By Debra Bokur
When it comes to taking care of our breasts, simple lifestyle changes can have an enormous, positive impact. There’s more involved, though, than nutrition, exercise, and being vigilant about routine exams – we also need to embrace a healthy attitude.
By now, we all know the rules: good breast health requires that we eat a variety of nutritious foods, exercise regularly, keep our weight in check, don’t smoke, and never skimp on monthly self-exams or age-appropriate mammograms.
The reality is that most of us lead less than perfect lives, and even our finest intentions tend to fall by the wayside. Adding to the pressure is the sad fact that far too many women have a conflicted relationship with their own bodies – particularly, their breasts. Simply put, many of us feel as though we don’t quite measure up; judging our own breasts to be too big, too small, too droopy, too irregular, or just too much unlike the seemingly perfect pairs sported by starlets and models.
Contributing to the confusion are societal and cultural opinions that present this part of our anatomy from directly opposing points of view, defining them as either sexual or maternal, rather than acknowledging that they are both. Trying to reconcile our own feelings with these disparate definitions can cause enormous stress, and even feelings of self-contempt, all of which can contribute to the creation of an unbalanced and anxious internal environment that’s more susceptible to illness and disease. So what’s a girl to do? Besides trying our best to care for ourselves, we can draw on the attitudes and traditions of healers and other women around the world.
The Body, Mind, & Spirit Link
Back in the 1980s, neuroscientist Candace Pert, author of Molecules of Emotion: The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine (Simon & Schuster, 1999), and Your Body is Your Subconscious Mind (Sounds True, 2004), helped put to rest any lingering doubts in the medical community about how powerfully our thoughts and emotions impact our health. Pert offered proof that emotions cause our brains to release chemicals called neuropeptides that have a direct effect on all physical systems, causing changes that either negatively impact or positively support them. Turns out, the state of equilibrium or well-being known as homeostasis can be sent into a tailspin by the emotions our thoughts generate. Over time, sustained imbalance, whether caused by stress or negative emotions, can set the stage for a host of diseases, including cancer.
“How we feel about ourselves greatly impacts our health and well-being,” affirms Linda Page, Ph.D., naturopath, internationally renowned educator, and author of Healthy Healing: A Guide to Self-Healing for Everyone (Healthy Healing Publications, 12th edition). “We clearly internalize our thoughts, and in this way, we become our negative thoughts. Study after study links chronic stress with diseases like cancer and heart disease. At the same time, positive thinking has [an]amazing power to enhance health. Just having a good laugh every day is a proven immune system booster. Yale University Research reveals that people with an optimistic outlook live 7.5 years longer than those with a negative outlook. You’re not only what you eat – you’re also what you think.”
Healthy Habits
What we eat still counts, however. Dietary changes that can have a positive effect on breast health include cutting back on caffeine and non-organic red meat and dairy products.
“Commercial red meat and dairy products are routinely injected with growth hormones that wreak havoc on women’s hormone balance,” cautions Page. “A largely plant-based diet with plenty of healthy essential fatty acids (EFAs) from seafoods and sea vegetables is best for breast health. Caffeine, especially from coffee, increases estrogen levels, a known breast fibroid trigger. A 2001 study reported in the journal Fertility and Sterility shows drinking just two cups of coffee a day boosts levels of estradiol, the natural estrogen involved in endometriosis, fibrocystic breast pain, and breast and ovarian cancer.”
Instead, Page recommends eating more cruciferous veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts. The indole-3-carbinole in cruciferous vegetables not only improves estrogen metabolism, but also increases the body’s ability to eliminate excess estrogen. Page explains that new tests show that women who eat plenty of vegetables containing indole-3-carbinole may lower their risk of breast cancer.
“Also,” adds Page, “hormone balancing herbs like vitex and red clover support breast health. Vitex is a wonderful herb to relieve breast pain, a common problem for many women. Vitex seems to work by signaling the ovaries to make more progesterone. This helps ease symptoms of breast pain and swelling that commonly occur in women with excess estrogen. Red clover has also been shown to clinically relieve breast pain.”
Global Perspective
Penny Van Esterik, Ph.D., is a cultural anthropologist, author, and faculty member of York University, Toronto. In the 1980s, she was part of a research team that studied breastfeeding in Thailand, Indonesia, Kenya, and Columbia. Her upcoming books include From Virtue to Vice: Explaining Anorexia, and The Dance of Nurture: Explaining Breastfeeding, both co-authored by Richard O’Connor, Ph.D., an anthropologist who also did field work in Thailand, and currently teaches at Tennessee’s University of the South.
“Breasts and breastfeeding have very complex relationships to sexuality and to body image,” says Van Esterik. “In Kenya, the perspective is very holistic. Breasts are a more taken-for-granted part of a woman’s body, just as breastfeeding is a taken-for-granted part of women’s competence. In Thailand, breasts are not a sexual focus. There, breast milk, like other food, establishes a relationship between child and parent. In Indonesia, there’s another level added, because in Muslim societies, women have a duty to breastfeed for two years. So there’s an aspect there of duty, responsibility, and of nurturing work that needs to be performed. I saw that reflected in terms of modesty.”
