Sugar is Sweet but You Are Not!

This week I'm sharing a number of thoughts on dietary matters which I hope you'll find helpful. 

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In my book I wrote some information that was not as useful as I thought it was. Let's face it, I was wrong! There, in black and white, I'd asserted, on what I thought was good authority, that cancer took in seven times more sugar than normal cells. I apologise. However, we should nevertheless cut back on sugar, especially refined or 'free sugars', which are absorbed more quickly than natural sugars such as fruits. In fact, it's astonishing how little we need to fuel our bodies - less than a teaspoon full, it seems 'Free sugars' are such as biscuits, chocolate, flavoured yoghurts, breakfast cereals and fizzy drinks, where either manufacturers, chefs or home bakers top up the sweetness to make a 'special treat'. (Some ice creams and cakes can have 30 to 45% of sugar!)

Here's the link to the Cancer Research UK site

When we take in more sugar than we need - and in our world of highly processed foods that is almost inevitable - our bodies convert the excess sugar into fat. In ancient times that was no problem. For millions of years we scavenged, gathered and hunted for food and a good meal, sometimes any meal, was not always available. Therefore when an opportunity arose to gorge on animal fat or honey, we took it without hesitation. In these situations it wouldn't be long before the excess fuel was burnt off. Nowadays we can gorge ourselves on sweet and fatty food throughout the day and obesity is one of the greatest causes of illness in the Western world.

So, whereas we know that sugar doesn't cause cancer, and neither does sugar itself make cancer worse, being fat does. Most importantly an addictive sweet tooth reduces our ability to maintain our fitness levels and therefore reduces our immune system's efficiency.

An alternative to sugar might be sweeteners, but this isn't altogether safe. Some sweeteners known as polyols (such as sorbitol, xylitol and erythritol) can have a laxative effect if consumed in large amounts and some of their E numbers, whilst approved for human consumption, are not the most natural food stuff to be consuming.

Sweeteners approved for use in the UK include:

• acesulfame K (E950)

• aspartame (E951)

• erythritol (E968)

• saccharin (E954)

• sorbitol (E420)

• steviol glycosides (E960)

• sucralose (E955)

• xylitol (E967)

Combinations of some colour additives have been linked to negative effects on children’s behaviour, in particular hyperactivity and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Used in soft drinks, sweets and ice creams, they include:

• Sunset yellow (E110)

• Quinoline yellow (E104)

• Carmoisine (E122)

• Allura red (E129)

• Tartrazine (E102)

• Ponceau 4R (E124)

Maybe the main problem with sweeteners is that they stimulate our desire for sweetness and therefore may leave us with a craving for sugary things like chocolate. When, on my MEDS regimen, I cut back on sugar it wasn't long before my sweet tooth became less of a craving. When Liz served up a delicious pudding at a dinner party I thought I'd make the exception and tucked in with gusto. I was pleased to find I couldn't eat more than a couple of spoonfuls. But I do like a digestive biscuit now and then so I got some sugar free ones. Feeling able to indulge more freely I soon found myself wanting more sweet things so I cut back on sweeteners too.

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Supplements

For some time I've been taking quite a lot of supplements, mostly after breakfast. It was time I investigated whether it was OK to take so many tablets together. It didn't take me long to find it wasn't. There are certain times of day when it's more betterto take supplements than others. Here's what I found about my personal collection of capsules, recommend by my by doctors, nutritionists, a mycologists and my kinesiologist:

Morning

2 x 500mg capsule Reishi

1 x 500mg capsule Cordyceps

1x Probiotic (9 billion mixed bacteria capsule)

Teaspoon full Prebiotic (wheat bran)

1 x 400 mg capsule Saw Palmetto

1 x 400 mg capsule Sulforaphane : 30 minutes before or 2 hours after a meal

Lunch

1 x Vit D3 25 mg capsule with main meal

1 x Vit B6 30 mg capsule

Evening

1 300 mg capsule Magnesium citrate

1 x 400 mg capsule Saw Palmetto

It was relatively easy to look up the volumes, doses and frequencies for my supplements.

