Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. There are no Affiliate Links Included in this post. All thoughts are my own and no other’s. This post is now in the guidelines of the FTC Learning to live with a cancer diagnosis and all of the upheaval, uncertainty and fright this brings is a significant challenge. It’s little wonder that this can be a time of extreme stress, both for patients and their loved ones. It’s not just worries about your health and experiencing a treatment plan – there are financial, mental health and family concerns to navigate as well. There is no evidence that stress itself causes cancer, but long-term stress has been shown to weaken the immune system, and as a person undergoing cancer treatment, your focus needs to be on strengthening this. That means that learning some simple stress management techniques is a great, proactive way of supporting your health before, during and after setting foot in the cancer treatment center. Set Your Boundaries A lot of the avoidable stress in our lives comes from the many demands on our time – work, caring responsibilities for others, household chores. So you need to start by taking the pressure off yourself in respect to meeting all of these perceived requirements. The priority for now has to be your health and focusing on a recovery. This means scaling back projects, reducing working hours, asking for external support with childcare and household tasks, and being careful with your time and energy levels. As you adjust into a treatment plan, you may begin to notice certain patterns, such as where in a cycle of chemotherapy treatment you have the least energy. Use this information to carefully plan things you want to do or achieve around the times when you know that you will be most able to cope. Having goals and lists is a good idea to keep motivated and give things to look forward to, but remember to pace yourself and avoid becoming overtired.  Prioritize Your Sleep Sleep is one of the foundational cornerstone habits of great health, so taking steps to ensure that you have quality rest is very important. Invest in the best quality mattress and bedding that you can, and consider fitting blackout blinds to the room you sleep in so that your rest is undisturbed. You should also ban blue-light emitting electronics like smartphones and iPads from the room, as they disrupt the natural production of the sleep hormone melatonin. If you find it hard to get to sleep at night, try using an aromatherapy pillow spray or a diffuser to ease you gently into the night.  Try The Power Of Positive Thinking Your mindset has a lot to do with the speed and quality of the recovery you make. You could try out some positive visualisation techniques, where you take time to envisage continuing to live a healthy and productive life while you receive treatment. Other people living with cancer find that keeping a gratitude journal can help them to see the good in life, even when they’re battling a disease. You can learn how to reframe your internal dialogue so that your thoughts become more positive, and this will help you on your path to recovery. Of course it’s okay not to be okay at times when going through something so momentous, but equally making an effort towards thinking positively will help you out in so many ways. Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. There are no affiliate links included in this post. All thoughts are my own and no other’s. This post is now in the guidelines of the FTC