young children get cancer? They don't have traumas yet. And I want to be and I think that's great question one that I've asked myself a lot. But I want to be really clear on something. One thing doesn't create cancer, right? It's not like we're not going to blame ourselves or our mom or whoever, because we had stress or trauma and that caused cancer. Yet, when I asked my clients, and I've talked about this before on the show, why do you think you got cancer? Overwhelmingly, I hear about a life stressful life episode, a relationship, a job, a combination of stressful events happening at one time. And I think that that carries a lot of weight. Is that what caused cancer? Probably not. Is that something that contributed to a weakness in the immune system and maybe came together in the perfect storm of all the things that can contribute to cancer? It could be. But more importantly, it doesn't matter why? Because if you're asking that question, then you already have cancer, right? So it doesn't really matter why except if we're looking at it in the context of what can I do to support my body's ability to be well, after we've been through cancer treatment and diagnosis, what can you do to support your body's ability to be well and your immune system to be strong? So that you decrease your risk of finding yourself there again? That's the big question, right? So we don't want to go down the guilt and shame road of Oh, my gosh, I should have handled that better. That's probably what gave me cancer. We want to look forward to the life we want to live to being in this moment and saying, in truth right now, what can I do to support myself better? What do I need? And a lot of times what will change your life is focusing on mental and emotional wellness, and reducing stress. And as I said a minute ago, it didn't start with you. There's what's called generational trauma. And I want to talk about that today. So I want to talk about how stress really impacts us. And it impacts us over the generations because studies show that a woman when she's going through stress and trauma, that period of her life can affect three generations of children of family. And the same goes for men. There aren't as many studies on the genetics and the epigenetics, trauma related epigenetics that come through the male side, the paternal side of the family, but there are some They're mostly not human studies, they're animal studies. So that's going to vary. Of course, we're not rats. So we respond differently. But the evidence that's there is substantial to say like here, we already know it's coming through the maternal line. There's more studies in that, and more being done, because we're just learning about genetics and epigenetics, and what that really means and the impact it has on our health. But this comes from both sides. So whatever trauma our great grandma's were going through, living with when they were pregnant with our grandparents, and then our grandparents when they were pregnant, or conceiving with our parents, and on down the line, and it's not just in the gestational periods, not just in the pregnancy, but I want to talk about how stress and trauma whether they're big traumas or little traumas, but stress overall, impacts us throughout our life. So I hear this often from people saying, I shouldn't be stressed, I have a good life. Well, there's always stress in our life. Right now, in the world. Today, we're seeing so many conflicts everywhere, even if you personally are not impacted, meaning your home isn't, you know, being bombed. But you're still in the stress, right? You're in the stress of civil unrest wherever it is that you live. And it's obviously going to have different degrees and different traumas, depending on how much you're impacted, how directly it's impacting you. But it's stressful. And then we have just the day to day stressors of life. In addition to that we have financial concerns, health concerns, raising kids making mistakes, the way we judge ourselves, all the things, and they all add up. When we focus externally, we put all of our focus in what do I eat. And you know, I talk about this on the podcast using a chronometer chronometer to watch what my foods are to see what my fat intake is using a Keto mojo to test my blood to see if I have a good GK high where my ketones are in my blood glucose is I talk about that, because it's a part of my lifestyle. But for some people, that in itself is very stressful. So when we focus on external factors, like worrying about everything you put in your mouth, everything you put on your body, you create even more stress for yourself, that can be super stressful. And there's even been times it's been a little over three years since my stage four diagnosis. Now, there have been times where I've just stopped that there have been times where I'm just like, Okay, I'm feeling frustration. And feeling a little overwhelmed by all of this, I don't want to write down everything I eat, I don't want to test my blood multiple times a day. And there have been times where I just take a break for it, because it's more important to be able to stay calm, and in a good mental state that has such a huge impact on our wellness on our ability to sleep on the health of our microbiome. And so I want to do this episode and talk more about stress, this certainly won't be the only one. But I want to help you understand that, how stress affects our genetics, how stress affects our lifestyle, and how that can have an impact on your wellness. So we don't want to necessarily look at stress and say, I