But let's not over obsessed with the 'whys' and 'wherefores'. My sense is we should build up a good understanding of sound information which we retain. This becomes the foundation of good habits which are largely automatic. I don't want to become a boring pedant who talks of nothing but his regimen.

The Silent Healing of Inner Peace

“All of humanity's problems stem from
[our] inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

Blaise Pascal

I'm sure we've all experienced what I call the 'waiting room syndrome'. The young man is disappointed by the sign 'SWITCH OFF YOUR PHONE'. Since Covid, there are have been no magazines in the rack – not even women's magazines. He doesn't know any of the other patients and no one's giving eye contact – not that he'd welcome it. He's read the noticeboards – twice – and is tapping his foot impatiently waiting for the screen on the wall to show his name. But might it be pleasant to be able sit in quiet contentment rather than in a state of constant agitation?

There is a simple way to find inner peace. Simple, yes, but not easy for most people. However, if we can be open enough and still enough and silent enough for long enough, something wonderful happens. It just takes patience and practice.

We used to teach our management trainees that it take three weeks to learn a new habit. That depends on individuals, but 21 days is probably a good average. Ideally that may mean doing a certain kind of activity deliberately every day, whether that's a physical task or a mental one. Repetition of any kind builds those habits into our autonomic nervous systems so we don't have to think much about the task any more. Our bodies know what to do and get on with it. We find ourselves performing a lot of daily routines in this way: driving a car, unloading a dishwasher, cleaning our teeth or taking tablets. So developing the habit of finding inner peace is no different from any of these activities. It's a matter of regularly bringing our minds and bodies into harmony. At first this will be for only short periods of time, but with practice, we find ourselves becoming more and more comfortable just doing nothing. That alone will boost our immune systems, considerably improving the levels of health they can achieve. If we're dealing with a serious illness, like cancer, the less day-to-day work we give our immune systems the more they can be put into dealing with our sick cells.

If we've never practised inner silence before, we'll need a long lead in. It's may not be helpful to throw ourselves into to a 20 or 30 minute meditation session. That's usually a road to disappointment. I've met a lot of people who say they've tried meditation and it didn't work for them. The reason is simple and it lies in that word 'tried'. Trying to do nothing is a contradiction in terms. We have to stop trying and allow our minds to come to rest. When we can do that, even for a minute or a few seconds, we need to pay attention to what we feel in our bodies as our minds pause from their incessant thinking.

The simplest and easiest way to begin practising inner silence is likely to be mindfulness. This practice has been said by psychiatrists to have made one of the most significant contributions to improved mental health over the last 20 years. It's something we can do at any time of the day, particularly when carrying out some routine task such as washing up or unloading the dishwasher. As I said before, this is a job that we do regularly so has become part of our autoimmune system. We don't have to think much about it. But once we can practice mindfully we can change a chore into a most pleasurable aspect of our day with considerable health benefits.

It is important to pay attention to the way we move our bodies: slowly and gracefully. We should also notice how every item we touch feels: texture, temperature, weight and shape. Take an attitude of loving kindness to everything. The warmth and soapiness of the water, the feel of the shape of the crockery, the hardness of the cutlery, the way we set items on the draining board. As we do this we enter into a different relationship with everything. These are not just objects we are handling. They are entities which consist of interrelated atoms all moving in harmony with each other. By paying attention to how they feel to us ,we can become aware of the harmony of movement that is going on within our bodies..

In that moment of harmonious attention – I call it 'Knowticing' – we will feel, albeit briefly at this stage, a sweet and gentle calm. This is unlikely to stay with us for long, but it is a start, and this sweet and gentle calm is something that we will want to return to, and eventually remain in, for a while. Later there may come a stage where we want to hold the inner silence for longer, but don't be tempted to do this. Allow this state of inner peace to remain for as long as it wants to and then let it go. Peace is not something that we can grasp for and hold on to. It is not our peace. It doesn't belong to us. It's an aspect of life and nature from which arises all that exists – and that includes each one of us. It is an essential source of wholeness and healing. We can eventually reach a stage when we can easily slip to and fro between the liminal boundaries of the noisy and busy temporal world and the silence of inner peace.

 

It's Good to be Here.

