You may have people around you encouraging you to “be positive,” or you may believe you have to squelch any negative emotions you may feel in order to put on a brave face.

In Chapter 4 of my book, When Cancer Hits, I tell you why “being positive” by itself could actually harm you on your way to recovery, and give you some real, practical tools you can use to deal with all the emotions cancer and cancer treatment may create.

Guilt Has No Room in Your Survival Plan

Did you find yourself feeling guilty after your diagnosis? Did you think that maybe if you had only eaten a healthier diet, or exercised more often, or reduced more stress, you wouldn’t have ended up with the disease? I help you face the guilt monster, stare it down, and cast it aside.

Faking Your Emotions Never Works

Do you find yourself trying to smile when you least feel like it? Do you feel pressured by family and friends to “be brave,” and “stay positive?” I felt some of these emotions when I went through Hodgkin’s disease at 16 years old, and I can tell you—squashing your emotions is bad for you. Not only do those emotions stay with you, they can actually reduce your body’s ability to fight off the cancer. (Studies have shown that repressing emotions makes you feel more physical pain and can affect your immune system.) I show you how to approach negative emotions in a healthy way, so you can more easily return to real positive emotions.

Tools to Help Accentuate the Positive

Have you ever made plans to make yourself feel good? If you haven’t, now is the time to start. Making plans to spend time with friends, enjoy a funny movie, get a nice massage, listen to your favorite music, and more are all extremely necessary while you’re going through cancer. You’ll be so busy with doctor appointments and medical records and insurance paperwork and the like that you’ll find things like just enjoying yourself can quickly slip out the window—yet they’re so necessary to your healing process! In Chapter 4, I give you all kinds of ideas for activities that help you process difficult emotions and find your way to feeling even just a little bit better.

Don’t be Afraid to Seek Help

Often we feel we have to be the brave soldiers and go through cancer alone. This decision is bad for your health, however, and dangerous to your recovery. You need support, and not just someone to help clean the house and make the meals. You need someone to talk to, someone who understands, and you need activities that really go to the core of what you’re experiencing. I show you how support groups can actually speed your healing; how music, art, and pet therapy can all be valuable tools in your recovery; and how counseling can be a lifesaver.

Learning the tools and skills you need to process and manage difficult emotions will not only help you navigate your cancer experience, but could be useful to you long after the cancer is in remission. I share with you some quotes from other survivors who learned a lot, emotionally, from their experiences, and help encourage you that with patience, you can get through whatever it is with courage and grace.

(When Cancer Hits is available now—click here.)

Have you experienced difficult emotions because of cancer or cancer treatments? Have you tried some of the tips in my book? Let me know what you think!

“Sound can play a role in virtually any medical disorder, since it redresses imbalances on every level of physiologic functioning,” Dr. Gaynor says. In addition, sound “affects healing in several ways: It alters cellular functions and biological systems…it calms the mind and the body; affects the emotions, which influence neurotransmitters and neuropeptides, which in turn regulate the immune system, the healer within.”

According to a recent study, music therapy can reduce mood disturbance in cancer patients undergoing stem-cell transplantation. Other data suggests that music may also alleviate anxiety in patients receiving radiation therapy. According to the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, controlled trials show that music therapy reduces anxiety, stress, depression, and pain. A study at the University of Rochester Medical Center showed that music therapy reduced pain and nausea in patients who underwent bone-marrow transplants, and even quickened the pace at which their new marrow started producing blood cells.

Pretty much, sound therapy is what it sounds like—using sound to treat physical and mental conditions. The sound is most often produced by recorded music, but can also incorporate chanting and meditation, the use of particular instruments, and electronic equipment that produces certain vibrations that facilitate healing.

Dr. Gaynor uses Tibetan and crystal singing bowls and chant as part of his cancer therapy, but music therapy can consist of all types of music and sound. Now offered in many hospitals and cancer centers across the country, it may be available near your oncology center. There are also several CDs available that facilitate healing, including Dr. Gaynor’s “Music for Sound Healing,” Dean Evanson’s “Sound Healing,” and Steven Halpern’s “Music for Sound Healing.” You can find healing instruments like Dr. Gayno’s crystal singing bowls online—at crystalbowls.com, for example, or try the Tibetan bowls at discoverthesound.com. Some spas now offer sound therapy, or you may find individual therapists offering sessions like Patricia Caldwell at Sound for Life or Wayne Perry’s Sound Therapy Center of Los Angeles. Some massage therapists incorporate certain sounds or music in their sessions, in effect giving you massage and sound therapy at once.

Of course, you can always just take your favorite tunes with you to treatment, and create your own daily meditation by lighting a candle, putting on your favorite, stress-relieving music, and sitting still, focusing on the breath, for 30 minutes each day. The important thing is to be aware of what sound can do for you and for healing, and be more aware of the sounds bombarding you every day. Are you listening to a lot of hard noises, like television, traffic, harsh music, people shouting, or children screaming? All these things affect your body and mind. Control your exposure as much as possible, and take time everyday for more healing, soothing sounds.

Have you found music or sound helpful in your recovery? Let us know.

Photo courtesy of Roman Barelko via Flickr.com.