Episode 49: Stress Is Stealing Your Body's Healing Power

Most people aren't fighting for their lives, but their nervous system thinks they are. In this episode of the Beljanski Cancer Talk Show, Nathan Crane joins us to explain how chronic stress, fear, and fight-or-flight responses shut down healing, and how breath, meditation, and mindset shifts can help restore the body’s natural ability to repair and recover.

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About the Guest:

Nathan Crane is an inspirational speaker, meditation teacher, bestselling author, and award-winning filmmaker with over two decades of experience in holistic health and spiritual practice. His work focuses on helping individuals regain clarity, purpose, and vitality by addressing the mind–body connection and nervous system regulation.

Having overcome homelessness, addiction, depression, and severe emotional trauma in his youth, Nathan brings lived experience to his teaching. He has worked extensively with individuals facing cancer and chronic illness, emphasizing breathwork, meditation, and mindset as foundational tools for restoring balance, resilience, and healing.

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Social Handles:

Website:  https://www.nathancrane.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meditationwithnathan/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MeditationWithNathan

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Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding the Impact of Stress on Health
• 2:18 Nathan Crane's Journey to Holistic Health
• 5:19 The Role of the Nervous System in Healing
• 13:29 Stress and Cancer: A Complex Relationship
• 18:12 Mindset Shifts for Cancer Patients
• 26:19 Practical Steps for Managing Stress
• 31:27 Guided Meditation for Healing
• 42:54 The Search for the Sacred: Nathan's New Book
• 45:55 The Beljansky Integrative Cancer Conference

Transcript

00:00 Understanding the Impact of Stress on Health

Nathan Crane (00:00.142): Problem is in modern society, 99 % of the time, you do not have to fight for your life. But your nervous system believes you're fighting for your life. And so it's taking the energy away from all the healing systems, immune system, all the rejuvenating factors. It's increasing cortisol, it's increasing norepinephrine, adrenaline, which is increasing inflammation in the body. And it's sending all the energy to the fight or flight system, which means you're not healing.

Sylvie Beljanski (00:45.000): Welcome to the Beljanski Cancer Talk Show where integrative science and holistic healing come together. I am Sylvie Beljanski and in each episode we explore nutrition, lifestyle, mental health and research-backed approaches to support the whole person through cancer and chronic diseases. Today I am pleased to have with me Nathan Crane. Nathan Crane is an inspirational speaker, meditation teacher, bestselling author, award-winning filmmaker, holistic health professional, and certified breast work and meditation teacher. With over 20 years of experience in holistic health and spiritual practice, he brings a fresh and dynamic approach to helping people awaken to their potential and experience greater clarity, purpose, and happiness. So Nathan, thank you for joining the Beljanski Cancer Talk Show. It's a pleasure having you with us today.

02:18 Nathan Crane's Journey to Holistic Health

Sylvie Beljanski (02:18.182): And that's a beautiful journey. Would you tell us a little bit more about what happened to you and how you got there?

Nathan Crane (02:25.000): Thanks, Sylvie. Yeah, thanks for having me on your podcast and pleasure to see you and look forward to seeing you at the Conference in June, by the way. You know, the short version of my life story is I grew up in Montana, goes in Belgrade, Montana, and I ended up homeless at 15, dealing with a tremendous amount of self-doubt, stress, anxiety, fear, leading to depression, and even attempted suicide led me to drug addiction, alcohol addiction, and it just spiraled downhill from there. I was almost dead at 17, 18 years old and I had a beautiful family take me in. And it kind of planted a seed and started me on this new journey, the spiritual journey.

And so that was 2005. I was 18 years old. I moved to San Diego and I started my life over. And at that time I started reading motivational blogs. I started learning how to meditate. I started exercising, eating healthy. I stopped eating fast food. I stopped smoking cigarettes. It took me a number of years after to finally completely stop all alcohol. I stopped all drugs before that point. My whole early 20s was this deep spiritual path. At times I was meditating hours and hours a day. I was spending a lot of time with Buddhist monks and Taoist masters. And I had a spiritual teacher who I was with almost every single day for about four or five years. He was one of really early spiritual mentors. And we really went deep into meditation and self-healing and power of our thoughts and our minds and emotions.

05:19 The Role of the Nervous System in Healing

Nathan Crane (05:19.000): Over the last 20 years, it's shown up in a lot of different ways. Whereas you said, I worked with cancer patients specifically for about 13 years. A lot of what I did with cancer was helping people to take control of their health from a holistic point of view. A big foundation that I always implemented... is I always came back to this foundation of we have to get control of the nervous system. We have to get your body into a safe mode out of fight or flight. We have to get your nervous system into parasympathetic, what I call parasympathetic mastery. Once you're in parasympathetic mastery, you master your parasympathetic nervous system, then your body can actually start to heal itself.

