Overall Health and Mindfulness Improves Treatment Response: An Expert Explains
Dr. Sangmin Lee shares the benefits of meditation and yoga and explains how mindfulness can affect your overall health.
Dr. Sangmin Lee is a hematologist-oncologist specializing in blood disorders and blood cancers at Weill Cornell Medicine and New York Presbyterian Hospital.
See More From The Fact or Fiction? AML Series
Related Resources
|
|
|
Transcript:
Patricia:
How about this one? A positive attitude and mindfulness can improve treatment response.
Dr. Lee:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Treatment for leukemia can be tough. Some of the treatment involves intense chemotherapy. Treatment for leukemia can involve stem cell transplant. And a key important aspect of treatment is being healthy and being optimistic about treatment, because a lot of treatment can have side effects, and side effects can be not as apparent if you are physically more active, and in a good state. So, I think that having a positive outlook is very, very important.
Patricia:
Quality of life issues are difficult for some people. How do you talk with your patients about their quality of life, and staying healthy during their treatment?
Dr. Lee:
So, quality of life is absolutely important. I mean, the whole point of treating leukemia and any other treatment is not only to address the leukemia, but also have good quality of life. So, when discussing treatment options, you always have to balance the quality of life and side effects versus potential benefits. So, that’s always on our mind when discussing potential treatment options, and how it impacts the quality of life. Throughout the treatment process, we always tell our patients that being active, and having a good quality of life, and having good nutrition, is absolutely important, because that’s a key aspect of treatment for leukemia.
Patricia:
What about meditation and yoga for coping with anxiety around cancer diagnosis and treatment? Mindfulness.
Dr. Lee:
Absolutely, absolutely. Those can help. Especially having leukemia, it’s very life-changing, so a typical way that patients are diagnosed with acute leukemia is patients live a normal life, and then they develop, all of a sudden, abnormalities. And they’re diagnosed with acute leukemia, and it can be very sudden. And it can be very difficult. So, that can understandably make patients have anxiety, and other issues.
And I believe that meditation, and yoga, and other exercises can absolutely help cope with this.
Patricia:
And there’s tons of resources for meditation and yoga out there, that are reliable.
Dr. Lee:
Yes. Yeah.
Patricia:
Yeah. Should patients regard yoga and meditation as part of their treatment, as part of their self-care, during this process?
Dr. Lee:
Absolutely, absolutely, if the patients are into meditation and yoga. Meditation is very harmless, and it can absolutely help in terms of guiding their mind through their treatment journey. Yoga is good if you’re physically able to do it. So, one caution is that, if you’re not someone who does yoga normally, then you should start off slow, and not push yourself as aggressively.