don't have a right to be stressed, or I should be happier. We want to be in a place where we say wow, I'm feeling stressed. What's my body telling me? What are the red flags at setting up? Am I having trouble in different areas? Do I have digestive? digestive discomfort? Do I have trouble sleeping, you know, are you just feeling stressed overall, a lot of times when I do a fast, I have to be really careful, because I can tell when my body starts to get tense. And that tells me that I'm having a cortisol spike in that tells me that cortisol is going to spike my glucose, which is the opposite of what I want. So even if I've decided I'm going to do a three day fast, if a day and a half into that I can tell I feel a tightness in my body. I can tell I feel stressed, then I'm gonna eat something because I want to avoid stress, I want to reduce it and manage it as much as possible. And if that means making concessions in other areas, that's okay. The feeling of calmness is something that I want and something that I know is important to my health. So I want to share with you some insights on why stress is such a big factor in our lives, how it can impact us and what we can do about it. And also when it comes to generational impact on our bodies. It isn't just the emotional, mental or stressful impact that generational trauma can bring. But it's also the toxic It burden. And I'm going to talk talk about that and touch on exactly what we see as far as toxic burden is concerned and how it translates into affecting future generations. Okay, so let's dig in. So first, let's talk about exactly what type of genetic changes we can see. And I will say epigenetic changes, because trauma stress in our grandparents and our parents, during gestation, while they're pregnant with us, they're not going to fundamentally change the DNA, what they do is they change the way that our DNA is expressed. So if you have a gene that contributes to how your body responds to stressful triggers, that gene can be altered. So it's maybe hypersensitive, or maybe shut down, right. So it's not your DNA, your DNA is your DNA, but it's the way your DNA expresses. And that's a super complicated process. But here's some of the ways that it's impacted. Let's talk about the different ways that trauma experienced by one woman's, let's say, by our great grandma can affect three generations of descendants. And also, let's not forget, by grandpa as well, because grandpa's sperm has something to do with this. And whatever he is experiencing at conception is also going to contribute to the amount of stress and to the epigenetic changes we experience. But it's also going to contribute to the grandpa and grandma interact with each other and with their children. Okay, so some of the ways that that kind of trauma can affect us is through epigenetic changes, other ways, or through behavior and psychological impact. So when someone is traumatized, or someone is under a lot of stress, then they may be struggling with other mental health issues like anxiety, depression, PTSD, and all of that is going to affect how they interact with their children, with their partner in life, how they parent their children, and that's going to affect the psychological and emotional development of the child itself. Right? Then there's going to be socio economic effects. That kind of trauma also comes down to the next generation and generations after that. I think about my mom, she's 83 now, and she's financially fine set for life, she's totally taken care of my mom and dad were good with their money. And she has nothing to worry about. But yet she stresses over money a lot. And this is a generational thing, because of the history which I'll talk about in a minute, some of the things that she's been through that those challenges affect a person and then when that person is pregnant, especially if they're going through economic difficulties during that time, that's going to also affect the genetics of the child that's being carried. And then the way the child is being raised financial, and economic difficulties and struggles. I mean, I certainly can remember a lot of that throughout my life as a child. And the trauma that I realized now at the age of 60, I'm still dealing with over money and money, beliefs, and stress and fear and anxiety about money, that stuff goes deep. And that affects the way that our genetics function. And so taking that into consideration, we see that every family has beliefs, stories, experiences, right? It's not just about genetics, and what genes are passed down. But how the story of a family, the narrative of a family, how that influences the attitudes and the beliefs across generations, especially even we're talking, I'm talking about women. So I think back about the way that the story in my family was about women, in their roles in society, in their roles in the family, and how much stress that caused for me that I had to work through in connecting to what I believed was my story and my path. And reconciling that with what I was conditioned to believe I was supposed to want to do. Okay, so then we also have health behaviors. So if we've got people who've been traumatized, or people who just are not educated as far as health behaviors, and what are good health behaviors, and let's be honest about that, too, as far as nutrition and health behaviors, this is relatively new stuff. I mean, our great grandparents and our grandparents, they were being taught about health behaviors, they were trying to figure out how to survive. They had a lot of stress that they were