Caregivers are quiet heroes, helping and caring without asking for anything in return. Caregivers step in when there is a need and they bring with them a sense of hope and comfort during the challenges facing a loved one diagnosed with cancer. In the selflessness of love, they sometimes forget to take time to care for themselves. To avoid caregiver depression, frustration, resentment, illness and burnout, here are six ways a cancer caregiver can care for themselves while caring for someone else:

Take a daily walk. Exercise is a great stress reducer. Taking the time to stroll through the neighborhood or local park is like a deep calming breath for the body and emotions. If you are a jogger, go jogging. The point is to get away for a moment, get the body moving, and enjoy a change of scenery as you go.

Keep a journal. Daily journaling is a way to outwardly express your thoughts and emotions and can act as a relief value for emotions that are building up inside. It can also give you a better perspective. Sometimes we need to see what we are thinking and feeling to sort it all out.

Pursue personal interests. If you have a hobby or activity -- like writing poetry, photography, crafts, painting, knitting, reading, gardening, or listening to music, that has always been fun and brought you a sense of joy and contentment -- make time each day for your personal pleasurable pursuits.

Maintain friendships. We need our connection to others for the enjoyment of company and for comfort and support. Make regular weekly dates with friends and meet for coffee. Join a book club or start a book club. If there is a caregiver support group in your area, or a support group for families affected by cancer, consider joining.

Learn ways to relax. Try breathing exercises and muscle relaxation exercises. Schedule a massage. Take a weekly yoga or tai chi class. Cannot get away? Pop in a yoga or tai chi video and follow along.

Make your health a priority. Eat well-balanced meals, get plenty of rest, drink plenty of fluids. Find inspirational quotes that lift your spirits and display them where you can read them each day. Remember to laugh each day. Hug and be hugged.

To offer the very best care for your loved one, you must take care of yourself too. It's not selfish, it's wise.

If you are a caregiver that has found unique fun ways to take a moment to take care of yourself while taking care of someone you love, please share your ideas with other caregivers in the comment area following this post. If you are a reader with fun tips or ideas on ways a caregiver can take care of themselves while caring for someone else, please share in the comment area. We are all in this together, and we will get through the challenges and struggles of cancer much better with each other's support and encouragement.

The Family Caregiver Alliance has written an excellent article in acknowledging that becoming stressed, irritated and frustrated are normal valid emotional responses that occasionally occur when being a caregiver. While the article speaks to a caregiver of someone suffering from Alzheimer's disease, I feel the information they offer applies to all caregivers.

All caregivers are going to feel irritation and frustration at some point -- perhaps not towards the person they are caring for so much as the circumstances and the cancer that led to the need for caregiving. Controlling Frustration is packed with great information, advice and tips.

In combating frustration, the Family Caregiver Alliance offers the following suggestions: learn to recognize the warnings signs of frustration; intervene to calm yourself down physically; modify your thoughts in a way that minimizes stress and learn to ask for help.

The warning signs of frustration might be: shortness of breath; knot in the throat; stomach cramps; chest pains; headache; compulsive eating; excessive alcohol consumption; increased smoking and suddenly feeling a lack of patience.

For ways to prevent frustration from building, they recommend caregivers do three things: make time for yourself; take care of yourself and seek outside support -- because not doing these three things puts the caregiver at greater risk for anxiety, depression, frustration and physical distress that may eventually keep a caregiver from being the caregiver they want to be for their loved one battling cancer.

The article Controlling Frustration is published online in the Strength for Caring Caregiver's Manual.

Stress is not good. Long-term stress can suppress the immune system. Part of cancer prevention is supporting a healthy immune system so it can do the job of stopping cancer before it has a chance to develop into disease.

Whether stress is related to work or family life, most of us experience too much stress in our daily life. Why the same events will cause some people stress and not others, or why the same event can cause us to experience stress at one time but not seem to bother us as much at a different time, is largely based on our perception of the event and how we define what is happening.

One of the best ways to escape stress? Never personalize what is taking place. Easier said than done, but with practice, it works in reducing the amount of stress and the number of times you experience stress in a day. Still, easier said than done.

This is a sad ending -- mostly because of the reason for the ending. The Guelph Mercury published a feature story about the Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute ending its annual garage sale to raise money for cancer research because, basically, the organizers are burnt out on the abuse of the public who took advantage of the garage sale.

For the past five years, the school has accepted donations for the annual garage sale. In five years, they have raised $50,000 dollars for cancer charity. Each year hundreds of students volunteer their time, and according to the story, most of them are doing it because they have had a parent who has been diagnosed with cancer. But people began to use the fundraiser as a way to dump junk that had little resale value.

Then, this year, during the sale, a woman took off with one of the school handcarts that wasn't for sale. The organizers will have to pay out of pocket for a new one. Even when the woman was confronted, and told the nature of the annual sale to raise money for cancer, she refused to hand over the trolley. That's when everyone finally said they had enough, and called it quits. The feature in its entirety, is here.