What NOT to say to a grieving friend

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10.18.24

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and it's something that hits us close to home here at CNN, as our own Sara Sidner has been navigating her own journey with this disease. Sara has been generous in spreading awareness and humanity when it comes to breast cancer, and this week she shared her story in a heartfelt conversation with her best friend and CNN correspondent Stephanie Elam. More on that below, but first, this week's health headlines ... 

— Sanjay

What not to say to a grieving friend

It's almost impossible to know what to say to someone in the throes of grief. We all want to say something comforting. Very few of us know what that is.

CNN anchor and correspondent Alisyn Camerota learned this the hard way. 

"My beloved husband of 23 years died at the end of July, two years after being diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer," she writes. "Since then, I've seen friends and neighbors struggle for the right words, and I've been surprised by how even the kindest questions can set me off."

There's no one right answer, Camerota says. What is helpful for one person may not work for someone else, and words that another person finds off-putting may be the perfect balm for another. But she traded notes with other grieving people — including her own children — and found some helpful do's, as well as five unexpected don'ts.

Being a parent is hard work and "massively inconvenient." Dr. Becky offers tips to help you cope

Ask most parents, and they will tell you that raising kids today is stressful: the lack of time, money and sleep; the endless responsibilities; the paucity of reliable — and affordable! — child care; the pressures around social media; the unexpected illnesses and dramas.

In fact, modern parenting is so stressful that US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy recently issued an advisory declaring parental stress a public health issue, and calling for changes at the level of both policy and culture.

The effects of this stress are not just limited to parents. They trickle down to children, too.

But life doesn't always have to be that way, said Dr. Becky Kennedy, a clinical psychologist who specializes in parenting.

"There's almost pride of like, 'I'm such a mess. I'm taking care of my kids and I'm running myself into the ground,' " she said. "And I'm just going to say it simply: no, no, no, no. Selflessness terrifies me."

What can you do to reset expectations and ratchet down your stress levels and those of your kids? Kennedy has five tips.

Human sense of smell is faster than previously thought, new study suggests

In a single sniff, the human sense of smell can distinguish odors within a fraction of a second, working at a level of sensitivity that is "on par" with how our brains perceive color, "refuting the widely held belief that olfaction is our slow sense," a new study finds.

Humans also can discern between various sequences of odors — distinguishing a sequence of "A" before "B" from sequence "B" before "A" — when the interval between odorant A and odorant B is merely 60 milliseconds, according to the study.

By comparison, the duration of an eye blink is about 180 milliseconds.

"Our apparatus could be used for therapeutic purposes, such as olfactory training for patients with olfactory loss," Dr. Wen Zhou, lead author of the study and a principal investigator at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, said in an email. "More broadly, our findings could guide the design and development of electronic noses and olfactory virtual reality systems, which could have significant clinical benefits."

If your Apple Watch alerts you to sleep apnea, here's what it means — and what you should do next

Already multitool smart devices, Apple Watches added another buzzworthy feature last month: an app to detect sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea is a condition that causes a sleeper's breathing to pause when the muscles of the throat relax too much and the airway collapses. It can contribute to loud snoring, which the sleeper may not even be aware of. Typically, a partner or roommate picks up on the problem first.

The condition has been linked to a host of health problems, primarily wear and tear on the cardiovascular system, including high blood pressure, stroke, heart attack, heart failure and heart rhythm problems such as atrial fibrillation (AFib). It's also been tied to dementia and daytime sleepiness. And people with sleep apnea are more likely to be involved in traffic accidents, too.

Millions of people are thought to have this disrupted breathing condition but have not been diagnosed, and experts say the new app could be a valuable tool to point people to medical care.

As with any kind of new technology, however, the sleep apnea feature has limitations and can have unintended consequences, including worse sleep if someone becomes too focused on the information or anxious about the results.

Here's how parents can learn a lot from the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.

But wait, there's more!

• Thousands of cleaning supplies may contain substances link to health problems

• Coca-Cola recalled thousands of cases of lemonade mislabeled as "zero sugar"

• Adolescents treated for obesity for GLP-1 drugs had lower risk of suicidal thoughts, study finds
• New cervical cancer treatment cuts risk of death from disease, according to trial results
• With AI warning, Nobel winner joins ranks of laureates who've cautioned about the risk of their own work 

WATCH: Sara Sidner. Ananda Lewis. One is a hard-hitting journalist. The other, a content creator and former 90s MTV VJ. Both are battling breast cancer.

Chasing Life

From Dr. Sanjay Gupta — 

Sara Sidner is someone who I have long admired. She's a hard-hitting journalist who approaches every story with bravery and endless compassion.

I think that's why everyone here at CNN was so emotional when she announced earlier this year that she had stage III breast cancer.

She's been sharing her journey with us along the way, bringing a vulnerability to a disease that unfortunately affects millions of people, including members of my own family.

For Breast Cancer Awareness Month, her best friend and CNN correspondent Stephanie Elam decided to have a candid conversation with her and another one of her friends who also has breast cancer, former MTV host Ananda Lewis.  

It's a deeply personal conversation that offers us lessons about breast cancer as well as life in general.

"I didn't realize how little joy I had in my life," Sara told Stephanie. But now, she says, she's making it a bigger priority. 

I encourage everyone to listen to their conversation. Not only will it remind you of the importance of screenings (age 40 and up!), it will give you insight on how to be supportive of your friends who may be going through their own journeys with this disease.

Thank you for sharing your stories, Sara and Ananda. And thank you, Stephanie, for bringing us this important conversation.

Self-Exams Matter: Why These TV Powerhouses Say Don't Skip Them — In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Chasing Life brings you this special conversation between three friends about a journey that is all too familiar for so many.

CNN Health's The Results Are In with Dr. Sanjay Gupta shows up in your

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