Practicing Self-Care and Mindfulness as a Care Partner 

When you’re a care partner for a lymphoma patient, the needs and well-being of someone else become your top priority as you support them through their diagnosis. It’s important to remember that with the serious responsibilities and emotions that come with the role of care partner can come a significant strain on yourself as well. It is important to practice self-care and mindfulness to balance your needs while caring for your loved one. 

Caring for Yourself to Care for Others 

In order to care for someone with a lymphoma diagnosis, you must care for yourself as well. As a care partner, it’s inevitable that there will be sacrifices and shifting priorities. However, you need to be mindful not to neglect your own needs and emotions for the sake of others.

Oftentimes, neglecting your self-care can lead to burnout. Burnout is long-term exhaustion that comes from excessive demands on one’s energy, emotions, and physical strength – all of which can happen easily amidst the stresses of a lymphoma diagnosis. In order to prevent it, it’s important to implement self-care into your routine in the ways that work best for you. 

Self-Care for Care Partners

It may seem impossible, or even selfish, to take the time to care for yourself while acting as a care partner for a lymphoma patient. However, everyone needs to practice self-care to protect and preserve their well-being, and there are many ways to practice that can work for you. 

• Taking a break to set aside time for yourself is essential for helping your mind and body stay healthy. As Foundation Ambassador and lymphoma survivor Katie Palay and lymphoma care partner Lisa Ervin mention in their conversation above, taking a break is the definition of self-care. Being a care partner can be both emotionally and physically strenuous, and pushing yourself beyond limits can impact both you and the patient negatively. Everyone needs a break, so it’s important to remember that it’s okay to take a step away when you need to allow you to continue caring in a healthy way.
• Seeking peer support for yourself while you act as a support system for another person can connect you with people in similar situations and provide emotional understanding to remind you that you’re not alone. The Lymphoma Support Network offers free services to provide one on one support for care partners to help you form connections with others who understand exactly what you’re going through. 
• There’s no shame in asking for help and tapping into the support of those around you. Don’t be afraid to lean on people during this journey, even as someone else is also leaning on you. Even seeking help with something as small as asking for a ride to an appointment or doing a few chores can be an incredible weight lifted, and one less task to focus on. 
• Managing guilt is key to help you process negative emotions and allow you to break free of a guilt cycle that care partners can often find themselves stuck in.¹ Studies have shown that guilt is one of the most common emotions that cancer care partners feel.² While it’s important to allow yourself to feel emotions, you must be patient with yourself and recognize when situations are not your fault and that self-care is not selfish. 
• Setting boundaries and acknowledging limitations can allow you to prioritize your personal needs in order to maintain your wellness and focus on the care you are capable of. Offering 24/7 care with 100% energy isn’t realistic and can be overwhelming to try to achieve. It can be empowering for both you and the loved one you’re caring for to discuss what you can or can’t help with and what needs the patient is able to meet for themselves. 
• Self-compassion is imperative to improving psychological resilience in care partners of cancer patients.³ It’s important to practice kindness and patience with yourself and your abilities as a care partner as you support the lymphoma patient on their journey. 
• Educating yourself on the patient’s specific subtype and the expected journey ahead can help alleviate fears of the unknown and combat overwhelming feelings by allowing you to plan as much as you are able. Learning about lymphoma or attending the Foundation’s education programs can help you answer your questions, address your anxieties, and make empowered, informed decisions. 
• Taking care of your own health is vital for preserving your well-being. Care partners may neglect their own health needs as they care for someone with lymphoma whose health becomes the most important point. However, you need to be capable of caring for your health in order to care for someone else’s. Keeping up to date with your own medical appointments, sleeping at least seven hours a night, maintaining a balanced diet, and exercising when you can will help you be a more effective care partner by ensuring you’re feeling your best. 
• Professional counseling provides various therapeutic techniques that can greatly help you process your feelings and struggles as a care partner. Professional mental help can improve emotional distress, depression, anxiety and negative emotions that come from  being a care partner. 
• Meditation has been practiced for thousands of years and can help with calming and grounding your mind, reducing negative thoughts, and even lowering heart rate and blood pressure. Meditation can be practiced wherever you are for any amount of time, and there are many types to find what works best for you.⁴ 
• Journaling is a healthy way to manage overwhelming emotions and process what you’re thinking and feeling. It can also provide a way to track and reflect on yourself as a care partner and your loved one’s cancer journey to help process information, work through your experiences, and navigate next steps.  
• Music releases dopamine, the pleasure hormone, and reduces cortisol, the stress hormone in the brain. Listening to music you enjoy is a great way to regulate mood and ease negative emotions. 

Becoming a care partner for a patient with lymphoma can be a daunting role that can cause mental, emotional, and physical strain. However, practicing self-care can significantly help you maintain your well-being and empower your abilities to provide care and support on a patient’s lymphoma journey. The Foundation provides free resources to support both care partners and patients – get started at lymphoma.org/supportservices. 

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1. Spillers, R. L., Wellisch, D. K., Kim, Y., Matthews, A., & Baker, F. (2008). Family caregivers and guilt in the context of cancer care. Psychosomatics, 49(6), 511–519. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.psy.49.6.511 

2. Mohamed Hussin, N. A., & Mohd Sabri, N. S. (2023). A qualitative exploration of the dynamics of guilt experience in family cancer caregivers. Supportive care in cancer: official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer, 31(12), 659. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-023-08060-3 

3. Ardıç, S., Anuk, D., & Özkan, M. (2024). The relationship between self-compassion and psychological resilience, quality of life, depression, anxiety, and stress levels of informal caregivers of inpatient palliative care oncology patients. Turkish Journal of Oncology, 39(3), 316–324. https://doi.org/10.5505/tjo.2024.4230

4. Mayo Clinic Staff. Meditation: A simple, fast way to reduce stress. Mayo Clinic. 2022. https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-