going under. So you know, nutrition science is basically like 100 years old, it's baby science, genetics and epigenetics, my God, things are being undiscovered all the time, psychological factors, right? The way that our mental and emotional wellness affects our microbiome, the way that affects our health, talking about emotions and feelings. That was not something that most of us generally are great parents. great grandparents, no way in hell, right. Our grandparents Nope. And even our parents, you know, when I was in high school, in college, even as a young parent as a young adult in my 20s, and 30s, people who went to get to see a counselor to see a psychiatrist, or psychologist, people thought they were crazy, right, there was a stigma around that. So we've got the tangible things that we're exposed to in life, we've got the socio economic pressures, we've got cultural pressures, we've got family stories, we've got family traditions, and belief systems as far as health care and all that gets passed on to us, right. So I started wondering, what kind of traumas could have been experienced in my generations, right? What if my great grandmother mother go through what it my grandma go through? What did my mom go through? So my great grandma, when she was pregnant, I just look back at the times that I knew about pregnancy, and then kind of what was happening at that time. But just to give you an idea, let's think about what people go through, and what's been passed down to us. So my great grandma was pregnant as roughly 100 years ago, right, or in the early 1900s, she was pregnant with my grandma, and she lived in Austria. So during that time, when my grandma lived in Austria, my great grandma lived in Austria, there were tremendous economic difficulties. And I know for a fact, because we interviewed my grandma and grandpa, before they passed, thank God, my sister had the foresight to do that. And they shared with us stories about what happened in our family during World War One, and how our family migrated to Canada into the United States and from Canada to the United States. But how they came from Europe and came over and what they were going through, and what they were struggling with. So a significant amount of trauma was happening there, right, even though it wasn't thought of as trauma, then it was just like it was just life. That's just what they go through. There was tremendous gender inequality. 100 years ago, think about it, women's rights were very limited. They were restricted to specific household roles. And they had very limited legal rights as well. And so many women were treated horribly. And I happen to know for a fact that there was alcoholism in the in my great grandfather, and there was physical and emotional abuse. So there were health challenges at that time in life, there were diseases and epidemics. And my family in my great grandmother's generation did not have a lot of money. So living hygiene, all that stuff around health was very different. They migrated to the United States. So they came to a new country. They left what they knew behind their family, their friends, they face a new culture, language barriers, discrimination, think about that. And all of this in the midst of World War One. So there was a tremendous amount of stress going on with great grandma, when she was pregnant with my grandma. Then we moved to my grandma. And she was pregnant, obviously, 83 years ago, right. So in the 1940s, what was going on the 1940s, World War Two, and my grandma did have to go to work, she went to the factories when all the men were sent off, to go to work. And so she not only left the home to go to work, but she had two kids and one of those children had to go live with her sister during the week so that my grandma could work during the week and just pick her up on the weekend. So think about the stress that that would have created, right. So there was a lot of socio economics going on. There was loss and grief and devastation from hearing what was going on in the war. Obviously, lots of economic challenges. There were also even in the 1940s racial and ethnic tensions were happening at that time. Think about people being put in internment camps. And even though my grandparents weren't, they weren't affected by that. But that affects us as human beings, when we see that happening to other people, with fear with anxiety with what's going to happen to us and just basic humanity, right. women's roles at that time, even though my grandma could go to work and more women were going to work. They were really submissive kind of roles, right? Women were not treated with equality at all. And we still struggle with that today. And then a lot of women had to be forced out of their jobs. When the men came home. My grandma didn't she was able to keep her job. But still all of this was going on. And she's seeing this around her. And you know, if you are any have ever had experience with you being faced with layoffs happening around you, or if your spouse was the person that's the breadwinner in the family being faced with layoffs, even knowing that that's happening around you is stressful. So here we go from grandma, to great grandma and think about the lifestyle. This is not just when they're pregnant, from great grandma to grandma, there was a lot going on in their lives that was very stressful and very traumatic, even if they didn't perceive it to be that because that language just wasn't used then Right? Then we come to my mom, I was born in 1963. That time was a lot of civil unrest, the civil rights