Helping You Meet Your Mental Health Needs
- Singer Alicia Keys, 42, once struggled with her mental health early in her career until she learned how to value her self-worth. Since then, she’s become an advocate for mental health and says mental well-being shouldn’t be a privilege but afforded to everyone.
- Research published in Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences found that “35 to 40 percent of cancer patients have a diagnosable psychiatric disorder,” patients battling late-stage cancer tend to face even more significant mental health challenges.
- Anxiety is triggered by many stressors, such as a diagnosis or the fear that your cancer will return. Experts tell SurvivorNet that tips for coping with anxiety may include finding hobbies that bring you joy or rationally managing your extreme thoughts.
- When it comes to dealing with anxiety, psychologist Dr. Marianna Strongin says it’s important to have a healthy relationship with your anxiety and get to know it rather than fear it, avoid it, or push it away. Also, relying on your support group can help, too.
- Certain triggers like stress, traumatic events, or changes in your physical health can affect your mental health. For cancer patients, a diagnosis undoubtedly impacts their mental health.
- Genetic testing can help determine the best course of mental health treatment for people struggling with anxiety and depression. The test can give doctors a profile of how a person will likely respond to different psychiatric medications.
Singer Alicia Keys, 42, is among a growing list of women in music and entertainment, symbolizing women’s empowerment and strength. However, this wasn’t always the case for the “Empire State of Mind” singer, as she once struggled with mental health early in her career. After working on her mental well-being over the years, she’s since made mental health one of her key issues of advocacy.
Keys looked inward to bring out the strength and resilience that rests inside to boost her mental health. Her journey can serve as a launching pad for cancer patients who may also be working through mental health challenges. We know among cancer patients, mental health needs often go unmet. Luckily, some resources are available to help fuel your cancer journey physically and mentally.
“Early in my career, people watched me intently. I’m a New Yorker. I didn’t want people to violate me. I immediately put up a wall, but I put up the worst kind of wall: the one that you pretend is not there. You think you’re protecting yourself, but you’re actually hurting yourself. All I knew to do was to just fake it till you make it. Once I stopped doing that – which I have to remind myself to do every day – I started to feel much more honest because I didn’t have to pretend,” she explained.
Since establishing a grip on her mental health, Keys has become a staunch advocate for helping other people improve their mental well-being.
“The fact that mental wellness is a privilege is horrible. The fact that’s how we deal with it, and it’s like, ‘If you could pay for it, you can have it,’ is horrendous. We don’t invest in the whole being. We invest in the physical. But we don’t invest in the mental,” she said.
She previously partnered with “The Class” – a workout and fitness group – to promote mental well-being.
RELATED: How to Be Realistically Optimistic: Coping With Mental Health Long-Term
Keys went on to have a remarkable music career, winning dozens of awards, including a Grammy.
As we previously mentioned, many cancer patients also face mental health challenges that aren’t being fully addressed. Too often, when we think of a diagnosis, we focus solely on the physical ailment and its subsequent treatment. However, a diagnosis also takes a toll on the patient and their loved ones emotionally. These emotions can be wide-ranging – fear, anger, fear, anxiousness – and all need attention to improve emotional health.
Helping You Manage Your Mental Health
Addressing Unmet Mental Health Needs of Cancer Warriors
According to Mental Health America, “56% of adults with a mental illness receive no treatment, and over 27 million individuals experiencing a mental illness are going untreated.”
While millions of people have unmet mental health needs, the need for mental health resources is even greater among cancer patients and their families.
Research published in Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences found that “35 to 40 percent of cancer patients have a diagnosable psychiatric disorder,” and the number of people experiencing mental health challenges is “higher among cancer patients with advanced stages of cancer and in palliative care settings.”
RELATED: Insomnia, Pain Tolerance, and Anxiety: Addressing Your Unmet Mental Health Needs
Helping You Manage Your Mental Health Along Your Journey
It’s incredibly valuable when high-profile figures like Alicia Keys draw attention to the importance of mental health. It affects how we think, feel, and behave. Certain triggers like stress, traumatic events, or changes in your physical health can affect your mental health.
For cancer patients, a diagnosis undoubtedly impacts their mental health. If you are diagnosed with cancer or other chronic disease, you should be mindful of your mental health because it can affect your overall prognosis.
RELATED: Psychologist Dr. Samantha Board discusses managing mental health long-term
“For long-term mental health and living with cancer, flexibility is really at the core of how to manage long-term mental health,” says New York-based psychologist Dr. Samantha Boardman.
Dr. Boardman suggests asking yourself questions about how you deal with stressful situations to see if they’re working or need adjusting.
“Are your coping strategies in the way that you’re using them now? Are they as effective as they were in the past? Take a look at your beliefs. Do you have any fixed beliefs that are counterproductive and are impeding you from taking positive steps?” Dr. Boardman said.
To keep your mental health in check, it’s important to be aware of subtle signs that something is affecting your mind. These signs include:
- A change in eating or sleeping habits
- Losing interest in people or usual activities
- Experiencing little or no energy
- Numb and/or hopeless feelings
- Turning to drink or drugs more than usual
- Non-typical angry, upset, or on-edge feelings
- Yelling/fighting with loved ones
- Experiencing mood swings
- Intrusive thoughts
- Trouble getting through daily tasks
If you struggle in any of these areas, talk to your doctor or a mental health professional to begin your emotional journey alongside your other cancer treatment.
“Depression and stress make it harder to treat cancer [and] make it harder to tolerate the treatments,” Dr. Scott Irwin, director of supportive care services at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, previously told SurvivorNet.
“There’s data that if you have extra stress or depression that you may not recover or you have a higher risk of recurrence, so in treating the depression, we’re actually impacting the cancer care outcomes,” Dr. Irwin added.
How Genetic Tests Can Help Your Mental Health
Genetic testing is successful in matching patients with the proper medication to offset bouts of anxiety or depression.
WATCH: Understanding genetic testing and its connection to mental health.
“This test covers all of the psych medications, essentially, and it also covers pain medications. It’s such a great test,” Dr. Lori Plutchik, licensed psychiatrist, previously told SurvivorNet.
“Depression affects about 20% of women at some point in their life and about 10% of men at some point in their life. That’s a very prevalent illness, and then when you’re working in the cancer population, which I’ve worked in extensively over the years, depression can be up to 50% in patients who are having impairments in their life due to their illness,” Dr. Plutchik continued.
The Genomind test Dr. Plutchik uses looks for multiple factors before determining the medication with successful results and minimal side effects.
To do this, there are two parts to the test. First, the doctor will test for certain genes associated with responses to a medication commonly prescribed for mental health issues. Secondly, the patient’s ability to metabolize medication will be tested. Doing this reduces the chance of adverse side effects and allows patients to respond well to medication on the first try.
“About 95% of the time, the first medication that I choose for them ends up being the right medication,” Dr. Plutchik explains.
Questions to Ask Your Doctor
If you find yourself struggling with a diagnosis or helping a loved one cope with their emotions, consider asking your doctor the following questions:
- How can I go about improving my outlook/mental health?
- Are there any activities I can do to encourage positive feelings?
- When should I seek other interventions if I’m still struggling?
- What are the steps to finding a different therapist if the one I’m using is not working out?
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