Being diagnosed with cancer means being bombarded with the relentless daily impacts on both patients and their families and battling emotional and mental issues as the entire household turns their lives upside down. All of us have myriad personal stressors that we are dealing with varying degrees of success. But now, in the aftermath of a cancer diagnosis, the stress level is multiplied exponentially for the patient and his or her loved ones. OK, duh, everyone knows that, right? So why am I writing this blog??? Because a lot of you won’t even attempt to manage your stress, because you don’t believe that, faced with this new cancer challenge, you can really do anything about it. And you may be right.
This blog is to ask new cancer patients and their “home team” to develop coping skills not for the purpose of reducing the stressors you are currently under (wouldn’t that be nice?), but to help you better live with that new level of stress. In the previous blog, I told you that stress doesn’t cause cancer; but it does feed the mechanisms that make cancer spread. So, please, let’s address it head-on, even if the other stuff going on for you as a cancer patient or you as a person who provides the primary support for that patient is a full-on press right now. Take a breath, and make the time to do this.
It should be no great revelation that you, in your BC (before cancer) lives, have all been coping with stressful circumstances. We may not have recognized it before, but each of us has a threshold of what degree of pressure due to chronic tress we can comfortably cope with, before we just plain explode. And I can bet that whatever that level of pressure was, it has risen since you began living with cancer, but likely your threshold for dealing with the extra stress hasn’t! And, combined with the BC stresses, you and the members of your “home team” probably consider yourselves on “stress overload” now.
Everyone is an individual within your family unit. What may work for one or two of you may not work with other family members. So the tools or techniques given here are not so much recommendations, but examples of possible useful ways to help you better cope. Choose techniques your core home team can each use to strengthen your family’s relationships, and understand more fully the stress “triggers” each of you find difficult to cope with. Share your techniques and tools to help you communicate in a focused discussion the things that “bug” each of you. Better communication is always a huge plus!! (N.B. As a subject of another blog, be warned: chronic stress strains even the best of relationships, at a time when those relationships are invaluable.)
The following general steps can be kept in mind, as each of you develop stress management techniques and tools.
- Write down your stressors. Write down all the stressors in your life so you know, specifically, what issues you are facing. It will be easier to tackle your stress points individually, rather than feeling as though you need to take them all on at once.
- Involve your medical team and your home team. Each of you may believe that you can learn to cope with stress on your own. Wrong. It’s important to make your family, friends, coworkers, and medical team aware of what you’re going through. Compensate for the extra difficulty you have communicating when you attempt it under stressful conditions (even if you consider yourself a good communicator). When you talk about what specific pressures you are dealing with, it opens the lines of communication – always a positive thing. Plus, these people may help answer questions and help you find solutions for your stressor list.
- Make achievable goals. When you are trying to tackle stressors by planning ahead for expected changes to come, make your goals specific, realistic, and ones to which you can attach an anticipated time frame. Make sure you set yourself tasks you know you can complete. For example: aim to attend one support group or a yoga class at least once a week; or spend 15 minutes at the beginning and end of each day writing a stress diary; or schedule regular appointments with a personal counselor (clerical, therapeutic, or wellness).
- Take some “me” time. Many patients as well as caregivers are used to taking care of families, spouses, or tasks at work – all at the same time. Resist the thinking that taking time for yourself is selfish or means spending less quality time for the ones who need you. Ask yourself when the last time was that you truly had “me” time. Try leaving for an appointment an hour early or arriving home late, to give yourself time to make a stop at a favorite coffee shop, store, or park. If you take time to recharge your batteries, it isn’t a selfish indulgence – it is a way for you to be better able to deal with all that you must as a person living with cancer. Be ready to say no. This is the time to focus on you.
- Avoid negative coping behaviors. Some people turn to food, alcohol, caffeine, or tobacco to cope with stress. These behaviors only allow you to avoid dealing with your stress list in an unhealthy way.
- When faced with a difficult decision, list the pros and cons for each choice.
- Find a source of spiritual and/or emotional support.
- Remain involved with work and leisure activities as much as you can.
- Practice wellness to prepare and maintain your body’s ability to deal with the physical and mental demands of living with cancer. Not only the patient, but also the “home team” supporters. They can’t give support if they get sick themselves.
These things are long-term stress management techniques. Hear are some practices that have provided fast-acting benefits for some patients/couples/families living with cancer. They can be performed at home, and with You-Tube they are free and take very little practice to master, and can provide immediate relief .
- Keep a journal to help organize your thoughts.
- Write a blog of your experiences as a patient (or spouse or child of patient) or join a chat group.
- Listen to a relaxing recording (guided imagery) or use your own imagination to take a short “mental vacation.
- Meditate/practice mindfulness. If you need to, begin with guided meditation. Deep breathing – breathing in through your nose and imagine you are inhaling peaceful calm air. Imagine that air spreading throughout your body. As you exhale through your mouth, imagine that you are breathing out stress and tension.
- Choose leisure activities you enjoy: Going for a walk, exercise classes, yoga, tai-chi, Qigong, visiting with friends and family and getting hugs, card games, puzzling, art classes, music appreciation classes, knitting and needlework, etc.
Finally, some counselors may suggest writing a stress diary for one month. There are several stress diary templates available on-line for you to choose from, but none that I have seen tell you what to do with the diary entries after the month is over. I have chosen a typical one, and you can copy it by going to this link. Once you have completed the 30 days, here is how you analyze the information you have collected:
- First, look at the different stresses you experienced during the time you kept your diary. Highlight (1) the most frequent stresses, and (2) the ones that were most unpleasant.
- Working through the stresses you’ve highlighted, look at your assessments of their underlying causes (or triggers), and your appraisal of how well you handled the stressful event. For these highlighted problems, can you think of ways to deal with those triggers in a way that you feel like you can react to them in the future within the level of pressure you can be comfortable with? If so, list these possible ways.
- Next, look through your diary at the situations that cause you stress. List ways in which you can change these situations for the better, if you cannot avoid them.
- Finally, look at how you felt when you were under pressure, and explore how it affected your happiness and your effectiveness. Was there a middle level of pressure at which you were happiest and performed best?
Having analyzed your diary, your reward should be a better understanding of what the most important and frequent sources of stress are in your life, and an appreciation of the levels of pressure at which you are happiest. You may even be able to identify the sort of situations that routinely cause you stress, so that you can prepare for them and manage them well.
The best nugget of having used a stress diary is the ability to sit down with the members of your home team and your medical team, and communicate your findings and your feelings. And discuss how you can each help each other to cope with living with cancer.
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