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Living With Cutaneous Lymphoma
will return. You will discover your own unique adaptation. If you are
newly-diagnosed, take solace in knowing that most people feel the shock of
diagnosis. Being thrust into the world of the unknown peaks at diagnosis,
which means it gets more manageable over time.
Relaxation Techniques
Herbert Benson, MD is considered the father of the relaxation response.
He wrote about the importance of relaxation in his book
The Relaxation
Response
. Stress comes from any outside force or event that affects our
body or mind. There is good stress, which is healthy and provides a sense
of fulfillment, and there is bad stress, or distress. In stressful situations, the
brain jumps into the fight or flight response, preparing a person to handle
dangerous situations. Adrenaline surges, increasing heart rate, blood
pressure, and muscle tension.
Relaxation techniques offer strategies to help manage stressors. One
technique includes basic diaphragmatic or belly breathing - breathing fully
into your lungs and expanding your belly. Belly breathing essentially shuts
off the fight or flight response and triggers a relaxation response. The goal
is to learn to recognize stress-induced rapid breathing and instead take
deep breaths to create calm.
Guided Imagery
Imagine lying on a beach under the warm sun, a cool breeze caressing your
face. You are listening to the ocean lap at the shore. Imagine that you are
sitting in front of a fire on a cool autumn night. The fire crackles and sparks.
You stare at no particular point but rather to the flicking orange flames.
The night sky is filled with sparkly stars. All is quiet.
Visualizing images like these may cause a person to feel less distressed,
taking their minds away from a stressful situation. When dealing with a
cancer diagnosis, our minds may race with conflicting, scary, unanswerable
thoughts. At such a time, transporting the mind to specific soothing
imagery allows us to retreat to a relaxing situation.
Guided imagery is integrated into cancer care in a variety of ways. Patients
may develop guided imagery that includes seeing their immune system
as “pac men” cruising through their body and eating up cancer cells. Or,
they may see their tumors being melted like ice under a hot sun. Perhaps
they choose to visualize their immune system as a surveillance system that
recognizes intruders (cancer) and destroys them on impact.
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