How to get quality sleep as a breast cancer survivor
Women, on average, may need more hours of quality sleep than men.
And if you had a breast cancer diagnosis, you might need even more.
Studies have found that most breast cancer survivors get <5 hours of quality sleep per night.
On average,most adults need about 7 hours of sleep per night, but with the amount of sleep debt you accumulate from breast cancer, you might actually need more sleep.
Sleep debt is the sum of the hours lost over time.
Sleep debt = [the number of hours of sleep you need (-) the number of hours you actually get] (x) the number of days you had less sleep]
For example:
[8 hours of quality sleep (-) 4 hours of sleep] (x) 3 days of poor sleep = 12 hours of sleep debt.
As you can see, this quickly adds up, and you can easily have many years of sleep debt accumulated, causing you rampant mood changes, memory loss, and fatigue.
The question is: are you still in debt?
Women, in general, are 2 times as likely to get Less Hours of Quality Sleep than Men
Due to hormonal changes, increased risk of depression and anxiety, and childbearing years, you may be experiencing less sleep than your body needs, causing you more aches and pains and leading you to more fatigue.
Therefore, it is important to keep a healthy sleep cycle as you go through different hormonal changes, pregnancy, and menopause, as each can cause your body to not only sleep less but also require more sleep to recover from.
For example: During hormonal changes, women need 8-9 hours of sleep a night to feel better and properly recover.
Due to its affect on sleep, however, hormonal changes make it even harder to get adequate sleep.
Therefore, while it is normal to have periods of poor sleep, when it comes to improving your sleep, you need to prioritize getting back on track with adequate sleep as soon as you can.
Getting back on track can be challenging, so in effort to best help you, I created a blog with 25 tips to improve the quality of your sleep and help you get back on track.
Keep in mind however,
In order to feel rested and pay off your sleep debt, you need two nights of adequate sleep for every one night of poor sleep.
Therefore, whenever you have a night of poor sleep, work extra hard the following two nights to get adequate sleep. This will help you get back in the rhythm of proper sleep.
Less Hours of Quality Sleep Affects Your Body as a Breast Cancer Survivor
Being behind on your sleep is a liability to your health, as sleep naturally regulates your immune system.
As your immune system weakens, your risk for sickness and infection increases.
Not getting enough hours of quality sleep is associated with:
Increased risk of obesity, cancer, heart disease, dementia, Alzheimer’s, stroke, high cholesterol, diabetes, and hypertension.
Constant mood instability, irritability, frustration, crankiness, or stress.
Frequent sickness and illness.
Anxiousness and depression.
Lack of memory, trouble learning, and poor focus and reaction time.
Daily fatigue, reduced motivation, and poor work performance.
Therefore, when it comes to improving your health, you want to make sure you are getting enough hours of quality sleep and paying off your sleep debt.
But in order to so it is specifically important to target the areas of sleep you are struggling with:
Falling asleep
Not getting enough sleep
Staying asleep
There are different ways to target and improve your overall sleep.
Tips for Getting Quality Sleep as a Breast Cancer Survivor
Unfortunately, most breast cancer survivors do not get adequate help to improve their sleep during or after treatment.
There are 3 main categories of struggles:
Falling asleep faster:
💤 Don’t just lay in bed, get out of bed in the morning if you wake up (a reasonable time) before your alarm.
💤 Get rid of screen time before bed, and journal, read, or listen to ASMR or soothing music before bed.
💤 Get natural sunlight in the morning for at least 2-3 minutes, and get a 30-minute walk in daily. This can be challenging with cancer fatigue, but the more you work on this, the better your sleep will get.Staying asleep longer:
🛌 Set time aside for enough hours of sleep, and go to bed earlier. You want to make sure to pair this up with an activity that will help you relax.
🛌 Talk to your healthcare provider. Often, they can give you a supplement or medication to help you fall into deeper sleep or even help decrease a medication that affects your sleep, such as anastrozole, letrozole, or tamoxifen.*** Disclaimer: be sure to always talk to your healthcare provider first and ask them whether it is safe for you to take supplements. Some supplements and teas can have a poor interaction with cancer therapies and may be harmful for you to take. In addition, not all supplements are created equal; therefore, it is important to get the right supplements from trusted brands. ***
🛌 Use your bed for sleep only. When fatigue hits, it can be easy to just lay in bed. Instead, use the bed as the only place where you go to sleep at night. This will train your brain to associate your bed with sleep rather than intermittent naps.
