What Exactly is “Breast Cancer Self-Care”? (part 1)
If you’ve experienced a breast cancer diagnosis, you know that it changes everything - who you see in the mirror, what you believe about your body, and how you experience day to day life.
And while we spend a lot of time focused on our medical team and support systems for recovery and healing, one thing that often gets overlooked or sidelined is real, relevant self-care that supports you during treatment, recovery, and survivorship.
Today, I’m going to introduce everything you need to know about breast cancer self-care and how to get started.
What is Breast Cancer Self-Care?
In its simplest terms, breast cancer-related self-care is the combination of activities, practices, and routines that help you feel like your best self (as much as possible) upon receiving a diagnosis and throughout your life in survivorship.
This means that breast cancer self-care aims to help you navigate your diagnosis and the decisions that come with it, support you through surgeries and treatments with minimal complications and difficulty, and help you work towards your recovery goals more quickly and effectively.
It can also be adapted for any phase or new experience of your survivorship, regardless of disease status.
While ultimately self-care has to be unique to you as an individual, there are many areas of a breast cancer experience that are common among us and can be addressed through self-care practices and activities.
Why is Breast Cancer Self-Care Important?
It’s easy to think that much of what happens during a breast cancer experience is out of your control. And to some extent, there are times where this is true.
Some examples:
Which surgical and reconstructive procedures are available to you are influenced by:
the size and location of the tumor(s)
your body size, shape, and skin integrity
what other treatments you may need to have
Chemotherapy may be needed or considered unnecessary depending on:
the biomarkers of your tumor (Triple Negative vs. Estrogen Positive vs. Her2 positive)
your age and/or the staging of your diagnosis
advanced genomic testing results via Oncotype or Mammoprint tests
Radiation can depend on all of these AND the type of surgery you choose if given an option:
lumpectomy almost always requires radiation
mastectomy may not depending on other factors
(though it is always your choice to say yes or no to any suggested treatments).
The good news? No matter what options you have (or don’t have), appropriately adapted self-care is always available to you.
By playing an active role throughout the diagnostic, treatment, and recovery processes (and beyond!) you put yourself in a position to not only feel physically better but mentally and emotionally as well.
When you identify and engage in relevant breast cancer self-care, you become the most important member of your own care team!
This helps you take back a sense of control during times that can feel uncontrollable.
The Background of “Self-Care”
Self-care has become an eye-roll worthy term thanks to Instagram influencers draped in spa robes eating avocado toast and magazine articles in Parade and Southern Living sharing “[insert X number of] Self Care Quotes to Inspire You to Take Care of Yourself”.
Psychology Today nailed it when they wrote:
“We are peppered with messages suggesting that unless we are master boundary setters and time management ninjas, ingesting obsessive amounts of turmeric with the precise black pepper ratio in between our intermittent fasting, we will not be OK.”
But the truth is that self-care has origins in ancient Greece (looking at you Socrates!) and deep roots in the Black Feminist movement starting in the 1960’s.
Black woman, writer, activist, lesbian, and feminist Audre Lord, herself a breast cancer survivor, famously stated:
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”
While I’m not here today to focus on self-care as political warfare, I do think it’s important to look at the self-preservation aspect of self-care.
I mean, what is the point of all we go through after a breast cancer diagnosis, if not literal self-preservation?
The thing is, while we are so busy setting our sites on preserving life for as long as possible, it can be easy to overlook the part we can play in making self-preservation not only less challenging but ultimately result in better outcomes.
Getting Started with Breast Cancer Self-Care
I think the easiest way to figure out what activities or practices are going to be most helpful at any given point is to identify where you are at in your experience so that you can determine what your needs are at that moment.
I break down the common breast cancer experience into a “timeline” that includes the following phases or points:
Newly or recently diagnosed
In active/treatment and surgeries
Early survivorship (1-3 years out)
Long term survivorship (3-5+ years out)
Each of these phases or stages of your breast cancer timeline are going to require different things of you.
Some will be more mentally and emotionally taxing (diagnosis), others will be more physically draining (active treatment), and some might be surprisingly more difficult from all angles (early survivorship).
While it’s ideal to engage in self-care that addresses your physical, mental, and emotional needs the whole way through, it’s also ok to prioritize some over others.
For example: You don’t need to overhaul your diet as soon as you are diagnosed because you have no idea what you might be able to eat easily if you have to go through chemotherapy. Focusing more on mental and emotional support as you process your new diagnosis will help you feel confident making the choices coming your way.
Depending on what you are experiencing determines how you focus your self-care to get the best benefits.
I also want to make sure to acknowledge the complex experience of living with metastatic breast cancer (also known as MBC or stage IV).
Someone living with MBC will likely never be done with active treatment. Their timeline is more blurred and cyclical with frequent monitoring (typically every 2-4 months), active and updated treatment regimens, and recovery and healing all rolled into the rest of life in survivorship.
This requires its own ever-changing blend of self-care for physical, mental, and emotional support.
The Basics of Breast Cancer Self-Care
Regardless of where you are on your timeline or in your own experience, there are three main areas to consider for self-care:
Physical
Mental
Emotional
PHYSICAL: Let’s look at physical first, since this is often the most immediate concern when it comes to a breast cancer experience.