“It is a strange and wonderful fact to be here, walking around in a body, to have a whole world within you and a world at your fingertips outside you. It is an immense privilege, and it is incredible that humans manage to forget the miracle of being here. Rilke said, ‘Being here is so much,’ and it is uncanny how social reality can deaden and numb us so that the mystical wonder of our lives goes totally unnoticed. We are here. We are wildly and dangerously free.”

~John O'Donohue

So rich, so joyous, so undeserved, this latter-day life of mine. Each day a bonus. When, in 2019, we celebrated my 80^th birthday I wanted it to be a very special day. After 10 years with cancer I then had little expectation that I would still be among you five years later. (And by now, my 85th birthday today, I'm well past my use-by date!)

So today I'll be having a big celebration, though you won't see much evidence of it. First and foremost among my guests is my precious first lady, Liz, who has been such a tremendous loving support through our life together - espcially over the last 15 years. Then, as well as loved ones, present and past, my wise-ones, too many to mention will be arriving in the coaches of my mind. They'll fill the secret cave of my heart with gifts of remembrance: peace, love and joy.

Thank you all for being with me on this gentle day.

May all that you need, all that you need, be enabled within you and for you.

How to Train Your Crocodile

When in Africa, we once got uncomfortably close to a crocodile hidden under an embankment. The croc hissed and skedaddled in one direction. We skedaddled the opposite way, muttering expletives.

It's the same physiological process that might happen to custormers in a noisy pub when someone smashes a glass. For a second or two 57 people and a couple of dogs become alert and stop talking. They're assessing what the anomaly means. In doing that, the most primitive parts of our brains instantly and automatically (within 1 fifth of a second) prepare everybody's glands, including those of the dogs, to produce hormones ready for action.

Our primitive brains, which neuroscientists refer to as 'reptilian' and 'mammalian', are the first to receive information from our five senses and, before those aspects of our 'New Mammalian' brains begin their own rational and analytical processes, that information starts a chain of reactions.

That's fine if you're a crocodile but not always helpful for creatures of our kind. For instance, if your boss is yelling at you, your inner crocodile may feel it wants to bite her head off, but you stay shtum because you can't afford to lose your job. Outside in the corridor though, you translate your Crocodilian into English rather volubly.

In living with any serious illness such as cancer we're prone to reptilian reactions quite a lot. It happened when tumours were found in my lungs. It's a threatening disease and there are so many unknowns. Unfortunately, in our culture and our education system, we've done little or nothing about learning to cope with our crocodiles. “It's just the way we are,” we say. But no! It's the way we've become. Although psychologists have a fairly good understanding of what they call 'ego', the self, that knowledge has not been disseminated widely. To gain access to it we often have to wait until the problem becomes acute, before we get help from our overstretched mental health services, go privately or, for most of us, muddle through in ignorance.

Half the solution to a problem is to recognise what the problem is, and many, probably most of us, don't understand how to put our croc on a leash. But it will be helpful to do this if we are to live with cancer and our treatment with, at least, a relative level of peace. First, it's important to recognise that we have to deal with the whole person, not just the mind, the emotions or the body. Secondly, we're in danger of seeing things the wrong way around. It's like looking in a mirror, left becomes right and right left, but if you see yourself on a computer screen and try to comb your hair, you won't be able to do it. We're so used to seeing things reversed we're in the habit of getting some things the wrong way round, even when we're not looking in a mirror. For instance, in tackling fear and anxiety we're likely to start with our minds and try to use will-power to repress the feelings of discomfort generated by our minds. That's like playing one-armed bandits against yourself. If you win, you lose. It's no good trying to bring our minds to rest when our bodies are telling us they're feeling anxious and fearful. When we try to resist our feelings through the power of the will our feelings resist back. We end up by doubling the power, not reducing it, and becoming more tense not less.

When we have a shock, our first reaction is likely to come from our inner crocodile. It's prompting us to flee so we breathe short and shallow. That may be okay for the croc but inappropriate for us. In that situation someone may say, “Breathe deeply,” even though that seems to be the opposite of what the body wants to do at the time. Our minds are intimately connected to our breath and although the mind wants our bodies to breathe short and shallow, we can take control and make them breathe long and deep. That says to our crocodile, “Basket!” After a while it will usually do as it's told, though with a few resentful hisses.

