Sleeping Well at a glance
Sleep disruption is common in people with cancer. Anxiety, stress, and disruptions to your family, finances, and routines can lead to sleep disruption. Side effects and symptoms of cancer and treatments can also interfere with sleep.1Getting Help for Sleep Problems. American Cancer Society. 2020. Viewed January 2, 2022.
Getting at least seven hours of sleep regularly is one step you can take to improve your resilience and well-being. Adequate and quality sleep may help reduce side effects of treatment, cancer symptoms, and risk of recurrence, and may improve your treatment response. Several medical groups and integrative oncology experts recommend adequate sleep as part of your lifestyle approach to reduce cancer.
Both too little and too much sleep are linked to worse outcomes with cancer, although the outcomes are not always consistent across cancer types. Sleep disturbance is also linked to other physical, mental, and emotional difficulties. If you’re getting too little sleep, you may want to evaluate how you can get to bed earlier or wake up later to give yourself at least seven hours of sleep each night.
If you have enough time in bed but struggle to fall asleep or stay asleep, refer to this handbook for guidance on promoting better sleep.
Sleeping nine or more hours may be needed to make up a sleep deficit, if you are ill, or for young adults. If none of these is true for you, but you regularly sleep nine hours or more a night, you may consider checking if an underlying medical condition is causing you to sleep so much. Mention your sleep schedule and any other symptoms you have to your doctor.
We emphasize that Sleeping Well by itself will not prevent, cure, or control cancer. Like every other therapy or practice included on this website, Sleeping Well is one component of an individualized integrative plan rather than a stand-alone therapy.
Words of guidance
Read some words of inspiration and guidance from Michael Lerner, CancerChoices co-founder and author of Choices in Healing.
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