Some common things you might focus on for physical self-care needs:
Energy levels, exercise and movement, physical activity
Nutrition, hydration, sleep quantity and quality
Skin integrity, nail health, scar tissue formation
lymphatic support and lymphedema risk
immune support and minimizing chance of infection, bacterial or viral illness
physical comfort and functional logistics at home and work as applicable
vaginal and sexual health changes caused by chemical or surgical menopause
MENTAL: Breast cancer is intense and creates upheaval from the minute you are diagnosed. This is why your mental and cognitive health is critically important to navigating the process.
Common focal points you can address through mental self-care support:
your ability to make confident decisions for your treatment plan and survivorship
ways to function as needed day to day while navigating breast cancer treatment and recovery
financial and logistical concerns related to work, insurance, and bills
relationships with family and friends as they relate to and are impacted by your diagnosis
how to evolve from patient to survivor/thriver in time
EMOTIONAL: No one gets out of a breast cancer experience without some emotional damage, no matter how well-adjusted they may be. In fact most of us end up with a fair bit of short-term (if not life-long) trauma.
Things to focus on throughout your experience when it comes to emotional self-care:
fear of recurrence, awareness of mortality, thoughts of bodily betrayal
grief and loss around changes to your physical body, body image, and self-perception
anger about loss of control and unwanted changes to your way of life
how you relate to your own breast cancer experience compared to others
how to find any positives or potential opportunities that are hidden within your experience
This is nowhere near an exhaustive list. There are many more to consider and some will be unique to you, but these are a good place to get started.
What other things can you think of that fall under these categories?
Professional vs. “Self”-Care
Do not let the term “self-care” fool you - taking care of yourself does not mean you can’t include professional care or other people in supporting roles as part of your plan.
My definition of breast cancer self-care is anything that you do for yourself after a breast cancer diagnosis - physically, mentally, emotionally - that feels restorative, helps you cope, or moves you forward in your recovery and healing goals when it comes to your life in survivorship.
On your own it might look like:
leaving extra room on your calendar for unscheduled naps
Going for a walk when you have the energy
Cooking yourself a meal that you can not only tolerate but that also tastes good
Learning about the long term effects of your treatment so you can make informed decisions as you get back to activities you enjoy
But professional or peer support can ALSO be part of your self-care practices:
Leaning on friends and family to help with chores and day to day tasks
Working with a therapist or counselor for mental health support
Attending support groups or talking to a peer mentor for emotional support
Receiving massage, reiki, or acupuncture to manage stress and physical side effects
Asking for referrals to physical therapy, pelvic floor therapy, and lymphedema therapy
Any intentional activity, practice, or routine you engage in that is supportive for your needs and goals as it relates to your breast cancer experience is true breast cancer self-care.
As Your Breast Cancer Self-Care Specialist™, I consider my work to be self-care, whether you are coming to me for massage therapy and my hands are in charge, or you have taken my online dry brushing workshop and are practicing at home on your own!
What are some other things you can think of that are breast cancer self-care? Drop them in the comments below!
Want to know more about dry brushing and how it relates to breast cancer? Check out my online workshop “Brush to Body: Dry Brushing for Breast Cancer” with new Community Based pricing!
I hope the concept of breast cancer self-care is a bit more clear to you now.
I first launched As We Are Now LLC because I recognized that we need more breast cancer-related self-care options that give us the ability to take back control and depend less on others for our day to day well-being during breast cancer.
Do you still have questions? No shame in that! You can contact me here or find me on Instagram, where I'm always happy to answer any questions.
AND next week I’ll be following this up with “part 2” where I dive deeper into specific and actionable ideas for self-care at every phase of your breast cancer experience. Stay tuned!
In the meantime, one thing you can do to get started with own breast cancer self-care journey is to check out these two previous articles I’ve written on the subject:
When Self-Care Meets Strategy: Creating the Perfect Self-Care Plan for Breast Cancer Recovery
The thing missing from your breast cancer-related self-care is probably your SELF.
Curious about breast cancer self-care but need more personalized support? Book your own “Ask Amy” Consultation and let’s talk it out!
I hope this post has been helpful!
Any questions? Comment below or shoot me a DM on Instagram and don’t forget to check out my previous posts here on The Sunday Self-Care Chronicles!
NOTE: The Sunday Self-Care Chronicles and all content written for Amy Hartl, LMT and As We Are Now LLC is written from my perspective as a cis-gendered white woman. Because this is my lived experience and what I know and can speak to, and because MOST people diagnosed with breast cancer are assigned female at birth (AFAB), I often use terms like “she, her, woman, etc..” However I recognize that breast cancer does not discriminate by race, by gender assignment or expression, or any other label or identifier that we use in our society. Therefore, this space, my free content, and my online services are all available to you, whoever you are, if you are living with a breast cancer experience.
I am also well aware that many people who are diagnosed with breast cancer will never see an end to treatment. For those still living with breast cancer, especially metastatic breast cancer, life “after” or “beyond” breast cancer may refer to diagnosis vs. an end to treatment but I use this language interchangeably and invite you to apply it how you will to your personal experience.
Want to receive The Sunday Self-Care Chronicles directly to your inbox every week?
