Meditation Helps Patients Find Calm While Fighting Cancer

By Harvey Rice, The Houston Chronicle

Already dealing with the pressures of a busy life, Bree Sandlin was skeptical about using meditation to ease the additional stress from her breast cancer treatment.

Alejandro Chaoul teaches meditation at the MD Anderson Mays Clinic.
©Karen Warren/Houston Chronicle

Sandlin, 37, works at a high-pressure marketing job in Houston and is bringing up 5-year-old twin boys, one of whom has cerebral palsy. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer in July, “It was quite a shock,” Sandlin said.

Sandlin and her husband, Stephen, eat all the right foods, exercise and generally lead a healthy lifestyle.

“The idea that it could happen to us—that was terrifying,” she said.

Her chemotherapy was well under way at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center when she attended a meditation class led by Alejandro Chaoul, assistant professor in the hospital’s integrative medicine program.

Sandlin had heard good things about the program and was willing to give it a try despite some reservations. She showed up for Chaoul’s class at M.D. Anderson’s Mays Clinic on a recent Tuesday morning, hoping meditation would help relieve the stress of her complicated life and ease the grueling chemo sessions. She left the class convinced that it would. . . . Read the full article in the Houston Chronicle here!