Sunny Fox is a naturopathic physician in Portland, Oregon, USA, who helps cancer survivors rebuild their physical and mental health and take steps to prevent cancer recurrence. An article on overcoming the fear of cancer recurrence was published in the Natural Medicine Journal.
For cancer survivors, it’s only natural to worry about the return of cancer. According to a 2013 survey published in PsychoOncology, approximately 33-96% of cancer survivors suffer from a persistent fear of cancer recurrence, which is the most common obsession among survivors.
Simply knowing how common this worry is doesn’t help. Dr. Fox’s patients describe the fear as “excruciating” or “powerless,” accompanied by physical symptoms such as nausea, insomnia, and psychological or emotional symptoms such as irritability and distraction.
In addition to being distracting, the fear of relapse can erode confidence in rebuilding a happy and healthy future.
When patients experience this fear, physicians can advise patients on the following 5 things.
1. Take a few slow, deep breaths with full attention.
Concentration and slow, deep breathing can calm the nervous system, reverse the release of stress hormones that damage cells, and stop the accompanying fearful thoughts. In the temporary pause created by slow, deep breathing, one can choose to focus one’s thoughts on a particular place instead of allowing fear to grow everywhere.
2. The practice of returning to the present moment.
Practice getting your attention back to the here and now. A simple and effective way is to pay attention to the information input from all the senses: what is seen, heard, touched, smelled and tasted at this moment.
The mechanism by which this exercise works is that people cannot focus on the present and the future at the same time. In times of fear, various scenarios of what might happen in the future occupy the mind. Conversely, one’s senses are occupied with the details of the present moment.
Fear naturally slips out of one’s focus when one is concentrating on the present moment, on what is happening in daily life.
3. Develop a regular practice of gratitude.
Notice that today, right now, everything is going well, and be grateful for that well. Gratitude has the power to replace fear because there is no way for people to feel both gratitude and fear – it can only be one or the other.
Gratitude and fear create two opposite physiological states: fear produces tension hormones, yet gratitude recalls the production of tension hormones, and gratitude is associated with the production of feel-good hormones, such as oxytocin.
By mastering this ability to produce gratitude at any time, one has a powerful tool to remove fear and change back to oneself.
However, while most people can feel gratitude when they are safe, it is much more difficult when there is fear involved.
Developing a daily gratitude practice, such as writing down five things you are grateful for before you go to bed each day, will make it easier to feel grateful when the specter of cancer recurrence looms.
4. Embrace preventive health practices.
People are not completely helpless to prevent cancer from coming back. There are many things that can help survivors build a stronger body to fight cancer: drinking enough pure water, choosing nutritious foods, developing good exercise habits, and much, much more.
Each of these actions leads to more strength and improved fitness, as well as a silent declaration that “I love my life and I am trying to live it well and healthy. With such a belief, fear will shrink for lack of attention.
5. Remember: Today is the tomorrow you feared yesterday.
Today isn’t that scary, is it? Many of the things we worry about never happen. Why not use your energy to think about what good things will happen tomorrow?