Helping You Meet Your Mental Health Needs
- “Hitch” actress Eva Mendes, 50, wants others to prioritize their mental health, as she’s learned to do, and that it’s okay to cry when emotions are pressed. She encourages parents to especially support their children who feel the need to cry when they’re sad.
- A cancer diagnosis also takes a toll on the patient both physically and emotionally. These emotions can be wide-ranging – fear, anger, fear, anxiousness – and all need attention to improve emotional health.
- 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.
- 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.
“Hitch” actress Eva Mendes, 50, is putting her mental health first by making a simple yet resounding plea, “Let me cry.” She posted to Instagram, expressing her emotions about how she copes during the tough times.
Many cancer patients can relate to the actress who starred in movies like “2 Fast 2 Furious” and “Training Day.” Going through cancer and its subsequent treatments weighs heavily on your physically and emotionally.
“It’s okay to feel the whole spectrum of emotions. I think it can be a release for many reasons, including happiness,” Norris said in her Instagram comment.
“I think negating anyone’s experience and feelings can make them feel ashamed or like there is something wrong with them. So many things people say, or parents may say, maybe to help in moments like that, but instead, they come across as judgment,” Instagram user Sarah Bellum commented.
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In photos accompanying Mendes’ social media posts, she encourages parents to validate their children’s sadness as much as their happiness.
Helping You Manage Your Mental Health
Too Often, Cancer Patients Have Unmet Mental Health Needs
Too often, when we think of a diagnosis, we focus solely on the physical ailment and its subsequent treatment. However, a diagnosis also emotionally affects the patient and their loved ones. These emotions can be wide-ranging – fear, anger, fear, anxiousness – and all need attention to improve emotional health.
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 determine whether your strategies are working or need adjustment.
“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, which has successful results and minimal side effects.
The test has two parts. First, the doctor will test for certain genes associated with responses to a medication commonly prescribed for mental health issues. Second, 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.
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