57 - THE BACKSTRETCH – JOURNEY

OPTIMIZING YOUR BASIC HEALTH

Now that you are catching your breath after all the intense complexities of the first stretch and near corner, defining your diagnosis and prognosis, starting treatment and settling into your life’s stride it is time to pay attention to many things, relationships, goals, and dreams. But general health habits and spiritual well being are primary. Your doctors have hopefully dealt with every system of your body from diet and dental care to your bowels, but one thing often over looked in the fray is your sleep. It is critical for your endurance, tolerance of therapy, memory, creativity and enthusiasm. Most healthy people need 6-8 hrs and when under stress more. The body does best with regularity. There are normal metabolic and hormonal fluctuations which do better if you rise and retire at roughly the same time each day.

Regular exercise as simple as walking or riding a stationary bike helps with the fatigue associated with cancer and chemotherapy, helps keep the bowels moving and helps everyone fall asleep. Just do it.

 If you are young and healthy you can abuse you body with an irregular lifestyle and get away with it, but with the biologic stresses of age and cancer treatment you will pay a price for poor eating habits and the lack of quality sleep: fatigue, poor memory, depression, decreased creative thinking and more. Taking a regular 10-20 minute power nap daily can be amazingly beneficial; try to do it on a regular schedule. If you work, go to the car for lunch and grab a quick one.

People under stress often find themselves awake for a couple hours around 3am with their brains bouncing from one concern to another. First eliminate caffeine after 2pm, (some need to stop after noon. If you find yourself exhausted without it as I did you could have sleep apnea which can compromise anyone but can be devastating for someone on treatment.

Fatigue is the number one side effect of chemotherapy and if potentiated by a poor night’s sleep it can defeat your ability to take effective treatment or live a meaningfully during it.. Sleep apnea affects 25% of men and 10% of women irrespective of weight, and untreated causes snoring, irritability, memory impairment, heart disease and erectile dysfunction as well as depression, car accidents, job loss and divorce. If there is any hint of this, get it checked out with an overnight sleep study.

The ability to fall asleep rapidly may signify your desperation for sleep even though you thought you thought you slept soundly for 8 hours the night before. If you are one who is desperate for coffee in the morning or repeatedly during the day or if you don’t feel rested when you rise in the morning it may be you were repeatedly stressed out during the night because you stopped breathing without even knowing it. Sedatives and alcohol make it worse, but relatively simple things like sleeping on your side, oral devises, nasal dilators or a CPAP machine can give you your life back. It’s not just about feeling good; it is about being able to take the most effective cancer treatment and taking care of your heart and other important organs.  Coffee is great but a good night’s sleep is better.