ROCHESTER, Minnesota — Everyone with cancer experiences it differently and all emotions are valid and important, regardless of the mix or intensity. Shawna Ehlers, Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic psychologist and psycho-oncology expert, helps patients cope with the burden of their cancer diagnosis. That includes dispelling myths that stress in their lives caused their cancer or that depression must be suffered through during cancer treatment.
"If I had one thing that I could tell all cancer patients, it would be that stress does not cause cancer. That is a common myth that causes a lot of unnecessary worry and guilt," Dr. Ehlers says. "People think if only they had not taken that stressful job, or they would have left that stressful marriage, they wouldn't have cancer. One of the most rewarding parts of my job is to say, `That's absolutely not true. Stress did not cause your cancer. There's no scientific evidence to prove that.'"
Stress can wreak havoc in many ways. The body's natural stress response, designed to protect it from perceived threats, can stay on when it shouldn't. This can happen for many reasons, including trauma and other stressors. The long-term activation of the stress response system and the overexposure to stress hormones can disrupt almost all of the body's processes, but it can't cause cancer, Dr. Ehlers says.