But don't wait for crises before you train your crocodile. There are many occasions during the day when we can find a few moments to breath deeply and bring minds to rest, perhaps when waiting for a bus, washing up, gardening or doing some photocopying. By developing the habit of mindfulness every day we can build serenity and peace into our autonomic nervous systems. Even more so if we take time each day, preferably in the morning, to spend 15 or 20 minutes in solitude and calm. After a while it's not too difficult to find that inner peace whenever we notice our minds triggering tension in our bodies. Don't resist that tension with will-power though. Just relax. Our own inner peace will soothe our inner croc whenever it feels restive.

What's your inner crocodile called? Mine's Granville.  😁

Enough's Enough!

 

One of the first things I do in the day is to wash my face in cold water. Then I look in the mirror and smile. It's not a habit, neither is it a response to my tousled appearance, though that might be appropriate. The smile is spontaneous. It's simply good to be alive. Right from the outset of my day there is an inner joy that is inexplicable. I could easily dwell on the multiple diseased elements in my body and other problems queuing up in my day but I don't. For some inexplicable reason this is not something that I've had to work at – not consciously or directly, at least. So far I have been extremely fortunate in not having to experience much in the way of side effects as a result of my tumours – of old age, yes, but only one of my 'visitors' produces mild and intermittent discomfort. Maybe my condition puts normal day-to-day stuff into perspective, I don't know. But I don't have to hype myself up. The joy rises without the need for an external reason.

Lao Tzu* says, “The norm of the world is serenity and peace.” In considering this I recognise that although we become ill from time, most of us recover. As Grandpa Tweedy says in Olive Burns' wonderful novel 'The Cold Sassy Tree', “We gits well all the time but we don't die but once't.” Turmoil arises and subsides, wars are always followed by peace – it's a principle of life; dysfunction is an anomaly; everything returns to the norm.

Of course, that doesn't mean that we recover from illness all the time, because there are other principles of life that are at play here. One of them is that life always seeks the best that can be. If that had not been true then life would not have been able to survive and evolve for the last 4.5 billion years. But, in seeking the best that can be there is another principle here: Life does not impose itself by force. Lao Tzu explains, “It is heaven's way to conquer without striving, to get responses without speaking, to induce the people by not summoning . . .” It seems that life doesn't make things happen but enables things to happen by wisdom and allurement. It is no respecter of persons. The principle of 'the best that can be' applies to everyone. Yet we can influence the outcomes of that principle.

This is my trust and my hope, based on the assurance of what we can observe of how life manifests in the living. Another is that it is in the nature of nature to nurture. Every living thing is nurtured for survival and, in turn, nurtures other living things. Life lives off of life. For us to live today other living things have to die and be consumed. Yet life always provides sufficient abundance, though not a superabundance. It is our kind that seek a superabundance which, as a result, has sown dysfunction and anomaly among all other life forms. One of the main sources of dysfunctional superabundance is obviously our excessive consumption and our excessive fear of death. Whereas we are naturally endowed by life to survive through the principles of nurture and 'the best that can be', we have perverted these natural endowments through failing to recognise the greatest wisdom, that of having enough. As the writer of Ecclesiastes says, “There is . . . a time to be born and a time to die . . .” Yet our fear of death often forces us to extend our lives long beyond our 'use by' date.

Life seems to operate on the basis of principle rather than law alone. Quantum scientists speak of 'uncertainty' and 'probability'. It is as if, in holding to the principle of 'the best that can be', we can help maintain the balance between uncertainty and probability. In recognising the principles of life and actualising them through implementing healthy lifestyles (my MEDS) we can have a major influence in the outcomes of our illnesses and treatments.

My love and best wishes to you all.

Brian

* The legendary Chinese author of the 2500 year old Tao Te Ching

Love Yourself Better

 In my 15 year journey with cancer my primary concern has been to do with dealing with fear and anxiety. I can't speak about long-term pain, for I've been extremely fortunate in that there has been little of that.  Had that not been the case I'd have been less able to contemplate aspects of my experience as deeply as I have done or perhaps write the book. Certainly, much has been taught me and surprisingly much of that has resulted from reflecting on the generous feedback .

