Breast cancer treatment can affect the quality of your sleep for different reasons, including hormone changes, medication side effects, pain related to treatment and more.
Sleep is an essential component of physical and emotional recovery, and poor quality sleep or short sleep duration can negatively affect physical healing and emotional well-being. Here are some ways you can improve your sleep quality while undergoing breast cancer treatment.
Why breast cancer treatment affects sleep
Undergoing breast cancer treatment affects physical and emotional well-being and sleep is an important part of recovery. However, there are a variety of reasons why treatment can cause insomnia, waking up in the night or poor quality sleep.
Hormones: Breast cancer treatment can affect your hormones, causing menopausal symptoms that can affect your sleep such as hot flashes, night sweats, mood changes and insomnia.
Pain or discomfort: Post-surgical pain, medication side effects and muscle stiffness from being less active can all make it more difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep.
Medication: Hormonal therapies, targeted therapies and steroids can cause insomnia.
Emotional reactions: The quality of your sleep can be affected by your emotional response to your breast cancer treatment. Anxiety, stress, depression, fear of recurrence and intrusive thoughts can lead to insomnia or fitful sleep.
Irregular sleeping habits: Recovery from surgery and treatment such as radiotherapy, chemotherapy and hormone therapy requires resting and daytime napping. However, this can disrupt your regular sleep schedule, causing you to not feel tired at nighttime.
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How to improve your sleep during breast cancer treatment
While there are some things you can’t control on your breast cancer journey, there are ways you can improve your sleep duration and quality. Both your mind and body will benefit from the restorative effects of uninterrupted quality sleep, supporting physical recovery and well-being, while helping you better manage your treatment.
Define a clear sleep schedule: Try to bring structure to your sleep schedule by aiming to go to sleep and wake up at regular times and refraining from napping during the day.
Create an inviting sleeping environment: Ensure comfort in your bedroom with natural fibers, different layers of bedding, good airflow and a cooler temperature. This will make the sleep space more inviting and help manage any potential menopausal symptoms.
Practice gentle movements, deep breathing and meditation: During the day, light movements can help prepare you physically for a good night’s sleep. In the evening, deep breathing and meditation can calm your thoughts and manage any feelings of anxiety or stress that can prevent you from falling asleep.
Limit screen time: Overstimulation from the content and blue light on your phone, tablet or TV may cause insomnia and interfere with sleep quality.
Review your medication schedule: Ask your doctor if it’s possible to adjust your medication dosage or timing to reduce the impact on your sleep.
Show caution with sleeping aids: Try not to self-prescribe over-the-counter sleep aids such melatonin or those containing diphenhydramine, as these may negatively interact with other medication you have been prescribed. Ask your doctor to either prescribe a light sleep aid or recommend complementary therapies such as acupuncture or yoga.
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