Acute, short-term stress, such as getting spooked at a horror movie, can actually slow the growth of skin cancer (according to a report from the Stanford
School of Medicine). MIKAELA MACKENZIE PHOTO
Add haunted houses and horror movies to your list of stress relievers. Evidently, fright can do a person some good.
Forget about yoga and meditation, apparently there are therapeutic benefits to getting a shock from a scary situation.
According to a 2011 report from the Stanford School of Medicine, acute stress can sometimes slow the progression of skin cancer.
In a report written by Susan L. Young, the study showed how acute stress from unexpected dangerous situations slowed the effects of skin cancer in mice.
Acute stress can occur when someone encounters immediate dangerous situations, such as being chased by a dog, or the sudden appearance of a knife-wielding psychopath in a slasher flick.
Firdaus Dhabhar, Ph.D, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, studied mice that were put in a confined space that restricted their movement before their exposure to cancer-causing UV rays.
These stress-induced mice developed more immune cells and were able to delay the onset of cancerous tumors that, in fact, grew quicker in their stress-free counterparts.
Acute stress triggers immune cells to fill your blood stream, and these immune cells go to various parts of the body to stand guard, ready for combat.
This may lead one to think that the stress from pending assignment due dates is a good thing, but be careful not to confuse short-term with long-term stress.
Long-term chronic stress is the kind that lasts for months or longer, whereas short-term stress can last from minutes to hours.
“Short-term stress, fight-or-flight type stress responses can be good,” said Dhabhar during a Technology Entertainment Design (TED) talk.
“Long-term stress is bad.”
He also said that a goal of his was to maximize the benefits of protective biology of short-term stress, and use this to a patient’s advantage during surgery, vaccination, and cancer therapy.
Dhabhar hopes to find ways to mimic real life acute stress using psychological and pharmaceutical means: think fright in a pill.
With Halloween just days away, a great alternative to a scare-pill is Screamfest.
This $25 Halloween event has been terrifying participants for eight years and grants partakers access to six haunted houses to explore.
First-year SAIT business administration student Gurjeet Pannu attended Screamfest for the second year in a row, and brought along his friend, Mount Royal University student Rachan Gill.
While Pannu had a great time, Gill, on the other hand, did not.
It appears that some enjoy the sensations a good jolt can bring more than others. So what is going on inside of the body when that girl with pigtails and a blood spattered dress jumps out at you in a haunted house?
Several hormones are released when someone is scared, some of them being adrenaline, endorphins and dopamine, explained Dr. Margee Kerr, in an article from The Atlantic.
According to the science website HowStuffWorks.com, some of these hormones are released during other activities such as exercise, first kisses, meditation, sex, and even after eating chili peppers.
What is it that compels certain people to want to see the latest Saw movie instead of going for a jog, if the results are the same?
Marta Edgar, a registered psychologist who has worked at SAIT for 10 years, said that people enjoy scary movies because they do not cause serious discomfort depending on the meaning they give to the experience.
“A movie is a movie, it’s not real,” said Edgar.
“People are able to put distance between themselves and what they see [in a movie].”
Edgar said that the positive experience that can come from being scared depends on the person, and not the scare.
“[There are benefits to being scared] only if it’s not traumatic, and there is no risk,” she said.
She also said that if done to an unwitting stranger, the scare could be a negative experience.
Edgar herself definitely would not want to be that unwitting stranger.
“[If I] would be startled, I wouldn’t enjoy it,” she said.