11 Coping Strategies if You're Diagnosed With Breast Cancer

If you or a loved one has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer, you're not alone. According to the American Cancer Society, breast cancer is the most common form of cancer detected in women.¹

While any cancer diagnosis can be unsettling, there are many practical tips and strategies that you can use to support your physical and mental health and keep you strong through treatment and recovery.

1. Connect With Your Feelings

Anger. Fear. Sadness. Hope. A breast cancer diagnosis can bring up a range of emotions. Taking time to become more in tune with your feelings and emotions can help you navigate the next steps.

Trying to maintain an optimistic outlook may provide a beneficial boost to your health.² But it's also important to know that it's normal and expected to feel periods of grief, frustration or worry about your diagnosis and the impacts it may have on your job, finances and relationships.³ Talking about your feelings with friends, family and your cancer care team can help you process the emotions as well as help those around you try to understand how to best support you.³

2. Make Time for Mindfulness

Cancer can be stressful. From the shock of the initial diagnosis to treatment and the impacts on day-to-day living, making time to slow down and be mindful of small joys and simple pleasures can have a big impact on your mental outlook. Mindfulness has been shown to decrease stress, anxiety and inflammation and improve sleep quality, pain tolerance and emotional regulation.⁴

Mindful practices include any activity that cues our senses to pay attention to what's happening both inside us and around us.⁴ Some ideas:

• Breathing exercises
• Caring for plants
• Chewing food slowly
• Focusing on any single task completely
• Going for a walk
• Savoring sights, sounds or smells you enjoy
• Spending time in nature

If mindfulness isn't having the impact you're looking for, ask your healthcare team if therapy or medication may be beneficial tools to consider.

3. Lean on Your Team

While you may pride yourself on your self-reliance, a breast cancer diagnosis may eventually make it difficult to maintain some elements of your previous lifestyle. Turning to your support team of friends and family can help with tasks of all kinds:

• Caring for pets
• Household tasks
• Meal preparation
• Picking up medications
• Shopping
• Transportation to and from appointments

Whether it's your childhood BFF or a collection of neighbors, colleagues, cousins or college friends, leaning on your network during times of trial can not only help lighten your load but also empower them to support you during this time.⁵

4. Join a Support Group

While your friends and family may offer valuable help, a breast cancer support group can put you in touch with people who truly understand what you're going through since they are going through it, too.

There are a variety of breast cancer support group options to choose from, including for those:⁶

• Experiencing a recurrence
• Of a certain gender or age group
• Recently diagnosed
• Undergoing certain kinds of breast cancer treatment

From tips and advice to hearing stories of hope and survival, a support group can provide both practical and psychological support to help you stay positive.⁶

5. Prioritize Self-Care Practices

For some, a breast cancer diagnosis, reactions to treatments and fears about whether or not the cancer will spread can feel like a loss of control. While manicures and bubble baths won't take any of that away, they can help boost your mood and support your resilience. Self-care practices like journaling, music, massage, aromatherapy and beauty treatments have been found to help reduce stress, improve mental outlook and remind patients what they have power over.⁷

6. Consider Professional Counseling

A breast cancer diagnosis not only impacts your physical health — it can also impact your family, finances, career and friendships. Seeking professional counseling or therapy can provide a safe space to share your feelings as well as learn strategies to support you as you navigate the far-reaching changes that cancer can have.⁸

Depending on your needs, there are different types of therapy you might want to consider:⁸

• Acceptance therapy
• Behavioral therapy
• Cognitive therapy
• Humanistic therapy
• Integrative or holistic therapy
• Psychoanalytic therapy

Talk with your healthcare team to see which type of therapy may provide the best support for you.

7. Maintain Healthy Habits

It may be tempting to throw healthy habits out the window in frustration if you've been diagnosed with breast cancer, but nutritious foods and regular exercise are important keys in providing your body with the physical energy to handle cancer treatments and the mental reinforcements to keep your mind positive.⁹

For some people, cancer and its treatments can make eating more difficult or less enjoyable, so you may need to adjust your diet to ensure you are getting adequate protein, fat, carbs, vitamins and minerals.⁹

Staying physically active after a cancer diagnosis can also offer several benefits to help your body and mind deal with the side effects of treatment:¹⁰

• Build strength and stamina
• Decrease anxiety and depression
• Ease bone and joint pain
• Improve sleep quality
• Reduce the potential for lymphedema (swelling)
• Strengthen the immune system

8. Strengthen Your Spiritual Practice

While science hasn't found that spirituality or prayer can cure cancer, studies have suggested that strengthening your spiritual practice may help provide a positive outlook after a breast cancer diagnosis and can benefit your health in a number of ways:¹¹

• Decreased anxiety and depression
• Decreased isolation
• Increased enjoyment of life
• Increased hope and inner peace
• Lowered blood pressure

Spiritual practices such as prayer, meditation, rituals and reading spiritual texts may help you cope better, both mentally and physically, with a breast cancer diagnosis.

9. Find a Cancer Mentor

While you may have only heard of mentors for spiritual or career growth, a cancer mentor can provide invaluable one-to-one assistance with emotional support, practical tips, resource suggestions and a true understanding of what you are going through.

Research shows that cancer patients who utilize one-to-one mentors are more likely to complete cancer treatment, have higher survival rates, have lower recurrence rates and report an improved quality of life.¹²

Some organizations and networks you can use to help find or become a mentor include:

• After Breast Cancer Diagnosis
• Imerman Angels
• OncoLink

10. Spend Time With Pets

Spending time with your favorite furry friend may have benefits for your mental outlook after a breast cancer diagnosis. According to the American Psychiatric Association, 86% of both cat and dog owners report that pets have a positive impact on their mental health, including reducing stress, increasing a sense of calm and providing support and companionship.¹³

While furry friends can offer a number of stress-reducing benefits, pet owners recently diagnosed with breast cancer may want to discuss pet safety with their healthcare team. Some pets may put cancer patients at an increased chance of exposure to viruses or infections. Certain cancer treatments like chemotherapy may also endanger pets who nose through the trash or sneak drinks out of the toilet.¹⁴

Having a plan in place for taking care of a pet if you are away from home for treatment or too ill to tend to them can help you feel at ease knowing your beloved pet will be taken care of.¹⁴

11. Seek Out Survivor Stories

Another way to boost your morale after a breast cancer diagnosis is to seek out stories of breast cancer survivors. Research suggests that hearing stories, tips and advice from others who have navigated through a breast cancer diagnosis and treatment can help improve an individual's outlook on their own cancer journey, as well as provide valuable resources and practical coping strategies.¹⁵

Breast cancer survivor stories can be found online at Breastcancer.org, Susan G. Komen or the National Cancer Institute, among others.

Getting a breast cancer diagnosis is never easy, but you can help support yourself through the journey by knowing what tools, resources and support systems are available to help you along the way.

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Author Bio

Kate Bayless is a health and wellness freelance writer with 15 years of experience. Her work has appeared in Parents, Women's Health, Beachbody and OpenFit.