7 Ways to Beat Cancer While You Sleep!

Like eating healthy foods and getting regular exercise, sleep is a gift that you can’t live without. Every night, you get to rest for eight hours, turn everything off, forget about all your worries, and drift away. It’s a special time, and the more your cherish it and respect it, the better off you will be in the long run. People who fail to get proper amounts of sleep invariably begin to show negative side effects: higher rates of mental decline, higher rates of illnesses, lower energy levels, less happiness. You name it – any bad thing, anything you would hope to avoid in your life – a lack of sleep will bring it your way.

As a cancer patient, you cannot overlook sleep. It should be central to your strategy to attacking cancer, because without it, you do not stand much of a chance. That statement may sound harsh, but it is entirely true. Unless you are sleeping (and sleeping well), all the effective treatments in the world are going to fall short for you. You need to figure out a way to sleep until you feel rested. For some people, that means seven hours; for others, it’s close to ten. However much sleep your body tells you it wants, get it!

According to a wealth of research and one specific study in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, there is a correlation between long-term sleep problems and prostate cancer / breast cancer incidences. Sleep, which enables your immune system to function properly, is crucial both to avoid cancer in the first place and to ridding yourself of it once it has taken hold. If you lay awake at night, staring up at your ceiling or pondering over all your thoughts from the previous day, it would behoove you to follow these seven steps to getting better sleep for yourself more consistently.

1. Sleep in the dark. The darker your sleep environment, the better off you will be. Sleep masks, light-blocking shades, and dark wall paints all help.
2. Avoid anything that wakes you up in the middle of the night. Kids, pets, televisions, snoring partners. Turn your bedroom into a silent sanctuary, using nasal strips and earplugs if you have to.
3. Don’t drink anything late at night. Set a cutoff point for all fluid consumption. Cut out nicotine and alcohol too.
4. Don’t eat anything late at night either. Digestion (especially after a big meal) can interrupt sleep.
5. Fall asleep and wake up at set times every day. If you can turn sleep into the centerpiece of your healthy routine, it will start to feel more natural for you.
6. Exercise in the morning or in the late afternoon (depending on when you want to go to sleep). Waking up early? Start your day with a workout. More of a late-night person? Time your workout for eight hours before you plan on going to bed!
7. Read or meditate during the hour before you fall asleep. No TV, no social media, no video games. Stick with activities that are calming for you.

The stress of cancer, as it would happen, can become an interruption itself, stress making it harder for people to fall into the relaxed trance state that leads to falling asleep. If you are having trouble remembering just how important sleep is for you as a cancer patient, you should try writing about it or talking it over with someone, just to get your thoughts out of your head. Your health – perhaps your life – depends on your ability to lay down in your bed, close your eyes, and fall asleep. Until you get that down, every other challenge is irrelevant. Find a way to let everything go, to relax, to give yourself this precious gift that, it bears repeating, you can’t live without.