Another important study was published in November 2008 in the Archives of Internal Medicine.2 This study followed more than 200,000 Norwegian women between the ages of 50 and 64 over two consecutive six-year periods. Half received regular periodic breast exams or regular mammograms, while the others had no regular breast cancer screenings. The study reported that those women receiving regular screenings had 22 percent more incidence of breast cancer.

The researchers, as well as another team of doctors who did not take part in the study but who analyzed the data, concluded that the women who didn’t have regular breast cancer screenings probably had the same number of occurrences of breast cancer, but that their bodies had somehow corrected the abnormalities on their own.

“Of course, this makes complete sense, because your immune system is set up to recognize and destroy cancers in the right environment,” Dr. Northrup says. “The right environment, of course, is enough sleep, a low-glycemic diet, enough vitamin D, and also regular handling of resentments, anger, grief, and loss.

I think what I want women to know is that your breasts are not two potentially pre-malignant lesions sitting on your chest. The problem with our paradigm – whether it’s tomosynthesis or mammograms – is that it will find things that were never going to go anywhere. And then you’re out there wearing a pink ribbon and running for the cure, thinking that you were going to die of breast cancer when you never will, and never would.”

What are Your Breasts Telling You?

Dr. Northrup is a firm believer in the innate wisdom of the body, and you can apply a certain measure of symbolism to various body parts. Your breasts, for example, were designed to feed and nurture your children, as well as for pleasure. According to Dr. Northrup, women who tend to be most at risk for breast cancer are those who have difficulty nurturing themselves and receiving pleasure…

“The first thing you need to understand is you have to learn how to receive – how to receive rest, how to receive pleasure – and that’s going to be the primary intervention that I would do. This is the biggest stumbling block for women: we’re so afraid of appearing selfish.

Here’s what we do to get the nutrients of pleasure and receiving that we all need for optimal brain health – the beta-endorphin or the feel-good chemicals in the brain: We import it through alcohol and sugar, when we can import it directly through self-love, meditation, exercise, and good sex, which you can do with yourself,” she says.

Bernie Siegel, a pediatric surgeon from Yale, was co-president of the American Holistic Medical Association with Dr. Northrup in the early ’90s.

“Bernie used to say, ‘I have come to see that the fundamental problem most patients face is the inability to love themselves,'” she says. “I remember thinking, ‘God, Bernie, that seems pretty simple to me.’ And you know what? He’s right. The older you get, the more you realize this.”

So how do you love yourself when you feel unlovable? Dr. Northrup suggests a paradoxical strategy she picked up from Gay Hendricks, who is a pioneer in relationship transformation and body-mind therapies. Simply meditate on, or use the mantra:

“I don’t feel lovable, so I’m going to love myself for that.”

Another powerful strategy that we use in my practice is a form of energy psychology known as the Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), which also uses the affirmation to love and accept yourself unconditionally. This really is a powerful healing affirmation that can have a profound influence. I’ve worked with tens of thousands of patients, and it can seem like nothing short of magic when unconditional love and self acceptance is integrated into a person’s neurology. In many cases, it can resolve physical symptoms quite rapidly.

According to Dr. Northrup, part of this healing is due to the increase in nitric oxide, which is found at high levels in your nasal pharynx. This is one of the reasons why you should breathe through your nose (opposed to mouth-breathing).

“Think about what happens when you do that. You get an increase in nitric oxide in every blood vessel in the body. And remember: a capillary is a micron away from every cell in the body. Nitric oxide is produced by the endothelial lining of every blood vessel in the body. It’s increased in all situations of health: self-love, aerobic exercise, antioxidant, vitamins, eating your vegetables. Nitric oxide is the molecule of life force. It also balances all the neurotransmitters instantaneously – serotonin, dopamine, beta endorphin, and all those things for which one in 10 Americans is on an antidepressant.”

Dr. Northrup’s Top 10 Health Tips for Women

In this interview, Dr. Northrup shares her top 10 tips for women’s health:

1. Get enough sleep: Proper sleep is essential for optimal health, and it helps metabolize stress hormones better than any other known entity.
2. Meditate for at least 3-12 minutes each day, to calm and soothe your mind.
3. Begin your day with a positive affirmation.
4. Exercise regularly. Ideally, aim for a comprehensive program that includes high intensity exercises and strength training along with core-building exercises and stretching.
5. Breathe properly. When you breathe in and out fully through your nose, you activate your parasympathetic rest-and-restore nervous system, which expands the lower lobes of your lungs, and therefore engages the vagus nerves.
6. “Relax the back of your throat. So many women have thyroid problems – it’s from chronic tension here; because you’re pretty sure your feminine voice isn’t going to be heard. It hasn’t been heard for 5,000 years. You’re not alone. But it’s being heard now,” she says.

7. Practice self love and unconditional acceptance. Dr. Northrup suggests looking at yourself in the mirror at least once a day, and saying: ‘I love you. I really love you.’
8. “After 21 days, something will happen to you. You’ll see a part of you that looks back at you, and you begin to believe it. “I love you. I really love you.”

9. Optimize your vitamin D levels. Get your vitamin D level checked. Ideally, you’ll want your levels within the therapeutic range of 50-70 ng/ml. According to Dr. Northrup:
10. “Sunlight is not the enemy. It’s lack of antioxidants in your diet that is the enemy. Natural light is a lovely source of vitamin D; you can’t overdose. But many people – to get their levels of vitamin D into optimal – are going to need 5,000 to 10, 000 international units per day. So, vitamin D is important. You can get your level drawn through MyMedLab.com without a doctor’s prescription.”

11. Just remember that if you take high doses of oral vitamin D, you also need to boost your intake of vitamin K2. For more information on this, please see my previous article, What You Need to Know About Vitamin K2, D and Calcium.

12. Cultivate an active social life; enjoy some face-to-face time with likeminded people.
13. Epsom salt baths (20 minutes, three times per week) are a simple, inexpensive way to get magnesium into your body.
14. Keep a gratitude journal. Each night, before you go to bed, write down five things that you are grateful for, or five things that brought you pleasure.

“Remember: every emotion is associated with a biochemical reality in your body. So, you want to bring in the emotions of generosity, pleasure, receiving, and open-heartedness. The same things that create heart health create breast health.”

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