The Vital Role of Social Connections in Cancer Prevention and Recovery

Could your social life be as vital to your health as diet and exercise? I explore the profound impact of social interactions on cancer prevention and recovery in this engaging episode of "In the Rising."

With insights from Andrea Rice's thought-provoking article in healthline, and expert research from the Mayo Clinic and Harvard Magazine, we highlight the incredible benefits of genuine face-to-face connections.

Join me as we celebrate the five enriching years of this podcast and introduce a new chapter with Rising Within Life Coaching—a venture dedicated to supporting your wellness journey. 

Thank you for being part of this journey, and let's continue to uplift and inspire each other towards a healthier future!

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Transcript

Bettina M Brown: 0:04

Hello and welcome to In the Rising a health and wellness podcast for those going through and those supporting those going through cancer. My name is Bettina Brown and I'm board certified in physical therapy, wound care and lymphedema, and you know, for me cancer is very personal. It's affected my friends, my immediate and my not so immediate family, and therefore I created this podcast and fitafterbreastcancercom to address the multiple dimensions of our lives during and after recovery. Hello and welcome to October 2024, breast Cancer Awareness Month. It's an unfortunate thing that we have to have a whole month dedicated to this, because it exists, but I'm so glad that we have the focus, the attention and also the money to really bring to light all the things that affect people with breast cancer.

Bettina M Brown: 1:02

Now, as I was reading an article by Andrea Rice, who published this on October 4th and fact-checked by Dr Jill Salady-Schulman, she talked about how healthy diet and lifestyles help reduce breast cancer risk, which are things we kind of already know about. But there was one thing that stood out on her bullet points that made me take a pause and a second moment glance and a little more research the importance of socializing with others. So I did look a little bit more into it and I found some articles by the Mayo Clinic Minute and Harvard Magazine, and both of these highlighted the very important component of socializing for your mind and your body. Not only is the lack of socializing just as helpful to the body as 19 cigarettes a day, meaning it's not helpful at all, but you do very much need to have some interaction. It's not just important for loneliness and to get rid of those feelings of loneliness, it literally sharpens your memory and your cognitive skills. It increases your sense of happiness and well-being and very well make a difference in the length of time that you live. And so, yes, technology is helpful, but let's face it, facebook scrolling, instagram scrolling is not connecting and it's not really socializing in the same manner as being in the same room with someone. So there are a lot of protective effects of just socializing in general. Now, there isn't a you have to talk for 20 minutes on the phone, face to face, anything of that nature of how much socializing.

Bettina M Brown: 2:51

But everyone knows we all have different levels of needs, right. For some people myself in that category I am very good with a lot of alone time, but I really love to see my friends from time to time and I really love to go out and have a great dinner and I really love to go out and hike and just talk about whatever. And other people need socialization almost on a daily basis, right Like throughout the day, all day, all day long. Knowing where you stand on that, but just realizing that that time when you get to laugh with your friends, when you get to have some moments to just be yourself in the presence of others, not only does that feel good but it actually does a lot for your health and it reduces your cancer risk. So if you've had cancer before, if it's in your family, add time with your friends to your list of to-dos and with that.

Bettina M Brown: 3:45

That is all for today's episode and I want to thank you again for your time. And thank you. This is almost my five-year anniversary of In the Rising podcast. I'm really excited and I think for all the people who have listened to this podcast through the time, and I have a special announcement I have just started Rising Within Life Coaching and I will have that posted below. I'm so excited to start this new adventure. Thank you again and until next time, let's keep building one another up. Thank you.