How to Stay Strong After a Breast Cancer Diagnosis

For many women around the world, the mere thought of getting diagnosed with breast cancer can disrupt their peace of mind. For those who do receive this news, it’s more than devastating—it’s reality. Suddenly, your worst fears become real, and you need to come to terms with how you’ll handle the treatment ahead.

During this stage, while you can easily crack under the pressure, it’s crucial that you find a way to keep yourself focused on the beautiful life you have yet to live. Learn how you can stay strong after a breast cancer diagnosis and live life to the fullest.

7 Ways to Cope with a Breast Cancer Diagnosis

Here are seven tips that can help you stay strong and cope with a breast cancer diagnosis. 

1. Learn About What You’re Dealing With

Knowledge is often considered power, and this is especially the case when beginning your battle against breast cancer. As terrifying as it feels, knowing everything about the disease and your treatment options can lessen your anxiety and empower you to take action.

When gathering information about your cancer, start by asking your doctor for everything they know about your condition. Questions to ask include:

• What type of cancer do I have?
• Will I need any other tests before we can begin treatment?
• What are the pros and cons of specific treatments available to me?
• What side effects can I expect from chemo and radiation?

With this information in your arsenal, you can take control of how you care for yourself and reduce the number of surprises that could appear while on this journey.

2. Embrace Your Emotions

Though you want to try to keep a positive state of mind during this trial, it’s important that you take the time to truly feel your emotions. Whether it’s sadness, anger, or numbness, a crucial part of coming to terms with your diagnosis is accepting how you feel about it.

Bottling these feelings up and pretending to be happy can put further strain on your mental health, and it drains the precious energy you’ll need to fight. As such, you need to allow yourself to feel these emotions before you commit to the journey ahead of you.

3. Maintain Your Physical Health

Controlling your physical health is crucial during your fight against breast cancer, as it can alleviate your symptoms and help your body handle the potentially strenuous treatments. Keeping your physical strength up can also assist in managing your stress and anxiety during this trying time, and it will better prepare you for the challenges you’ll face.

When going to adjust your lifestyle in this way, make sure that you begin by getting enough rest. Sleep plays an essential role in reenergizing your body to take on the day and whatever it has in store for you. You’ll need to take extra care to get full nights of quality sleep. Though side effects of chemo and radiation treatments can leave you feeling uncomfortable, you can find the proper clothing and cooling agents to ensure you can relax.

Quality diet and exercise also help maintain your physical health. While frequent nausea and dizziness from treatment may make it difficult, eating health meals and keeping active will help reduce these symptoms and keep you comfortable. When honing your diet, you should try to eat primarily fruits and vegetables to raise your vitamin levels. Then, when exercising, you’ll want to focus mostly on cardio and aerobic training to strengthen your physical resistance to certain symptoms.

4. Surround Yourself with a Support System

Often, staying strong after a breast cancer diagnosis isn’t something you can fully accomplish by yourself. Through the support of family, friends, and other survivors, you can further gather your strength and assure yourself that you won’t go through these challenges alone.

When building your support network, you should also consider looking outside of your immediate circle to obtain an outside perspective. This is when it’s usually beneficial to reach out to a breast cancer support group or therapist who can provide you with more insight into your condition.

5. Try to Keep a Positive Outlook

Once you work through all your initial emotions, you can begin looking at the positives and creating a healthy mindset for yourself. At this point you can begin enjoying life again by finding ways to manage your symptoms. Remind yourself of the good things in your life and the people you care about—even try to make time to be with them and participate in fun activities.

Remember that your diagnosis shouldn’t stop you from having a good time and creating happy memories with the people you love. To keep your spirits up, you can also plan specific events to look forward to and make time to experience the things you always wanted to try.

6. Wear Something that Makes You Feel Powerful

When going through treatment, especially post-breast surgery, women can often feel unfeminine and forget what it feels like to be beautiful. Because of this, it’s essential that you take the steps to dress up, look in the mirror, and feel good about yourself. Research post-surgery clothing options and find a look that makes you see yourself as the beautiful person you are.

Even if this isn’t something you have an interest in doing, giving yourself a makeover can provide a great way to see yourself in a new light and gather your inner strength. When you feel beautiful and confident, you can begin to feel as though you can take on anything.

7. Take Time to Recharge Your Batteries

Though it’s important to keep active in your work and social life during this time, you can’t forget to take some time for yourself. Whether it involves staying home with a good book or treating yourself to a nice lunch, giving yourself some time to relax and recharge will keep you mentally healthy. These occasional instances of personal time can cut back on your stress, put you more in touch with your emotions, and allow you to see yourself as the powerful woman you are.

Heal Comfortably with The Brobe

If you need a way to ease your discomfort after a surgical breast cancer treatment, The Brobe has just the products for you. Our line of post-surgical clothing provides the perfect solution to ease your everyday pains without limiting your mobility or independence. In doing so, we hope that you can feel empowered in your recovery to rise up over these trials and channel your inner strength.