Coping With Anxiety & Advocating For Your Mental Health
- Journalist Amy Robach, 51, has undoubtedly experienced an array of emotions after battling stage 2 breast cancer and undergoing a bilateral mastectomy (removal of both breasts) and chemotherapy to reach remission. She recently felt pain in her arm while running and thought she was having a heart problem.
- Dr. Dana Chase, a gynecologic oncologist at Arizona Oncology and an advocate for cancer patients to prioritize their mental health, told SurvivorNet, “We know from good studies that emotional health is associated with survival, meaning better quality of life is associated with better outcomes.”
- 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.
TV personality Amy Robach, 51, recently experienced an unusual feeling in her arm while exercising, and nervously thought she was having a heart problem. However, it turned out to be anxiety, something she's dealt with after beating stage 2 invasive breast cancer a decade ago. Speaking to her partner, journalist T.J. Holmes, on the "SOS, DWI, MIA" episode of their "
Amy and T.J. Podcast," Robach said, "I was feeling a little anxious and I didn't know why today. It's elevated ... my anxiety. I'm not always anxious but when you're aware of your heart thumping, yes, that would be my telltale sign that I'm feeling a little anxious."
When Holmes joked whether her heightened emotions were due to her "sitting across the table" from him, she added, "Sometimes it's confusing ... is this love or is this a heart problem? Or a mental issue. Could be anything of the above."
RELATED: Surviving Cancer & Being a Mom, ABC’s Amy Robach Says She’s Teaching Her Daughters About Prevention & Healthy Living Robach, who recently went through a divorce from her husband of 13 years, Andrew Shue, and is now happily dating Holmes, explained further, "It's fine but we've done enough of these stories where you know women's heart issues don't come on the same way men's do and ... we had just gone on a run and I was perfectly fine. And about 30 minutes later my arm just started burning and there was numbness and it was actually painful. "It felt like a surge and I had not ever felt that before. It lasted for several minutes and I had to kind of take deep breaths. And ever since then, I’ve had anxiety because my head’s gone into a spiral because I got nervous."
After noting that she previously had heart surgery, an ablation for "dangerous arrhythmia," and hasn't had any heart problems since she was 38, she admitted, she began to "freak out." Robach, who recounted thinking, "Oh no, what if I’m having a heart issue?," continued, "I just haven’t been able to shake the anxiety. I didn't Google anything but I know enough." She later said, "It's called self-imposed heart palpitations."
RELATED: Amy Robach Stops Drinking and Says She’s Lost Weight— Reducing Her Breast Cancer Risk Risk & Getting Healthy "You go to worst case scenario because it happened once when you didn’t think it could," Robach added. "Something that I normally would just laugh off, all of a sudden I’m thinking, 'Now I feel a little lightheaded, maybe I have a brain tumor.' You go into these vicious cycles of fear and then you eventually kind of have to talk yourself off the ledge, breathe it out." Robach said she ended up asking Holmes for "several hugs" to help her feel better cope with the anxiety she was feeling. Holmes then looked back on how calm and "cool" he tried to be, while secretly feeling "absolute panic," and worrying he had to take Robach to the hospital.
RELATED: Fearing Cancer Recurrence, Journalist Amy Robach, 51, Says She’s Avoiding Crucial Blood Work Although Robach may experience times of stress or anxiety, we're proud to see her focusing on maintaining a healthy lifestyle through running with Holmes, while immersing herself into their new relationship and podcast.
Amy Robach's Breast Cancer Journey
Robach's cancer journey began after being encouraged by Robin Roberts during a segment on the morning show. Like Roberts, who also learned of her cancer diagnosis while undergoing a self-exam, Robach underwent a mammogram on the program to promote breast cancer awareness.
