By Linda Howard
There is a particular kind of waiting that cancer patients and survivors know intimately. In Scanxiety: How to Cope While Waiting for Test Results, we name that experience for what it is, the space between a scan, biopsy, or blood draw and the phone call or appointment that follows. It shows up uninvited in the middle of the night, sits beside you at the dinner table, and follows you into places that once felt safe.
In the oncology world, clinicians call this experience scanxiety. It is the intense dread and hypervigilance that sets in when medical results are pending.
If you have ever found yourself searching for symptoms online late at night, replaying the expression on a technician’s face, or sitting in front of a meal you cannot quite taste, you are not alone. And you are not overreacting. The anxiety of waiting for test results is one of the most common and distressing experiences reported by people navigating cancer. Research shows that anxiety disorders are significantly more common among cancer patients and are closely linked to a reduced quality of life (Stark et al., 2002).
What you are feeling is real. It is recognized. And there are ways to move through it with more steadiness and support.
WHY WAITING FEELS SO UNBEARABLE
To understand scanxiety, it helps you to understand what is happening in your body.
Anxiety is your nervous system trying to protect you. When a threat is perceived, and uncertain medical results truly feel like a threat, your body shifts into fight or flight. Stress hormones increase. Your focus narrows. Your mind searches for answers, trying to regain a sense of control.
But when you are waiting for test results, there is nothing to act on.
Your body is ready to do something, yet there is nothing you can do to change the outcome in that moment. That disconnect is what makes waiting feel so draining, both physically and emotionally. This is not a personal weakness. It is your body doing exactly what it was designed to do.
WHAT SCANXIETY CAN LOOK LIKE
Scanxiety does not always show up in obvious ways. Sometimes it is quiet, and sometimes it feels overwhelming. It can affect your thoughts, your body, and your daily functioning in different ways, often all at once.
You might notice:
- Difficulty sleeping or waking up in the early morning with racing thoughts
- Feeling more irritable or emotionally sensitive than usual
- Trouble concentrating at work, in conversations, or while doing everyday tasks
- Physical symptoms such as muscle tension, headaches, nausea, or stomach discomfort
- Avoidance of thoughts about results, or on the other end, constant rumination and “what if” thinking that feels hard to stop
- Pulling away from people, social activities, or things that normally bring comfort or joy
Simply recognizing these responses as anxiety can be powerful. Naming what is happening creates a small but important space between you and the feeling, so it does not feel quite as consuming.
STRATEGIES THAT HELP
The following approaches are grounded in both clinical evidence and the lived wisdom of people who have sat in the same waiting room you are in now.
- Ground yourself in the present moment. Anxiety lives in the future, in the “what ifs” and worst-case scenarios your mind rehearses. Mindfulness-based practices bring you back to the present: where you are, right now, still breathing, still here. This does not mean forcing yourself to feel calm or peaceful. It simply means practicing the gentle return of your attention to what is actually in front of you, the warmth of a cup of tea, the weight of a blanket, the sound of birds outside. Even sixty seconds of slow, deliberate breathing can interrupt an anxiety spiral and signal safety to your nervous system.
- Name what you are feeling. Research in affective neuroscience suggests that labeling emotions, “I am afraid,” “I feel out of control right now,” actually reduces the intensity of the emotional experience. This process, known as affect labeling, activates the prefrontal cortex, the thinking and reasoning part of your brain, which helps regulate the more reactive limbic system. You do not need to perform calmly. You simply need to name what is real.
- Limit information-seeking behaviors. The internet is not your friend when you are waiting for medical results. It is filled with statistics that may not apply to your specific situation, anecdotal stories that may bear no resemblance to yours, and worst-case scenarios designed to capture attention rather than inform. Give yourself permission to set a boundary: perhaps one brief, time-limited check per day, or none at all until results are in. Share this intention with someone who can gently help you hold it.
- Stay in gentle motion. Physical movement, even a slow walk around the block, helps metabolize stress hormones and shifts your nervous system out of high alert. You do not need to push yourself to the gym or log miles. Gentle yoga, stretching, light gardening, or even slow dancing in your living room can interrupt the anxiety cycle in a way that continued stillness often cannot. Movement is medicine, even in small doses.
- Let people in. Isolation amplifies anxiety. It is tempting to protect the people you love from your fear, or to withdraw because you are not sure what to say or ask for. But connection is one of the most powerful regulators of the human nervous system. You do not have to discuss the results, the fear, or the prognosis. Sometimes simply being near someone who loves you, watching a movie, sharing a quiet meal, driving somewhere familiar is enough to remind your body that you are not alone.
- Write it out. Expressive writing, journaling without an agenda or an audience, carries a meaningful body of evidence for managing medical-related stress. You do not need to make it coherent or beautiful. Write your fears, your anger, your grief, your hopes, your prayers, your questions. Let the page hold what your mind is struggling to carry. What goes onto paper no longer has to live only inside you.
- Talk to someone trained to help. If the anxiety of waiting becomes overwhelming, if it is disrupting your sleep, your relationships, or your ability to function day to day, please reach out to a mental health professional with experience in medical populations. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) are both well-supported, evidence-based approaches for health-related anxiety. Support groups can also provide an outlet to talk or even just listen. You don’t have to manage this alone, and asking for help is one of the bravest things you can do.
A NOTE ON BEING HUMAN
There is no way to make waiting easy. There is no script that erases the fear, no technique that renders uncertainty painless. But there is a profound difference between suffering alone in silence and moving through difficulty with support, tools, and community. Grief and anxiety are not signs that something has gone wrong inside you; they are signs that something matters deeply to you and that you are fully, courageously alive.
Whatever your results bring, you do not have to face them without help. The people around you, at home, in your care team, and here at Michelle’s Place, want to walk alongside you through every part of this journey. You are not defined by a scan. You are not reduced to a number or a pathology report. You are a whole person, and you deserve care that honors all of you.
If you’d like to connect with support services, counseling, or community at Michelle’s Place, please visit our resource center in Temecula or contact our team. You don’t have to wait until you have answers to start taking care of yourself, that care can begin right now.
Reference
Stark, D., Kiely, M., Smith, A., Velikova, G., House, A., & Selby, P. (2002). Anxiety disorders in cancer patients: Their nature, associations, and relation to quality of life. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 20(14), 3137–3148. https://doi.org/10.1200/JCO.2002.07.031
Linda Howard is a graduate student in clinical psychology with a concentration on Marriage and Family Therapy at Pepperdine University and a practicum trainee at Michelle’s Place Cancer Resource Center in Temecula, California.
