Reese & Gratitude
- Reese Witherspoon, 44, asks her fans and followers to focus on gratitude.
- It’s important to take good care of your mental health while fighting cancer.
- Staying rooted in gratitude while battling cancer has been shown to improve prognosis in some cases.
The Oscar-winning actress is known not only for her films, but also for her bubbly spirit, infectious smile and ability to inspire others. By asking fans to think about gratitude practices, she’s encouraging us all to dig a little deeper and focus on the good.
Read MoreView this post on InstagramDuring this time of pandemic stresses, and the extra stresses involved when battling an illness during COVID-19, it’s important to tend to your mental health. And keeping an eye on gratitude and saying “thank you” for all the blessings in life can help to improve your outlook during an otherwise difficult time.
Caring for Your Mental Health Through Cancer
A cancer diagnosis radically changes your life and the lives of your loved ones. Many people deal with a lot of complicated emotions after getting diagnosed with cancer. Thankfully, there are healthy ways to cope.
Related: Learn to Accept Yourself A Huge Part of Living With Cancer
Some people may experience depression after their cancer diagnosis. Dr. Scott Irwin, the director of supportive care services at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, says in an earlier interview, “Depression is a really interesting topic because a lot of people assume that, oh, they have cancer. They must be depressed. That’s actually not true. 85% of patients do not get what would be considered clinical depression. 15% do.”
Related: Dealing With Grief After a Cancer Diagnosis
Dr. Irwin explains, “For prescribing medications for depression in the context of cancer, I often try to choose medications with the lowest side effect profile. If patients are getting hormonal therapy, there’s particular antidepressants that we can’t use, because they may lower the effectiveness of that hormonal therapy. And so we choose antidepressants that don’t impact the cancer care. Depression and stress make it harder to treat cancer, make it harder to tolerate the treatments.”
Treating Depression After a Cancer Diagnosis
Focusing on Gratitude
Dr. Zuri Murrell, a colorectal surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, tells SurvivorNet in a previous interview that gratitude can be hugely helpful when it comes to keeping a positive attitude through the cancer journey.
Related: A Major Step in the Cancer Journey: Learning to Deal With Vulnerability
“The patients who do well with cancer, they live life with that kind of gratitude,” says Dr. Murrell, “but in terms of everything. Like, they’re grateful, not for cancer, but they’re grateful for an opportunity to know that life is finite, but they live life with like, ‘I love you’ to their husband, to their wife, to their kids, knowing that this may be that they appreciate it for one of the first times ever because they know it may not be forever that they get to do this,” he says. “Those are the patients that tend to do well with processing and also living a long, long life despite a diagnosis of, like, metastatic colon cancer disease,” he says.
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