Health and wellbeing

Information on maintaining a sense of wellbeing with a cancer diagnosis.

Some useful lifestyle tips include:

  • Making small adjustments to everyday activities to make things easier
  • Taking light, regular exercise to keep energy levels up
  • Giving priority to the most important things you want to do first
  • Pacing yourself so you get enough rest
  • Considering relaxation techniques, like yoga, to help manage anxieties
  • Developing a support network of friends and people in a similar situation

West Yorkshire Health & Care Partnership

We encourage you to watch the following film which may help you with ways to manage your health & wellbeing.

Living With and Beyond Cancer – Health and Wellbeing

When you are living with cancer, life can become very different. People often struggle with understanding what is happening to them as well as the physical, emotional, financial, and practical challenges of cancer. Many people do not like talking about cancer and how it is affecting them, and they find the idea of talking upsetting or uncomfortable, but talking to someone about how you feel can help you cope with your emotions and can make you feel supported. It can also help you make decisions that are best for you. You can talk to someone you know well or choose someone else, such as your consultant, GP, cancer nurse specialist, or a counsellor or psychologist.

Living with cancer can impact the life of the patient and the life of their family and friends. It is common to have many different emotions, and there is no right or wrong way to feel them. These emotions can be difficult to cope with, and your partner, family, and friends may also have some of the same feelings. Shock denial fear sadness Anger and guilt are well-known emotions that cancer patients might experience, and there are things that you can do to help, for example, speaking to a friend, your GP, or talking to someone at your local information and support service. Your clinical nurse specialist is always available for support, whether you are having active treatment or not, and beyond that, you can ring the national MacMillan helpline at 10800 808 808.

After treatment is complete, you can also experience a mix of reactions. Sometimes the emotions are positive, and you may have discovered new personal strength and deepened relationships with your loved ones during treatment, but it is also normal to have feelings that aren’t positive some describe the period after cancer treatment as dropping off the edge of a cliff and this can be confusing or scary please do reach out to someone if you feel like this you don’t have to face this alone and there are supportive community services that can help you most people are not surprised by strong emotions during treatment however they can be surprised when New or Old emotions occur after treatment is completed after treatment is complete you may find that you have more time to yourself to think and this causes a period of reflecting about your experiences You may find yourself feeling alone with your thoughts as loved ones have returned to work, and you have fewer appointments with healthcare professionals. Please do reach out to someone; this could be your GP, your cancer nurse specialist, or your local information and support service.

You Are Not Alone, managing family life and work as well as living with cancer may also seem challenging. Having cancer might mean that you’re unable to work, and you worry about how you are going to pay your bills. For some people, increasing debt, fuel poverty, and poor housing are issues. Getting advice on benefits and welfare rights is something that the team at the hospital can help with, and you can usually access a cancer welfare rights advice service for support, or alternatively, through the national MacMillan cancer support helpline at your local cancer information and support service. They can spend time listening to you on the phone or face-to-face to explore what support our advice you might need. They may use a holistic needs’ assessment, which is a questionnaire that you may have encountered before, to identify your main concerns. Cancer treatment and stress can also cause physical symptoms such as pain, extreme tiredness, sleep problems, and loss of appetite. How long these last and how severe they are is different for everybody.

There are things that you can do to help yourself feel better, such as getting enough sleep, eating well, exercising, stopping smoking, and doing things you enjoy, like reading, listening to music, or going for walks. Sometimes speaking to others in a similar position can help, and information about local support groups within your community can be found through contacts in your local information and support service. Remember that the local cancer support services are there for you. Talk to your healthcare professionals or go directly to the local services and get the help and support that you need.

Keep active

Keeping active has been shown to have many benefits with more information provided at:

Food and Drink

The booklet Recipes for people affected by cancer by Macmillan has sections on   

  • A dry or sore mouth
  • Sickness or nausea
  • Problems chewing or swallowing
  • Loss of taste or smell
  • Loss of weight or appetite
  • Quick and simple recipes
  • Healthier-eating recipes

Eating well During Your Treatment provides advice for those having treatment.

One You Leeds gives information on: Managing your Weight; Eat Well; Cook Well.

The following resources provide information on:

Helping your mind

Please watch this video from Dr Jane Clark, talking about the emotional effects of a cancer diagnosis:

Leeds Cancer Support: Emotional Aspects

Hello my name is Jane Clark I’m a consultant clinical psychologist working here at st James’s in Leeds and over the years. I’ve worked with lots of people who’ve gone through the experience of cancer, and they’ve talked to me about what that’s felt like many people talk about the diagnosis of cancer as like stepping on a roller coaster where you’re sent off into the world of to an unknown world not knowing what’s ahead of you, and just having to follow the hospital and the appointments and the surgery wherever it takes you, and there’s nothing you can do about it, and you just hang on for dear life, and just get through as best you can, and it’s only maybe at the end when you’re back on solid ground, where you could look back and think about what you’ve been through over the last few weeks, months and really start to feel the emotions that maybe have been held back, because you’ve been busy attending your surgery, attending a chemotherapy or whatever treatment that you’ve had.