 Most recently has been openings about our warrior culture and how this affects our attitudes and experience of cancer and other serious illnesses. When, in our 'cancer vocabulary', we use such terms as 'battle', 'fight', 'resist', 'enemy', this is the language of our warrior culture, which has been predominant world-wide for 6000 years and more. It is the language of fear, for although we may also speak of courage and bravery, behind these concepts are those of confrontation and insecurity.

Negative language is dangerous, primarily because it invariably provokes anxiety and fear. Such feelings cause the body's defence system to generate hormones evolved to enable us to take action by fleeing or fighting. Since we can probably do neither of these the hormones aren't burned off by physical activity but remain in the body and become toxic. In this situation not only has the immune system to deal with the tumours and their effects but with the overload of unused hormones. We may be able to distract our thoughts or suppress the feelings this language and its surplus of chemicals provokes in us, but it's nevertheless difficult to control the mind with the mind. That's like having a one-armed wrestling match against you. If you win you lose. So, to a very large extent language controls our attitudes and to change our feelings we need to change our language so that we can change our attitudes.

The opposite of the warrior culture is the culture of loving kindness. Scientists at the Heartmath Institute discovered that loving kindness can actually change the conformation of DNA. We think of loving kindness as something we do to others, but it is just as effective when we apply loving kindness to ourselves. “Love your neighbour as yourself,” says one of my wise ones. Another wrote, “One must learn to love oneself – thus do I teach – with a wholesome and healthy love . . .” It is also said that we should love our enemies - even our cancer. What opened to me was that my tumours are my cells, my offspring. If a child becomes criminal, do I reject them because of their criminality or love them because they are my child, my offspring?

I don't know how much my positive attitude of loving kindness has affected my cells. I've certainly reached a place where, currently at least, I have no fear or anxiety about the tumours currently in eight locations. What I do know is that doctors report that the greatest chances of recovery from illness come from patients with the most positivity. So we should replace our negative vocabulary, which is damaging to both body and mind, and begin to use the language of loving kindness. My body knows how to deal with my cancer better than my mind. Of course, sometimes my body needs help, but the most powerful medicine, that which will influence my immune system and support my treatment, is love.

The Best That Can Be

For me, the most uplifiting events of the last couple of weeks have not been the Olympic Games. Spectacular as they were what reached my heart was the people of Stockport's spontaneous clean up after the riots, and the peaceful marches nationwide which stopped the bullies in their tracks.  

 

Such events as these become newsworthy because of their scale but little miracles of kindness happen every day - by the millions.

If we follow the news media we will be fooled into thinking we live in a world that is a continual playing of 'East Enders'.  The world's not like that – observably it's not. Most people are doing good to most other people most of the time. We should constantly remind ourselves of this.  2500 years ago Lau Tzu observed that 'Serenity and peace is the norm of the world.'  That's quite a contrast to Tennyson's world, 'Bloody in tooth and claw'.  As the ancient sage pointed out, wars cease, most sicknesses heal and, in our time, though there is much to be done, billions of people's lives have been improved.

It is also observable that life always seeks the best that can be. 4.5 billion years of evolution surely proves this. And this principle is demonstrated by the observable fact that it is the nature of nature to nurture. Every living thing is nurtured towards the best it can be, sometime despite dire limitations. For life does not impose itself by force of will but enables the best that can be by allurement.  The root of the word nurture comes Sanskrit and is related to breastfeeding. Nurture is love. I therefore conclude that the principle of life is love.

These are my observations especially over the last 15 years of living with cancer. My body has continuously sought the best that can be. That is the nature of every quantum particle, every atom, every molecule of every cell in my body. In doing what I can to provide my body with what it needs to enable the nurture of nature to do its work, I'm keeping out of the way rather than trying to impose my will to obtain a specific result.  My body knows what to do and I trust it to do what it can, in the best way it can. 

My mind is at rest. I have no idea as to whether I will die with my disease or of my disease. I would like it to be the former but I'm prepared to suffer what I must. Nurture is not just of my body but of life itself and I am surrounded by many sources of nurture, all there to support me.

So may we be aware that we are surrounded by love and that the nurture of life that will always seek the best that can be. May we give our full trust and cooperation to life.