movement was at its height, the Vietnam war was going on. And I distinctly remember my parents watching that and watching the news about the war on TV all the time, I have flashes of like images still from when I was a kid of scary things that I saw about the war on the news. And they didn't make sense to me at that time. But obviously, they had some kind of traumatic impact on me, right, as a small child, not even understanding what I was seeing. But I remember scary pictures of and now knowing that they were POWs being released, or they were, you know, video of what was film of what was happening in the war in Vietnam. I didn't understand it. But it stuck in my brain to the extent that it still flat have flashes of it as an adult, decades later, right. So then, even there was major assassinations. In fact, my President Kennedy was assassinated four days before I was born. And my mom was so stressed, she went into false labor, because she watched the assassination on TV. So there's all this stress going on around her. And then of course, the feminist movement was very big sexual rights, gender rights, and still the threat of nuclear war, I can remember, as a kid in elementary school, I don't think we were still doing this in high school. But I know through junior high school, we would have drills, we would watch films of nuclear bombs. And I guess that they had them from when jet when Japan was bombed. But we would watch these films, and they would practice with us like crawling under your desk. We live in California, so we would have earthquake drills, where they would send off the earthquake alarm, and we don't have to hide under our desks and say, This is what we do an earthquake. And we would do the same thing with with Cold War threats. And they would have these films and trainings for us and that this is what we should do forever attack. That's frickin traumatizing. That's stressful. And so that's still in me, too, from when I was a kid, right? So there's so much stuff that we think about, that impacts us. And maybe we don't even realize at the time that it's stressful, because it's just what's happening in the world and in life. But throughout the generations, it is impacting our genetics, if we are in fear, if we are in stress over these things, they are affecting us. They have to our body can't be separated from our emotions. And then in my own family, as I was being raised, my father was a deputy sheriff. And he worked nights, my mom was always stressed. So me growing up as a child, there was a constant stressor. My dad worked at nights, he slept during the day. So we, my mom was always freaking out about us making noise during the day. So as I Be quiet, you're going to wake up your dad, and then the story was right, if we wake up our dad, he'll be too tired at work, and he won't be aware and he'll get shot and killed. That's where it gets stressful, right as a kid, but my mom that was restored, that was her worry, right? My dad was her primary source of it. He was the income my mom didn't work. My dad worked. There were six kids. She was super stressed all the time. She'd stay up late listening to the police scanner, just checking on my dad all night long. And we knew that as kids knew that, so of course, there was an underlying stress for us wondering like, Is dad going to be okay, you know, and there's, there's just this film of stress constantly, the worry that dead when dad goes to work, he might never come home, right? So that along with economic stuff, we just think about all the things we go through as a kid. That's all affecting my epigenetics. And I can look at my life and say I had a pretty good life. I had a normal childhood. No one's childhood is without stress. No one's child is without trauma. Fortunately, I don't feel that my childhood had big T traumas. Right? I never had to worry about violence or sexual abuse or anything like that directed towards me and we did always have enough food for everybody and we did have enough clothes. So the traumas the stressors were day to day life and cultural and societal and economic stressors that mostly everybody goes through. So hopefully that story gives you a little bit more insight when you start to think, wow, yeah, your body didn't start with you. Your body started with genetics from your ancestors from your great grandma. And, and beyond, right? I mean, we know and we actually have science that shows us back three generations now. But as we talk about this, and as I relate this kind of story, you can see where it's more than just three generations feed into who we are now and what we experience now. Then, in addition to that, we do have the toxic burden, whatever chemicals are great grandparents, or grandparents or parents, whatever they were exposed to Dad's going to impact what happens to us during gestation during our mom's pregnancy. And so we know now we're so much more aware of toxic burden and plastics and things like that. But even though we're more aware of that now, we've made tremendous strides in cutting down the amount of toxic exposures that humans were exposed to, since my great grandma's time, right? lead, mercury as best those all of those things are great grandparents generations, coal toxicity, like all kinds of stuff, they were exposed to, that we never even thought about it that time could transmit to a baby, right that that was going to go into their baby. But we know now and studies have found in the umbilical cords of infants, carcinogens found in plastics, salads, which I think I've talked about on previous