Mindfulness and Meditation
Written by: Alex Payton, she is an undergraduate student at UNCW and a Public Health intern at Going Beyond the Pink. *Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links.
A breast cancer diagnosis can be a frightening experience that brings out many emotions like fear, anger, hopelessness, and more. Learning how to cope with these feelings along with the additional stresses of treatments, appointments, finances, etc. is a big challenge. Anxiety and depression can be common among breast cancer patients and survivors especially with some treatments as they can be side effects of them. That is why researchers have been exploring the benefits of mindfulness/meditation and how it can be used as a helpful tool for stress reduction in cancer care.
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness can be defined as paying attention to our present experiences with openness and curiosity. It’s keeping our minds focused in the present moment rather than getting lost in the past or in the future. More studies and research is being done on mindfulness and how it helps breast cancer patients. So far, there seems to be a correlation between mindfulness in stress reduction and depression in addition to increasing overall positive feelings. Other symptoms mindfulness helps to address are anxiety, fear of recurrence, and fatigue. Long term, increased positive feelings, reduced stress and depression have beneficial changes in the immune system.
How do I practice Mindfulness?
To practice mindfulness, consistency is key. Getting started on your mindfulness journey can be as easy as setting aside 5 minutes of your day everyday. The more consistent you are with this practice, the more you will reap the benefits. You want to find a place that is quiet with subtle lighting and few distractions. Then, just breathe. Intentionally feel each breath moving through your body and keep your focus there. If it’s hard to sit in a complete quiet space, there are great resources available for guided meditations (read below for more information). It’s important to remember that our minds were not created to be perfectly still, so try not to get discouraged when your mind wanders during mindfulness. Just notice when it’s happening and come back to the present moment. Overtime, with practice, this gets easier.
Are Mindfulness and Meditation the same?
It’s not uncommon for people to use mindfulness and meditation interchangeably. However it’s important to note that meditation is one powerful way to practice mindfulness and has various forms of what it looks like. So what is meditation? It’s “a focusing practice that suspends the normal stream of thoughts occupying the mind” breastcancer.org. The aspect of meditation is focusing your attention on a specific thing such as the breath or a mantra. Regularly meditating has been linked to calming the mind, increasing alertness, and being in a state of physical and psychological balance. It also helps reduce stress, improve moods and sleep quality, and reduce fatigue.
How do I meditate?
As with mindfulness, meditation looks different for everyone and there are many approaches to it. Discussed are the more commons ways people meditate:
Breath focused: keeping your attention on breath sensation as it passes through your body. This is sometimes called “mindfulness meditation” because it teaches you how to also use mindfulness to be in the present moment without reacting or judging oneself.
Body focused: focus on feeling sensations through your body in that moment i.e., pain, warmth, tension, etc.
Word repetition: repeating a word or phrase (“mantra”) to prevent the mind from fleeing to distracting thoughts
These techniques can be practiced in various settings. Many prefer to sit still, but you can do these lying down, standing, or walking. Meditation is often combined with and part of other practices such as yoga or tai chi.
Here are some tips below for beginning meditation:
Try looking for a quiet palace with minimal distractions
Be in a comfortable position to ensure your posture is comfortable
Keep an open mind and attitude for yourself. It is common for distractions to arise while meditating. When the mind wanders, gently return your attention to your focus (breath, body sensations, etc.)
Give yourself the time you need to develop a meditation practice/routine. Try to be realistic about how much time you will commit to when starting. Begin with small, manageable time increments and then gradually longer time blocks.
For resources on guided meditations, Kaiser Permanente has great, free audio meditations specifically for cancer patients. You can also try apps like Calm, Headspace, and Insight Timer for guided meditations/mindfulness. Here is a book, Mindfulness-Based Cancer Recovery: A Step-by-Step MBSR Approach to Help You Cope with Treatment and Reclaim Your Life, that provides helpful, detailed information on how to incorporate mindfulness meditation and gentle yoga into every aspect of your breast cancer journey. Here For Now: Living Well With Cancer Through Mindfulness explores the author, Elana Rosenbaum, own journey with cancer while discussing how to apply the principles of mindfulness and meditation.
It’s normal to be overwhelmed, scared, and anxious about your breast cancer journey making mindfulness/meditation the least of your worries. But giving yourself allotted time of your day to practice mindfulness/meditation, even if it’s 5 minutes, can reduce those overwhelming feelings and bring you the present moments of what’s possibly good around you. With practice and consistency, this will be easier and a more automatic part of your routine that has long term benefits especially for your mental and emotional health.