Body and breast image issues, continues Van Esterik, go much deeper than simple media exposure and magazine advertisements. She explains that these feelings are also shaped by the kinds of toys we’re given to play with as children, all the way to current fashion trends – which can ultimately give rise to self-doubt about the shape and size of our own breasts and nipples. This can present some pretty big constraints and obstacles not only for breastfeeding, but perhaps also for touching our breasts within the context of a self-exam, or allowing a stranger to perform a mammogram.
“Some women raised with ideas of excessive modesty,” she explains, “may feel absolutely unable to breastfeed in public. Or for those brought up within religious traditions that say women’s bodies are inherently evil and sinful, the idea of touch, or even self-touch, may make them feel that they’re being sinful.”
Van Esterik believes that the idea of holism, a basic tenet of anthropology, and embodiment (the act or process by which something is made tangible or visible), is vitally important to understanding why women may have very ambiguous feelings about their own bodies and breasts. The issue may likely include the perception of some women that there’s only one kind of acceptable breast, what Van Esterik calls the “super breast” or “perfect breast,” which, of course, should apply to any healthy breast, regardless of its size or shape.
Ayurvedic Approach
“Breasts need attention to be healthy,” says Carrie Demers, MD, Medical Director of the Center for Health and Healing at the Himalayan Institute in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. Demers, a holistic physician who is also trained in homeopathy, Ayurveda, and yoga, uses her vast experience to blend modern medicine with more traditional approaches. She explains that in centuries-old Ayurvedic medicine, the goal is to keep all of the body’s assorted systems in balance. Individuals are grouped into three doshas, or types – Pitta, Vata, and Kapha – that describe not only natural physical attributes and tendencies, but also temperament.
“Many breast problems, including cysts or fibrocystic breasts, are a result of excess Kapha, which has to do with the elements of earth and water,” says Demers. “So, diet and herbs that reduce Kapha are helpful for treating this condition. The Kapha diet is basically the avoidance of heavy, dense, cold, oily foods, including dairy products, wheat, heavy meats, and all sweets except honey. It emphasizes light, warm, invigorating food: light grains like millet and quinoa, vegetables, and liberal use of warming spices.”
In addition, herbs that balance Kapha are pungent, bitter, and astringent. They include cinnamon, ginger, orange peel, alfalfa, chamomile, cloves, mint, and thyme – all of which Demers says work well as teas, used in combinations. Some therapeutic herbs useful for balancing Kapha include red clover, dandelion, pau d’arco, cayenne, and the Ayurvedic herbs Shatavari and Punarnava. While Demers says it’s fine to experiment with teas, she recommends the input of an experienced practitioner for herbs.
Also worth noting is that in Ayurvedic massage, the breasts are included – something many American women may be uncomfortable with. In fact, breast massage can be a very healthy practice.
“Breast massage is a wonderful tool to help clear your breast glands of toxins,” says Page. “Light breast massage improves circulation, and helps drain toxins and excess fluids from congested lymph glands. It’s especially beneficial for women who wear push-up bras or other restrictive undergarments on a regular basis. Another benefit of breast self-massage is enhanced breast awareness. A relaxing breast self-massage allows you to examine your breasts for any strange lumps or changes that may need to be evaluated by a professional.”
Beauty & the Breast
In addition to our breasts being the source of milk for our young, a biological imperative exists in many cultures for breasts to be a desirable attraction for potential mating partners. But Western culture seems to have distorted the value of breasts out of proportion (quite literally), with the increasingly popular use of surgery to correct perceived imperfections.
“In our society, we seem to be obsessed with our false perceptions of perfection and beauty,” concurs Page. “Many women spend their life energy worrying their breasts are too small, too large, or too uneven. Some go in for surgery after surgery, still unsatisfied with their bodies. Sadly, they’re missing out on what’s important – their health and their quality of life. Other cultures view beauty and nudity quite differently. Aboriginal women are very comfortable with their bodies. A woman’s breasts aren’t [viewed as]something to hide away and be ashamed of, but rather as life-giving, and something to be celebrated.”
It’s true that the definitions of modesty and beauty vary widely, and are hardly ever simple. In many places around the world that share our technological advances, including Europe, topless beaches are the norm, and women and men confidently share spa space with one another, completely nude, comfortable – and in a non-judgemental or sexual way.
Van Esterik reminds us that it’s important to recognize that women’s attitudes toward their bodies and their breasts are never just part of their own personal experience – rather, these attitudes are always shaped by history and by cultural context. Perhaps our generation of women can help form a healthier, more holistic and realistic view of themselves, and in the process, create a world where our daughters and granddaughters don’t face the same threat of breast disease and dissatisfaction with their own, already-perfect, bodies.
- 17th Annual Earth Day Beauty Awards - April 22, 2026
- Nature’s Nectress - April 21, 2026
- Simpler Hair Color - April 20, 2026