Prioritize relationships. Connecting with empathetic and understanding people can remind you that you’re not alone in the midst of difficulties. Focus on finding trustworthy and compassionate individuals who validate your feelings, which will support the skill of resilience….
Recently Diagnosed or Relapsed? Stop Looking For a Miracle Cure, and Use Evidence-Based Therapies To Enhance Your Treatment and Prolong Your Remission
Multiple Myeloma an incurable disease, but I have spent the last 25 years in remission using a blend of conventional oncology and evidence-based nutrition, supplementation, and lifestyle therapies from peer-reviewed studies that your oncologist probably hasn't told you about.
Click the orange button to the right to learn more about what you can start doing today.
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Building Resilience when diagnosed with Myeloma
Building resilience when diagnosed with myeloma should be job 1. Or at least in the patient’s “five things to do list.” I’m going to stick my neck out and say that I’ll bet that resilience and overall survival go hand-in-hand for the MM survivor.
Unfortunately conventional oncology thinks body not mind. For the record, the pediatric patient putting up his dukes is my definition of “resilience.”
It’s difficult for me to look at my struggle with myeloma since 1994 and proclaim that resilience was an important therapy for my survival. But I can look at my short, long-term and late stage side effects and know that being resilient helped me weather the ups and downs of what conventional therapies did to my body.
And looking back, I can see how mind-body therapies can help the myeloma patient weather their survival.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I think:
- chemotherapy
- radiation
- nutrition
- supplementation
- lifestyle therapies
are all essential for managing your MM. I am simply trying to make an evidence-based case for additing mind-body therapies to that list.
Have you been diagnosed with multiple myeloma? Learning how to build resilience with diagnosed with myeloma is important in learning about this incurable blood cancer.
If you would like to learn more about managing myeloma with both conventional and non-conventional therapies email me at David.PeopleBeatingCancer@gmail.com
Hang in there,
David Emerson
- MM Survivor
- MM Cancer Coach
- Director PeopleBeatingCancer
Resilience: Build skills to endure hardship
“Resilience means being able to adapt to life’s misfortunes and setbacks. Test your resilience level and get tips to build your own resilience…
When you have resilience, you harness the inner strength that helps you rebound from a setback or challenge, such as a job loss, an illness, a disaster or a loved one’s death. If you lack resilience, you might get stuck on problems or feel like a victim. You might feel burdened or turn to ways to cope that aren’t healthy, such as drug or alcohol use, eating disorders, or risky behaviors.
Resilience won’t make your problems go away. But resilience can help you see past them, find ways to enjoy life and better handle stress. If you aren’t as resilient as you’d like to be, you can learn skills to become more resilient…
Tips to improve your resilience
If you’d like to become more resilient, try some of these tips:
- Get connected. Building strong, healthy relationships with loved ones and friends can give you needed support and help guide you in good and bad times. Connect with others by volunteering or joining a faith or spiritual group.
- Make every day have meaning. Do something that gives you a sense of success and purpose every day. Set clear goals that you can reach to help you look toward the future with meaning.
- Learn from the past. Think of how you’ve coped with troubles in the past. Think about what has helped you through tough times. You can even write about past events in a journal to help you see the patterns of how you behave and to help guide you in the future.
- Stay hopeful. You can’t change the past, but you can always look toward the future. Being open to change makes it easier to adapt and view new challenges with less worry.
- Take care of yourself. Tend to your own needs and feelings. Do activities and hobbies you enjoy. Include physical activity in your daily routine. Get plenty of sleep and make bedtime rituals. Eat a healthy diet. Practice how to manage stress. Try ways to relax, such as yoga, meditation, guided imagery, deep breathing or prayer.
- Take action. Don’t ignore your problems. Instead, figure out what you need to do, make a plan and take action. It can take time to recover from a major setback, trauma or loss. But know that your life can improve if you work at it.
Building your resilience
Foster wellness
Take care of your body. Self-care may be a popular buzzword, but it’s also a legitimate practice for mental health and building resilience. That’s because stress is just as much physical as it is emotional. Promoting positive lifestyle factors like proper nutrition, ample sleep, hydration, and regular exercise can strengthen your body to adapt to stress and reduce the toll of emotions like anxiety or depression.
Practice mindfulness. Mindful journaling, yoga, and other spiritual practices like prayer or meditation can also help people build connections and restore hope, which can prime them to deal with situations that require resilience. When you journal, meditate, or pray, ruminate on positive aspects of your life and recall the things you’re grateful for, even during personal trials.
Avoid negative outlets. It may be tempting to mask your pain with alcohol, drugs, or other substances, but that’s like putting a bandage on a deep wound. Focus instead on giving your body resources to manage stress, rather than seeking to eliminate the feeling of stress altogether.
Find purpose
Help others. Whether you volunteer with a local homeless shelter or simply support a friend in their own time of need, you can garner a sense of purpose, foster self-worth, connect with other people, and tangibly help others, all of which can empower you to grow in resilience.
Be proactive. It’s helpful to acknowledge and accept your emotions during hard times, but it’s also important to help you foster self-discovery by asking yourself, “What can I do about a problem in my life?” If the problems seem too big to tackle, break them down into manageable pieces….
Move toward your goals. Develop some realistic goals and do something regularly—even if it seems like a small accomplishment—that enables you to move toward the things you want to accomplish. Instead of focusing on tasks that seem unachievable, ask yourself, “What’s one thing I know I can accomplish today that helps me move in the direction I want to go?” For example, if you’re struggling with the loss of a loved one and you want to move forward, you could join a grief support group in your area.
Look for opportunities for self-discovery. People often find that they have grown in some respect as a result of a struggle. For example, after a tragedy or hardship, people have reported better relationships and a greater sense of strength, even while feeling vulnerable. That can increase their sense of self-worth and heighten their appreciation for life.
Embrace healthy thoughts
Keep things in perspective. How you think can play a significant part in how you feel—and how resilient you are when faced with obstacles. Try to identify areas of irrational thinking, such as a tendency to catastrophize difficulties or assume the world is out to get you, and adopt a more balanced and realistic thinking pattern. For instance, if you feel overwhelmed by a challenge, remind yourself that what happened to you isn’t an indicator of how your future will go, and that you’re not helpless. You may not be able to change a highly stressful event, but you can change how you interpret and respond to it.
Accept change. Accept that change is a part of life. Certain goals or ideals may no longer be attainable as a result of adverse situations in your life. Accepting circumstances that cannot be changed can help you focus on circumstances that you can alter.
Maintain a hopeful outlook. It’s hard to be positive when life isn’t going your way. An optimistic outlook empowers you to expect that good things will happen to you. Try visualizing what you want, rather than worrying about what you fear. Along the way, note any subtle ways in which you start to feel better as you deal with difficult situations.
Learn from your past. By looking back at who or what was helpful in previous times of distress, you may discover how you can respond effectively to new difficult situations. Remind yourself of where you’ve been able to find strength and ask yourself what you’ve learned from those experiences…”