Sylvie Beljanski (06:19.032): When cancer enters your life, the questions don't stop at treatment. You start asking, why? What else? And what more can I do to support my body? At the Foundation, we believe cancer care deserves deeper answers, answers rooted in science, not in shortcuts. Whether you are a patient, a caregiver, or practitioner, this is the place to learn, to question, and to think more expansively about healing.

Nathan Crane (07:30.000): The problem is with this go, go, go, go, go, go, go mentality we have for society, do more, achieve more, be more, then you'll be happy, then you'll be healthy, then you'll be successful. That is causing people to be in sympathetic overload, which means the nervous system stays stuck or it's constantly in or vacillating between this fight or flight and rejuvenation. (08:04.738) Let's be honest, most people today are stuck in fight or flight, chronic, low grade, fight or flight, sympathetic nervous system response. And what that means is when you're in that state, your immune system is down regulated and it can't do what it's designed to do, which is identify, target, and eliminate cancer cells, as well as pathogens, arteria, viruses.

If you're only doing those things and you're not focusing on the bottom part of the iceberg and the bottom part of the iceberg that's hidden under the water, the massive part is the nervous system. And the people that we worked with when their nervous system gets in harmony, then all of sudden everything they're doing seems to work better. But what causes sympathetic nervous system overdrive? Stress, specifically chronic stress, anxiety, fear, worries, doubts. (10:19.17) Worrying about the future, paying the bills, the debt collectors... all these worries, they kick on that sympathetic. You know you're in sympathetic, because you feel it. What happens? Increases heart rate. (10:47.278) Sometimes you might feel sweaty, tension. If you can drop your shoulders down, you know you're already in a tight situation. That's a place that is causing your nervous system to be dysregulated out of harmony and preventing your body from being able to truly heal itself.

All of that's controlled by the nervous system. Let's send out natural killer cells, T cells, B cells, go gobble up all those cancer cells... or let's hold it back. Problem is in modern society, 89 % of the time, you do not have to fight for your life. But your nervous system believes you're fighting for your life. It's increasing cortisol, it's increasing norepinephrine, adrenaline, which is increasing inflammation in the body, and it's sending all the energy to the fight or flight system, which means you're not healing. (13:09.176) But that calm and content and peace in return makes your body go into healing and rejuvenation and digestion and relaxation, all the things that create healing in the body.

13:29 Stress and Cancer: A Complex Relationship

Sylvie Beljanski (13:29.000): So would you consider that for people with cancer... that stress is a cause of cancer? Stress is a cause to prevent them to overcome cancer? Stress is a cause of for cancer coming back? It's a very stressful situation. How do you practically can help people in this extreme situation and help them relax?

Nathan Crane (14:00.000): The short answer is yes to all of those questions. Stress is directly related to whether cancer may show up in the body, whether cancer's going to come back in the body, whether cancer remains in the body. (15:01.58) You will see that stress is directly related to cancer in the body. And we also know that many cancers are directly related to some trauma that happened. The trauma that happened got stored in the body.

How do we get those neuropeptides out of the system? Well, we have to do... this is where the ancient wisdom comes in, is our ancient ancestors already knew all of this thousands of years ago. Our modern science is backing up and saying, yeah, all that stuff actually works to flush these neuropeptides out of the system. So if you have cancer, you're concerned about cancer, you realize how essential your nervous system is in the process. Like to me, it's 80 % of it. 80 % the whole cake is the nervous system and is balancing harmony. It starts with the mind. It starts with the thoughts and emotions. (17:28.078) If you focus on that and make it a priority, then everything else can work so much better.

18:12 Mindset Shifts for Cancer Patients

Sylvie Beljanski (18:12.000): So what would be the first practical baby step you would recommend for somebody who has been diagnosed with cancer and is overwhelmed with fear and stress?

Nathan Crane (18:15.000): Yes. So first step, okay, is let's look at the mind. And the first one is how you look at your diagnosis and how you look at your prognosis. In this research, what they found was if you deny the prognosis, but accept the diagnosis, you will be significantly in a much better place mentally, emotionally, and physically. (19:11.54) How can that huge massive average of a prognosis you told me... have nothing to do with you and your mind and your body and your life? Where the fear comes is the prognosis. You have to deny the prognosis. I will find the way that is meant for me, that's best for me to live the healthiest, happiest that I can with whatever time I have left on Earth.

Sylvie Beljanski (21:07.126): Number two is accept the diagnosis. You don't deny it. You accept the diagnosis. This is what I have right now. This is part of my life. I'm going to find a way to use this for my highest good, to become the best human being I can possibly be.

