I was going to write a blog later in my series of blogs on toxins and stress and disease from the studies that I have been reading for the last month. But since a comment was made about stress and whether it has a correlation to disease to the previous blog I wrote on toxins and stress creating disease in our bodies, I will jump ahead and share some research I found on the relation of stress and disease. A relation to stress and disease has been researched by many doctors, psychologists, and medical research facilities and conclusions are that stress does several things to the body causing it to shut down in areas that can effect the body with disease and illness.

Do the common phrases, Tension Headache, Upset Stomach, Shaky Nerves, Tight Chest, ring a bell? Studies showed that work place stress has created an increase in heart disease and high blood pressure as well as making the body more susceptible to flu and viruses. It also has shown that stress can be related to Type 2 Diabetes as well as obesity. "Stress in general can disrupt the body's ability to process glucose, especially in people whose genetics make them vulnerable", said Richard Surwit of the Duke University Medical Center in a research article in the November/December issue of the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.

The high amount of stress we are putting on our children and young adults in school is increasing these diseases at an early age. Especially the obesity and Attention Deficit Disorders. Stress causes people to over eat. In some cases it causes people to not eat causing our bodies to be malnourished. Stress keeps you from sleeping properly. Eating healthy cuts down on stress to the body. It is a vicious circle. And we have to stay balanced in the mind and body.

Have you ever noticed that an extremely healthy person can go through a traumatic event in their lives like suddenly losing a loved one for example, and then they can quickly become sick. Stress creates acid in our bodies. Diseases thrive on acid. Diseases can not grow in an alkaline state. Which is another whole blog, or several blogs, that I will be writing on. And the studies on the relationship between stress and cancer are ever increasing. Just google "cancer and stress" and read thousands of reports. Just google stress and any disease and you will find lots of reports finding facts that stress is related to many many illnesses and disease.

Personally in three months time, I added 28 pounds to my weight and was eating way less foods than normal. Was even having a hard time holding down food. I was stressed to the max. A father who was seriously ill, a grandmother who I am extremely close with has Alzheimer's and a personal relationship that was falling apart and ended, and a move home to be closer to family that took me away from a lot of my friends and music band mates three states away. Then I had to put down a dog that I had in my life for 13 years that was like a child. My whole lifestyle, my environment, and the loss of something dear in my life, changed my whole world. Can you say overload with stress? My cancer came out of remission three weeks after putting down my dalmatian. So my own personal conclusions are, stress can kill. Stress had me curled up in a bed in a ball aching and hurting so bad I didn't want to move.

So in my humble opinion, we need to learn how to get rid of stress. Yoga, meditation, conversation opening up our thoughts to get things off our chest, and more. We can eat an extremely healthy diet, but if the mind is not healthy and the stress is causing our organs to shut down, all the best food in the world is not going to help. So this is my hardest struggle. Cooking and preparing healthy food is easy to me. How easy is it to prepare a healthy salad with lots of organic vegetables and eat a bowl of fresh organic fruit for dessert? Pretty easy. Getting rid of stress and learning how to relax on the other hand takes more discipline for me. So I created a routine every morning, that I start the day off sitting on my back porch and watching the birds, squirrels, and other wildlife passing by feed and play in the yard. Late in the day if I start feeling stress coming in, I return to the back porch and watch the animals again or take my guitar out there and just strum. Because I now know that I have to keep as much stress out of my life as I can to beat this cancer.