episodes, but those are chemicals used to make plastics, we find BPA in the umbilical cords of infants. And we know that BPA is a known carcinogen and can increase the risk of cancers. We have PCBs, polychlorinated by phenols. Those are banned chemicals. They've been banned in countries for decades, and we're still finding them in the umbilical cords of babies. They were widely used in electrical equipment and paints and lots of other products, and they can stay in the environment and accumulate in the human body and increase the risk of cancer, neurological damage, pesticides. And again, we've made so many strides and kind of cleaning up our environment over the generations. But pesticides, like glyphosate, which is widely used accumulate in the human bodies, heavy metals, also think about it again, generationally, our grandparents, our great grandparents were exposed to mercury and lead. And so our first exposures to toxins can be happening when we're in the womb. And in fact, if we look back to our mom's generation, grandma's generation, great grandma's generation, they didn't even realize that different medications that women would take alcohol, smoking, right, all that stuff was still going on, when people were pregnant, because they didn't think it affected the baby. So if that was happening in your great grandma's generation, and for me, personally, my dad smoked in the house the whole time, that I mean, his whole life, he smoked from the time, I think he was 13 or 14 years old. So when my mom was pregnant, she was breathing in secondhand smoke, and then she started smoking in her 30s. So we were always exposed to cigarette smoke, even in the womb. And now I'm not saying all this to scare you, because there's things we can do about it. There's a lot we can do about it. But I'm saying it so you understand the significance of stress, and that you don't just question yourself, and like why me and I didn't do anything, and I did everything right. And maybe you did. But we still have exposures. And so shaming ourselves or beating our heads against the wall, trying to figure out why something happened isn't necessarily helpful, because maybe it happened two generations ago, maybe it's just been passed down. And the important thing, again, is to realize it's happening now. And because it's happening now, wherever it came from, or because it happened to you, and now you're beyond the cancer treatment, but you want to do all that you can to not go through that again. What can you do? What kinds of things have a positive influence on our epigenetics, whether they've been changed by generational trauma, or by trauma in your current life? What can you do to manage stress, repair DNA, repair DNA expression and support your body's optimal wellness? There is a lot in Fortunately, there are simple things, maybe not easy things, but simple things. And one of those big things is to really look at stress related disorders, to look at PTSD, to look at the psychological effects of trauma that maybe were in your lifetime, or maybe could be passed down to see what people have been through without judgment, just understanding and realizing that could have an effect on you. Once you accept that it, creating a healthy lifestyle plan that works for you, is the best way to go. It sometimes amazes me how there are just, I don't even know hundreds of 1000s of books, how there are hard, I don't even know how many different diets and different diet books and different diet facilities and programs. All of this that has been written about food and what to eat, when it's really so simple, is eat whole food, get the processed food out of your diet, because that in itself can be doing damage to your DNA. So start with cleaning up the diet. Wait, we're talking about stress? Why are we talking about diet now? Right, because diet impacts your microbiome. And an unhealthy microbiome impacts the way your brain functions. And it can create epigenetic changes that make your body respond more strongly to stress. So stressors in your life can all be mitigated to some extent, when you're taking better care of your body physically. I was just having this conversation with one of my children. And we were talking about going through a stressful time in in his life. And I just check in on him all the time. Are you exercising? Are you eating right? Are you keeping alcohol out of your lifestyle? And even by his own admission? He says yes, because I feel so much better. I know I'm able to handle this better. Because I'm very focused on getting to the gym. Now I'm very focused on keeping alcohol out now. And I can tell that it's helping me manage things better. So this is really critical. Stress doesn't just mean we don't just look at and say how do we get rid of the stressor? Because sometimes we can. And sometimes we can't, like I can't get rid of all the stressors that are happening in society right now. So I have to deal with how I can manage them for myself, and supporting my body and my body's ability to feel well, and function well supports my ability to be calm. And then to make sure that I'm focusing on food that I am exercising, and that now because the physical part of my body feels so good. I can focus also on the emotional parts on creating a positive mental environment, with journaling practices, with meditation practices. And those are so important. You know, in yoga, a lot of people in the Western world we think of yoga as just moving the body right going to yoga class. But that part is called Asana, yoga is a science. Yoga has many levels