Nathan Crane (23:02.382): I would talk with one person who had cancer who said it was the worst thing that ever happened to them. Another person with the exact same cancer... said cancer is the best thing that ever happened to them. In their mind, it was terrible... it continued to spiral them down. Here's another person... living happy, smiling, joyfully. They said, because it made me learn to love my body more and to take more ownership over what goes in my mouth. They looked at cancer as an opportunity to grow as a human being and to be happier. (24:55.156) Mindset is everything when it comes to cancer. Where your focus goes, energy flows, right?

26:19 Practical Steps for Managing Stress

Nathan Crane (26:19.000): Getting control of the mind is essential. (27:19.01) Every major challenge I've ever had in my life... I always found a way through and something better on the other side. So the third thing is really work on the mind, on where you're putting your thoughts and the best solution for that... is two things: one is our breath, and the second is meditation. Meditation allows us to let these thoughts and emotions and what the ancient in Sanskrit call impressions or Samskaras. If your subconscious is directing your life, 95 % of your life, then you really should know what's going on in your subconscious. (29:41.122) Just even a little bit every day will clean and clear out these impressions and what it'll do is it'll start to give you more control.

31:27 Guided Meditation for Healing

Sylvie Beljanski (31:27.000): Actually I would love, I think the audience would love to have the privilege to be guided by you on a meditation.

Nathan Crane (31:37.326): Yeah, so if you want, we could do that now. Your breath holds the secrets. (32:05.26) Breath is not just oxygen, but in fact it is the vehicle for life force energy. We get prana from multiple sources. One of the easiest access... is through our breath. I'll guide just a simple one here. This practice is called Samvritti. Sitting comfortably, let's take a deep breath in through the nose. And let it go. (34:29.23) In two, three. Hold the breath. (34:33.784) Breathe out. (34:38.434) Hold. Breathe in. (34:46.958) Breathe out. (34:55.324) Hold. (34:58.804) Into the nose, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. Breathe out, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. Hold, two, three. Out, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. Last round. Out, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four, one, and relax. (36:43.946) Noticing how you feel. (36:50.286) Observing your mind, your body. (37:01.688) Take a deep breath in to the nose. (37:10.506) When you're ready, you can open your eyes.

Sylvie Beljanski (37:25.614): Thank you. Thank you for that. Yeah, yeah, it's very, very relaxing experience.

Nathan Crane (37:30.000): Very relaxing, right? Now, when you're in a sympathetic state very often... you doing something like this once a day, it will help, but it won't be enough. (38:33.426) You need more breathing practices that will go much deeper into the nervous system. What these breathing practices do... even this one, you do eight to 10 rounds of this. It'll start to calm your nervous system. Getting a daily meditation practice will also be incredibly powerful. (40:54.958) Modern science is finally catching up. (42:23.47) Breath work, meditation, spiritual knowledge, positive psychology—these things should be the foundation of any cancer healing protocol.

42:54 The Search for the Sacred: Nathan's New Book

Sylvie Beljanski (42:54.000): And you have a new book coming up. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Nathan Crane (43:00.000): Yeah, the book is called The Search for the Sacred. It's basically the last 20 years of my life... from being hopeless, helpless, sick, addicted, lost to honestly living my dreams and living happier and healthier than I've ever been in my life. (43:59.144) I teach something called the SOM method, which is a mindset principle. It's called The Search for the Sacred: A Journey from Suffering and Addiction to Healing and Awakening.

45:55 The Beljansky Integrative Cancer Conference

Sylvie Beljanski (45:55.000): And you are also going to join us in San Diego for the Beljansky Integrative Cancer Conference. What can you tell us about going there and what are you looking to share?

Nathan Crane (45:26.272): I'm excited. This will be the third year, right? I'm coming as a speaker this time and we'll be sharing some really cutting edge stuff with people specifically about nervous system regulation and cancer. What the conference does is it brings hope and inspiration and real tools and real strategies based in science. The funds go towards furthering cancer research into natural solutions for cancer, which I love. It brings a community together... so that cancer doesn't have to feel so much like a death sentence. It's a wake up call that says, hey, you know what? I'm ready to take back more control of my life.

Sylvie Beljanski (47:15.000): Thank you. Thank you, Nate. And that was awesome. And we look forward to seeing you in San Diego and to read your book when it comes out.

Nathan Crane (47:26.572): Yes, thank you, Sylvie. Thanks for having me and appreciate you so much. I wish everybody so much health and happiness.

Sylvie Beljanski (47:35.000): Thank you, Nathan. Thank you for listening to the Beljanski Cancer Talk Show. If this conversation supported or inspired you, please follow the podcast, share it with someone who may benefit. For more resources and to see what we offer, please visit our foundation page.