<div><div><em>The first step in healing is never the medicine, but the attitude towards healing, writes <strong>Rachna Chhachhi</strong></em></div><div> </div><div>Last evening, over a glass of wine, I met an old friend who had battled cancer two years ago and was sitting in front of me, her laughter as gregarious, her smile as unflinching and her enthusiasm as infectious as ever, if not more. She was older, wiser and unbeaten. And that’s the thing that strikes me about survivors: their spirit.</div><div> </div><div>The first step in healing is never the medicine, but the attitude towards healing. Every day one hears of a cousin, friend, colleague who has someone close diagnosed with cancer. As per statistics, urban living is inching towards one in three people with the propensity to get cancer. So how do you ensure that you come out of it alive, kicking, laughing and enjoying your glass of wine?</div><div> </div><div>The journey to beating cancer begins with courage. Those who feel, “How can something like this happen to me?” and “I can’t tell the world” have already lost the battle. Raise your head, hold it high, and accept it. Internalising any issue makes us look for solutions. As a potential or existing business leader, your brain is already wired towards problem solving. The moment you accept there’s a solvable problem, the rest is all semantics.</div><div> </div><div>The second, and easier step, is to stay healthy while the deadly treatments are working on you. Always remember, every cancer treatment has severe and sometimes debilitating side-effects. So understand how you can minimise the side-effects with your diet, exercise, oxygenation and intake of nutritional supplements. And for heaven’s sake, don’t ask your doctor what to eat. Doctors are trained in administration of chemicals and surgeries for emergency treatment purposes; they cannot tell you how to use food and exercise as a cure. There are cancer exercise experts and nutrition experts like me who are trained in disease management and can give you the right anti-cancer diets.</div><div> </div><div>The third and most important step is to stay happy. But how? The body has no energy, the mind feels defeated? The body will get energy if you give it the right nutrients, the mind will feel strong if you build your stamina. On your worst days, get up, have a bath, and tell the person who is most worried about you that you want to go out for a while. Go enjoy a green tea in an outside, fun environment. Eat a lovely anti-cancer meal. Seeing you make the effort will give them hope, and make you feel good. It’s all mind over matter.</div><div> </div><div>Cancer is as much a disease of the mind as it is of the body. Unless it’s last stage (and I have seen a turnaround in many of those as well), just negating the side-effects of cancer therapy and a positive mindset are enough to beat it. </div><div> </div><div>Go deal with it. And come back and email me. I will surely have a glass of wine with you.</div><div> </div><div><div><strong>Question Of The Fortnight</strong></div><div>Send in your questions to askrachnachhachhi@gmail.com</div><div> </div><div>I noticed a sudden advent of white hair when I finished my masters and came back to India from Germany. What are the causes and how can I stop further greying?</div><div> — Abhishek Singh, Hajipur</div><div> </div><div>Dear Abhishek,</div><div>Premature greying of hair is often caused by nutritional deficiencies and stress. I have noticed this in many students who go abroad to study. They don’t get quality food and enough sleep, and suffer from high stress. The body takes a year to flush out this kind of stress even after normalcy is restored. Eating lots of green leafy vegetables, especially fenugreek, taking calcium-rich foods like eggs, soy, fish and spinach, and reducing stress levels greatly benefits hair quality, colour and growth.</div></div></div><div> </div><div><em>The author is a certified nutritional therapist and WHO certified in nutrition. She is the writer of Restore, a book on how to fight diseases for working professionals. Order your copy from amazon.in</em></div><div> </div><div>(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 21-09-2015)</div>
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