to it. And Asana is one of the basic fundamental levels of yoga, moving the body, yoga moves up through different levels until it gets to sitting in meditation and beyond meditation, which are, you know, incredible levels that monks achieve, or Yogi's achieve in the Himalayas that are reaching Nirvana and that type of thing. But the fundamental part is us in a practice, because it's so important to be able to connect to the breath to the body, and to be able to calm the body. Because we can't sit in practice. We can't sit in meditation, even for a few minutes, if our body is not healthy, and our body is not calm. So asana practice is the basic of getting the body healthy, and preparing the body to be able to sit in silence and calmness so that you can work on the mind. It's pretty amazing, right? So this first way that we can look at supporting our epigenetic health is through looking at our lifestyle factors, such as the simple basics of eating good, whole food, reducing alcohol as much as possible, if not eliminating it, exercising regularly, this is going to help to repair some of your epigenetic patterns. Now for people who have more serious issues, who deal with clinical levels of depression, anxiety and other mental issues, of course, medication and pharmacological treatment is something that they may need support with even to get to the point of making other lifestyle changes. So this is a little bit of a slippery slope, because antidepressants, anti anxiety medications, those things themselves can do DNA damage. But sometimes we have to have them to support us to just be able to do the best we can in life, right? So you've got to give yourself permission to do whatever it is you need to do, to be able to take the steps to create a healthy lifestyle. And then we have mindfulness and stress reduction techniques. And I say a lot on this show, like be here. Now. Even as I've talked about epigenetics, I don't worry so much about what got you here as being able to embrace where you are now. Where are you now? What do you need now? What do you notice now and that's where mindfulness practices come in. Mindfulness just means being here now, so that you can see the stories, you're telling yourself, you can accept the truth of what's happening in your life, then you can start to improve your social and environmental conditions. Also, by spending more time in helpful supportive communities around people that you love, doing things and exposing yourself to things that bring more joy into your life. And that bring more connection into your life, this can have a huge impact on epigenetics. There was even a study that I'll link to, and it was a rat study, it was really interesting. And this one was looking at the genetics that impacted stress. And it looked at these rat pups. And the more that the rat pups had a mom who licked them and took care of them while they were baby reds, the less intense their response to stress was as adult rats. So connection and love is super important. And it is healing. In fact, it's one of the 10 healing factors in radical remission, improving social connections, right? Strengthening your connections is super important. So once again, we come back to these simple things that I talked about so much on these terrain talks on these Tuesday terrain talks. And maybe you're thinking like, Come on, give me something new. But here's something that I want to offer you. A lot of times when I'm coaching people, and they say yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard that. And then the question is, but have you done it? Have you practiced it? Have you incorporated this into your life? And until you do incorporate where you can say, Yeah, I do have a consistently healthy lifestyle, I eat whole foods a 80 90% of the time, right? I have a minimal alcohol intake, I take time for myself on a regular basis to calm myself and have some kind of stress reduction practice. I exercise consistently, until we do these simple things. And we do them with consistency over time, then there's no sense in looking for something new, because these are the fundamentals. And they will change everything, including the impact on your genetics, from generational trauma, that from great grandma, they can have a wonderful, amazing impact on us. And so it seems simple. And people want to dismiss it with the brush it off with the I know, I've heard this, I've heard this. But have you done it? Hopefully, this episode will give you a little more insight on how important it is to get back to the simple practices to reduce the impact that stress has on you. Because for the majority of women taking that train 10 assessment, to have stress and mental and emotional wellness in the top three opportunities, that's significant. And what's important to remember is, we can't control a lot of things that are around us. And so we have to be able to figure out a way to manage our response to those things that are around us. Because those things don't cause the stress. It's our view of them. Our handling of them are stories about them that create the stress in our bodies in our mind and the vulnerabilities in our health. All right friends, if you want support with that, you know you can come and work with me. You can find me at the breast cancer recovery coach.com where you can join by better than before breast cancer life coaching membership, or work with me individually in one on one sessions and create a lifestyle plan to support your optimal health. All right, I'll talk to you again soon Until then be good to yourself.