3. Maintaining quality sleep through the night:
😴 Stick to a sleep schedule—even during the weekends. You want your body to fall into a rhythm of falling asleep or at least winding down at the same time every evening.
😴 Pay attention to what you eat and drink. Avoid nicotine, caffeine, and alcohol. All of them impact your sleep.
😴 Set your alarm, keep your phone away from you at night, and write out a to-do list. This will let you fall asleep knowing that you will wake up at the right time the next day and eliminate lingering thoughts, while making sure you are prepared to take on the next day without forgetting anything.
When to Get Professional Help to Get More Hours of Quality Sleep as a Breast Cancer Survivor
Better sleep is the magical pill your body needs to fight off disease and restore cellular function, hormone control, appetite, and emotional wellbeing.
Still, getting sleep as a breast cancer survivor can sometimes feel impossible.
And this is mostly due to insomnia and anxiety.
Cancer-related insomnia can be caused by the stress of a breast cancer diagnosis, the breast cancer itself, or certain breast cancer treatments.
However, many treatments and hormonal therapies can also affect your sleep such as:
Arimidex (anastrozole)
Aromasin (exemestane)
Evista (raloxifene)
Faslodex (fulvestrant)
Femara (letrozole)
Tamoxiphen
Steroids
Therefore, it’s important for you to know that not all hormone therapies affect everyone the same, and sometimes medication can be changed or reduced without affecting your survival outcomes.
Talking to your provider for medication changes is not “complaining”; it is about playing a role in your health care.
Moreover, if your doctor has adjusted your medication or is not able to adjust them anymore and you are still suffering from insomnia and anxiety, then it might be time to see a specialist to give you targeted treatment and help you get at the root cause of your poor sleep quality.
From here, you would want to meet with an oncology psychiatrist and/or psychologist.
For referrance:
Psychologists are professionals trained to diagnose and treat mental health disorders through holistic therapy, which does not involve medication.
Psychiatrists are medical professionals trained to diagnose and treat mental health disorders through holistic therapy and medication.
It is common for breast cancer survivors to struggle with sleep, in fact:
72% of breast cancer survivors have some sort of issue with their sleep.
Studies show that around:
52% of women reported not feeling rested in the morning after a good night's rest
45% of women reported difficulty staying asleep
29% of women reported difficulty falling asleep
27% woke up too early in the morning
While this is the norm, this does not mean that you should be left alone to figure it out yourself.
Most Important Tip to Get Better Quality Sleep as a Breast Cancer Survivor
Exercise daily, and if you can’t do it daily, get into the habit of exercising weekly.
Exercise can improve you quality of sleep in several ways:
Increasing your slow-wave sleep.
Slow-wave sleep is a deep sleep that allows your body and brain to rejuvenate and restore your cells.
Moderate aerobic exercise, such as swimming, biking, jogging, or walking, increases the amount of slow wave sleep you get.
Increasing your sleep drive.
Being active during the day increases your tiredness and ability to want to go to bed and get more sleep.
Focus on getting 7,000+ steps a day.
Reduces sleeping disorder symptoms.
Regular physical activity can improve sleep quality and symptoms of sleep disorders. Establishing a weekly exercise routine can help improve sleep patterns for adults with insomnia and obstructive sleep apnea.
Shoot for 3-5 days a week of exercise consistently to establish a healthy routine.
Stabilizes your mood.
Exercise can help you decompress, reduce stress, and relax, which helps stabilize your mind and better your mood, allowing you to transition to sleep later on at night.
Focus on 30 minutes of exercise a day, but exercise at least 3 hours before bed.
Life is busy, and as a mother, working professional, or student, creating the right plan can be stressful.
So we have created a free 52-week workout plan to help you improve your sleep.
The plan will focus on 2 days a week of exercise, with one day a week of your choice of a fun activity.
Because exercise should be something you enjoy and not something that runs your life.
It also comes with exercise videos so you can know how to properly do the exercise without hurting yourself.
And, if you have sleep apnea, a fat-loss guide is also included to help you reduce the severity of sleep apnea.
If you are ready to get started, click the button below to get your free workout plan.
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