RELATED: Access To Good Information Is Crucial After a Breast Cancer Diagnosis Her screening led to her diagnosis of stage 2 invasive breast cancer. She also learned cancer had spread to her sentinel lymph nodes. After her tumor was detected, she underwent a bilateral mastectomy (also called a double mastectomy), where both breasts were removed. Following the procedure, Robach underwent six months of chemotherapy. Luckily, her treatments helped her reach remission. https://twitter.com/GMA/status/1321881990291955713?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1321881990291955713%7Ctwgr%5Ea2de016712d14d90fc9143da54ee191613a3e027%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.survivornet.com%2Farticles%2Famy-robach-shame-breast-cancer-diagnosis-self-exams-second-opinions%2F Robach also discussed a few of the trials and tribulations you undergo as you take on cancer. Her cancer journey strengthened her compassion for others. She says she developed a new kind of compassion that wasn’t possible before her experience with breast cancer. “Cancer is something that has changed my life forever, something that I will always live with,” Robach expressed at the time. “There’s anger at first because you’ve lost security, and you’ve never had it to begin with. None of us have security, but you are grieving this loss of security because we all feel like there’s tomorrow.” “We all feel like there’s another day. When you get to something like this, you’re angry that you lost that. That’s been taken away from you. From that anger, I think, grew compassion and empathy,” she added. She also considers that loss of security one of the gifts that cancer can bring, saying, "You truly can feel other people’s pain in a way that you couldn’t have before."
Coping With Emotions After Cancer
After a cancer diagnosis, patients often are consumed with emotions, and managing them all can be a daunting task. "People have a range of emotions when they’re diagnosed with cancer,"
Psychiatrist Dr. Lori Plutchik previously explained to SurvivorNet. "And they can include fear, anger … and these emotions tend to be fluid. They can recede and return based on where someone is in the process. Going through a cancer diagnosis is just the beginning of a complicated, complicated process."
Expert Resources On Coping With Emotions
WATCH: Cancer Research Legend Urges Patients to Get Multiple Opinions. 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: Struggling with ‘Scanxiety?’ See Tips to Best Cope According to
Dr. Asher Aladjem, a physician psychiatrist at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, addressing your symptoms one by one with a mental health professional can go a long way in making treatment a more tolerable experience. "Patients need to know they’re entitled to get the whole spectrum of services, and the mental health service is a very important one, I think,"
Dr. Aladiem tells SurvivorNet. How To Manage Anxiety During High-Stress Times
Battling a mental health issue, cancer, or learning to move forward after treatment can be an extremely stressful time for so many people. How can you manage your anxiety while dealing with so many other things?
RELATED: What You Need to Know About Stress Dr. Marianna Strongin , a clinical psychologist and founder of Strong In Therapy, has been helping the SurvivorNet community by sharing coping mechanisms and a structured way to think about handling these issues.
RELATED: Learning To Cope With Anxiety “The way that I define anxiety is that it’s an internal question that we simply can’t find the answers to,” Dr. Strongin previously toldSurvivorNet. Dr. Strongin says that one of the main causes of anxiety is uncertainty about life, and a cancer battle can fuel anxiety for individuals because of the lack of uncertainty about the future. Many people will turn to media platforms for answers, but Dr. Strongin says that individuals often end up with more questions as a result which leads to more anxiety. The first step for coping during stressful circumstances is understanding one’s anxiety. To do this, Dr. Strongin suggests checking in with oneself everyday to see where the anxiety is manifesting and what questions are causing the anxiety. From there, it’s important to answer those questions and reassure oneself with positivity. “The answers are our coping skills,” Dr. Strongin says. “Some people are really good at always giving themselves answers…other people don’t have the coping skills to answer their anxiety and as a result the anxiety increases. … We are all facing the same questions.”
RELATED: How to Understand the Intricacies Of Anxiety and Overcome Self Doubt: Dr. Marianna Strongin Addresses These Topics and More In ‘Strong In Cancer’ She continues, “Some are facing them much more than others and some are better at answering those questions than others. What’s really important is to pay attention to is what those questions are, what the frequency of those questions are, and how you’re answering them.”
Anxiety In The United States
According to the
Anxiety Depression Association of America (ADAA) , anxiety disorders are the most common mental illnesses in the United States, affecting nearly 40 million adults 18 years and older. Anxiety can be developed through factors including genetics, personality, brain chemistry, and life circumstances. Despite being highly treatable, only 43.2% of people receive treatment for anxiety disorders. Anxiety symptoms include feelings of irritability, fatigue, and nervousness. People struggling with anxiety also have trouble sleeping, difficulty concentrating, and rapid heart rate which leads to hyperventilation. Therapy and medication are the two most recommended forms of treatment for individuals with anxiety, and treatments vary depending on the type of anxiety an individual has.
WATCH: A Guided Meditation for the SurvivorNet Community Questions to Ask Your Doctor
If you find yourself struggling with a mental health issue, or a diagnosis, or even 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?
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff 
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