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292 Background: Advanced lung cancer involves severe and distressing symptoms, especially anxiety, breathlessness, insomnia, and pain. Progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) is an empirically supported treatment for reducing stress and the emotional, cognitive, and physiological concomitants of anxiety. Methods: A quality improvement effort involved enhancing standard of care (SOC) by offering patients with newly diagnosed lung cancer one brief (20-minute) PMR session during a clinic visit for treatment determination. A static group comparison design was used. The PMR group ( n= 40) received PMR with pre (initial visit) and post (3-4 week follow-up) assessments of anxiety (Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 Scale), breathlessness (American Thoracic Society for the Division of Lung Diseases Questionnaire), insomnia (Medical Outcomes Study Sleep Scale), and pain (Brief Pain Inventory). The static group ( n= 32) was assessed on one occasion only, during the 3-4 week follow-up visit. Pre/post analyses for the PMR group used paired samples t-tests. Linear regressions compared post data between the two groups. An alpha of .10 determined significance. Results: Analyses showed pre- to post-PMR differences in pain ( p= .036, d= .309) and breathlessness ( p= .084, d= .663), with null effects for anxiety ( p= .149, d= .178) and insomnia ( p= .811, d= .067). Controlling for performance status, smoking history, and toxicities, regression showed that the PMR group reported significantly less pain ( p= .046, b= 2.48). Conclusions: PMR effectively reduced symptoms of breathlessness and pain among patients with advanced lung cancer. Interventions based on the education and training of PMR may provide an improvement to SOC lung cancer treatment.