It’s No-Bra Day

Bras may help boost our self-esteem, making us look good and feel good. However, sometimes they may be uncomfortable and constricting. Whether you view them as good support or consider them like a bad habit, No Bra Day, launched in 2011 by plastic surgeon Dr Mitchell Brown of Toronto and celebrated each year on October 13, encourages all of us to go braless on that day, not only to free ourselves from such a garment but to remind us to get screened and to conduct regular self-examinations.

Since it’s customary for women to wear bras every day, setting aside a day for purposely not wearing a bra helps make people more aware of breasts in general. Cancer, as a disease, relies on people not paying attention to it until it’s too late. But by paying attention and being aware of your breasts, you minimize the risk that you will be severely affected by breast cancer.

Of course, wearing a bra might not be a health risk per se, but many studies have suggested an ill-fitted bra can severely affect the rib cage and cause back and neck pain. A correctly fitted bra helps equally distribute the weight of the bust (which can be up to one kilo per breast) and may even help lift the bust off the rib cage, making it easier to breathe.

If you feel uncomfortable in your bras, the problem most likely lies with the bra itself. Perhaps you are not wearing the right size or the quality of your bra is not good enough to provide all the support and comfort you need.

Apart from a few medical benefits such as better blood circulation in the lung and breast area and neck pain prevention, wearing a bra or not doesn’t make much difference when it comes to wellbeing, according to Healthline.

Also, there isn’t much research done about the effects of not wearing a bra. But a 15-year-old study in 2013 by French professor Jean-Denis Rouillon involving 300 women ages 18 to 35 presents that “women who did not wear bras developed more muscle tissue to provide natural support.” Although this is good news, he also advised women who have donned it for decades not to ditch them for good as “they would not benefit from taking off their bras at this juncture.”

Whether you like to wear it or not, today it’s a chance in terms of supporting women who have experienced breast cancer or are going through it at the moment, as well as raising awareness about the condition so that we can, hopefully, find a cure for it.

Early diagnosis is imperative, and while breast cancer is most common in women over the age of 50-years-old, women of any age can get it. It is important that we have days like No Bra Day so that we can make sure that we are all doing our best to raise funds for breast cancer.