Healing Environment

The environment plays a vital role in healing the patient from any disease. Cancer causes psychological distress among the patients due to its complexities of life-threatening conditions and other adverse events. Hene, there is a need for developing a person-centred healthcare environment for supporting the patients in building their physical and psychological well-being. A healing environment is related to the healthcare environment for cancer patients that helps establish therapeutic relationships between professionals and patients depending upon mutual trust, dignity, understanding, and sharing of human experiences. These factors will help promote a healing environment that involves care, and a degree of patient and family participation, thus enabling satisfaction levels among patients and the healthcare team. 

Some of the exposures provide efficacy in improving the patients’ health and their wellness. These exposures mainly include nature, clean air and water, bright light in the morning and darkness at night. Also, different chemicals and physical agents that may be natural or human-made are responsible for damaging the DNA and affecting the individuals’ health. These harmful exposures mainly involve air pollution, chemicals, and several forms of radiation. 

Undergoing any cancer diagnosis does not imply that it is late to remove the harmful substances and exposures from the surrounding environment. This enhances the body’s natural healing capability by removing the toxic exposure that may disrupt the hormone functioning, trigger the immune system, increase stress response, interfere with sleep, and contribute to symptoms. The directions responsible for increasing the chances of cancer include air pollution, Bisphenol A (BPA), flame retardants, pesticides, plastic, solvents and alcohol, and radiation exposure such as ionizing radiations, electromagnetic radiation, and other vulnerabilities.

Some of the exposures that are health-promoting and improve the body functioning for healing include:

  • Nature
  • Clean food, water and air
  • Light

The ways of increasing the exposure to clean food, water and air includes:

  • Avoiding the consumption of processed, charred and well-done meats that increases the risk of cancer.
  • Use of water filters.
  • Use of glass containers to store water or food
  • Providing ventilation to the indoor spaces
  • Using HEPA filters in the environment for filtering any source of contamination

The ways of increasing the exposure to light with natural cycles includes:

  • Allowing 30-minute or longer transition from screen time to bed time.
  • A good sleep during the night time with dark mode of light provided while sleeping.
  • Using LED circadian light bulbs, mainly in the places that occupy the last 30 minutes before going to bed.

Different segments of healing environment:

  • Toxins and Chemicals: Toxins are substances that are poisonous  to the body tissues and capable of causing diseases. It causes acute (short but severe) and chronic (persist for longer duration) responses. It causes inflammatory response in the body and deteriorates the functioning of the immune system. The toxins mainly include allergens, mutagens, neurotoxins, teratogens and endocrine disruptors. The most common chemicals found in an environment that increases the chances of cancer development include PFAs, PBDEs, radon, heavy metals, pesticides, plastics, harsh cleaners, PERC, PVC, formaldehyde, VOCs and EDCs. Therefore, all these toxins and chemicals should be avoided for developing a healing environment.
  • Identification of safe personal care products: The common personal care products used in daily life includes hair gels, shampoos, toothpastes, aftershave, deodorant and lotions that consist of almost 126 unique ingredients. Unfortunately a major population comes in contact with such chemicals. Majority of cosmetic products consist of a variety of synthetic chemicals that can be potentially toxic.  Hence, these chemicals and toxins need to be avoided by figuring out the toxic and harmful chemical content in the products being used. Hence, while purchasing the products following things should be considered:
    • The term natural is not regulated by FDA and hence such products are avoided.
    • The list of ingredients used in the products are mentioned at the product back side which needs to be read by the purchaser. These ingredients tell us about the chemicals and toxins present in the product.
  • Food and cookware storage: The use of plastic containers evolves several health risks and hence its use should be avoided. The chemicals used in the manufacturing of plastic containers leach into foods and beverages.The food stored in plastics causes exposure to toxins. Hence, no plastic containers should be used for food and cookware storage.
  • Electromagnetic fields and radio frequencies: Safe use of cell phones are recommended. The cell phones should have specific absorption rate values which is known to be the measurement of radio frequencies. The use of cell phones directly against the head is not recommended. The number of duration of calls should be reduced to minimum. Protective shields should be used for cell phones, laptops and tablets that can block 90% of the electromagnetic fields.
  • Household pesticides and other carcinogens: The household pesticides are intended to kill unwanted pests, their toxicity can also be harmful to humans. Many individual pesticides and specific classes of pesticides have been found to have a wide range of harmful  effects on human health. Many commercial pesticides combine active ingredients as they carry the risk of creating carcinogens which show synergistic effects in humans.

Creating a healing environment has shown efficacy in working against cancer growth or spread, improving survival, or working with other treatments or therapies to enhance patients’ health and healing capability. Some of the positive outcomes of the healing environment have been listed below:

  • One study has shown to reduce the anxiety, pain, and agitation among critically ill adults with nature-based sounds in the environment where the patient is dwelling (Thrane et al., 2019).
  • A reduction in the anxiety levels among adults suffering from pre-hypertension or hypertension has been observed (Yau & Loke, 2020).
  • Lower scores on the Profile of Mood States (POMS) test for anxiety, depression, anger, fatigue and confusion and higher scores for Vigo have been reported in cancer patients (Park et al., 2010).
  • Bright light therapy in the morning can improve sleep in cancer patients (Wu et al., 2018).
  • Bright daytime light enhances mood as observed among women with mild to moderate depressive symptoms resulting in scoring better in the measures of depression.

References

  1. Thrane SE, Hsieh K et al. Could complementary health approaches improve the symptom experience and outcomes of critically ill adults? A systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Complementary Therapies in Medicine. 2019 Dec;47:102166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctim.2019.07.025
  2. Yau KK, Loke AY. Effects of forest bathing on pre-hypertensive and hypertensive adults: a review of the literature. Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine. 2020 Jun 22;25(1):23. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12199-020-00856-7
  3. Park BJ, Tsunetsugu Y, Kasetani T, Kagawa T, Miyazaki Y. The physiological effects of Shinrin-yoku (taking in the forest atmosphere or forest bathing): evidence from field experiments in 24 forests across Japan. Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine. 2010;15(1):18‐26. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12199-009-0086-9

Wu LM, Amidi A et al. The effect of systematic light exposure on sleep in a mixed group of fatigued cancer survivors. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. 2018 Jan 15;14(1):31-39. https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.6874