It’s often at the end of treatment that people experience the most psychological reaction and start to really go through the emotions of what they’ve been through, and the range of emotions is huge. You might feel one emotion for an hour and the next one for a couple of minutes. There isn’t a linear process to what we’re feeling.

The emotions can be really positive. It can feel like you’re really happy that you’ve finally finished this treatment. It can feel like you’re really positive, optimistic about the future, and hopeful for some of you. You might still have ongoing treatments for years ahead of you. You might be taking certain tablets.
So, maybe it doesn’t quite feel the same sense of ending as others have, and certainly some patients talk about feeling a real anti-climax at the end of their treatment, and they lose their close contact with the clinical team, which can be really hard. Some people almost describe feeling abandoned and alone. They are left to cope with the consequences of all this treatment by themselves, so it can be a really difficult time point for some people. People sometimes say my family’s really moved on; they’ve celebrated the end of treatment, and now they’ve moved on, but for the patients themselves, they’re only just starting to look back over that roller coaster and start to make some sense of what they’ve been through. What I would say as a psychologist is that all these emotions are okay. If at all possible, let them come and let them go, and don’t judge yourself for your reaction.

It’s really, really normal to find this a difficult time, and you’ve been through a lot okay, so I’ve talked about the roller coaster um metaphor analogy and here’s another one for you imagine progress through life it’s a bit like being on a small boat you’ve got your map you’ve got your compass to guide you and make sure you stay on the track you want to go, and maybe you know where you want to go to you’ve got your islands of safety you’ve worked out the world and the way it works and most time you can sail along through life, and you whether the expected and the unexpected storms that sometimes occur in everyday life but then all of a sudden without warning there’s a really huge unexpected storm that throws you around on your boat you just hold on for dear life again your maps have thrown overboard the compass goes, and you just get through that very difficult storm and then after that the storm lifts maybe it’s still foggy, and you don’t quite know where you’re going Your boat probably needs many repairs, but it’s still afloat; it’s damaged; it’s changed, but it’s still afloat, and you need to kind of work out what needs to be repaired and mended.

What’s broken and damaged, what’s washed overboard and no longer useful to you, and maybe you then look out to see and notice that actually it’s not a calm day; there’s no blue sky; it’s still quite foggy. Your c charts have been lost you’re not quite sure of your position any more whether you’re still facing the same way and where you actually want to go any more so although the sea is calmer things still feel unsettled and the world just feels less stable than before and maybe thoughts of where you should be going where you want to go what next just assault you and what add to your worry and uncertainty and this may be what it feels like for you at the end of treatment still reeling from the kind of physical emotional and practical demands of treatment and left contemplating an uncertain and possibly frightening future so what we need to think about are the kind of tasks to help you repair and rebuild I think nowadays we spend less time thinking about how to recover from serious surgery or treatment, such as chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

I really encourage you to think about how to repair your body, rebuild, and slowly get your health and your body back together. It’s a big thing to go through, and we can be quite critical of ourselves sometimes and really beat ourselves up for not coping better and not being further along with our recovery. How come this person is now off running a marathon and I find it difficult just to get off the sofa so really encourage you to be compassionate towards yourself to appreciate what you’ve been through and just take some time to really recover and part of that recovery is also allowing yourself time to make sense of your experience how does this fit with my map of the world how can I weave this experience into my life tapestry where am I going now and what’s important to me in my life right now those are huge psychological issues to work through they’re exhausting at a time when you’re already maybe quite depleted so really encourage you to take the time take time with your family and friends to kind of re reassess take stock and think about where to go next.

Our fantastic team at Leeds Cancer Support are available to support anyone who has been affected by cancer; patients, those supporting them and their families. We have specialist staff and trained volunteers who can talk you through the services available and help you to decide which are the most beneficial for you. 

Call 0113 20 66498 or email [email protected] to find out more.

Stopping Smoking

The NHS Smokefree website is also a great place to start. The site is packed full of information and handy guides to suit different types of people. You can order a Quit Kit, take an addiction test, calculate how much you’ll save when you quit and discover the effects smoking has on the body – plus much more.

Download the NHS Smokefree app!

Choose the support that’s right for you, with daily support and motivation. If you stay smoke-free for the four-week programme you’re up to five times more likely to quit for good.

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