THE TELEGRAPH – Millions of people smoke, have too much alcohol, or are overweight or obese – all known risk factors for cancer.
But there are other addictions that can be just as damaging to our health.
It’s these lesser-known dependencies that are subtly increasing our risk of cancer that Dr Raphael Cuomo, a cancer epidemiologist and professor at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, wants to draw our attention to.
Three ways to tackle your addictive behaviours
“These addictive behaviours are not fixed,” Dr Cuomo notes. “People can escape them and reverse the risk of cancer.”
These are his tips on kicking your reliance on sugar and screens.
1. Tackle the root cause of your behaviours
We turn to addictive behaviours as a way of displacing stress and as a source of comfort. “We’re seeking a kind of distraction to prevent us from dealing with the bigger issues, from relaxing and allowing our bodies to sit and repair,” Dr Cuomo says.
It’s uncomfortable to stop and think about what you’re trying to escape from, but tackling the source of stress or trigger for reaching for food or your phone can help to replace it with healthier behaviours, he suggests.
2. Take an enforced break
“I would encourage people to attempt a reset,” Dr Cuomo says. “I think that if you can achieve seven days without something, then you tend to start to break free from the addiction.”
This would mean going for a week without eating sugar or engaging with the screen-based activity you feel you’re addicted to, such as social media.
“Create barriers,” Dr Cuomo recommends. These include not buying any sugary foods or putting them in a more awkward location to get to, such as the top shelf of a cupboard.
To cut back on using certain apps, you can remove them from your phone. “You want to make the habits you’ve developed an addiction to be more difficult to engage with.”
3. Stick to a sleep schedule
A regular sleeping pattern can help to regulate cortisol and melatonin levels, and it interrupts the loop of compulsive reward-seeking, better equipping you to steer clear of your unhealthy habits …
