AceShowbiz - Actress Busy Philipps has been encouraging her female friends to keep up-to-date with regular mammograms after suffering her own health scare when she postponed her 2020 appointment.

The "Cougar Town" star decided to hold off on getting her breasts checked for any abnormalities last year at the height of the COVID pandemic, but it was something she immediately regretted when she finally made it to her doctor.

"I turned 40, and I knew that that's when I needed to get a mammogram. But I was busy and traveling a lot. Then, COVID happened," she told Health magazine of putting off the physical exam.

When she eventually had her appointment, Philipps knew something didn't feel quite right.

"After the boob-squish thing, the tech said they wanted to take a few more pictures," she recalled. "Then the radiologist came in and said they wanted to do an ultrasound. That's when I thought, 'Oh no - is this going to be one of those things? I don't want this to be a thing.' "

The lump was determined to be a cyst, which required a biopsy because "it looked a little weird," and Philipps forced herself to keep her cool.

"My feeling is, there's no reason to get upset until they tell you to because it's a waste of energy - you can't change the results," she shrugged, crediting years of therapy for helping her stay calm. "When those scary thoughts creep in, I say, 'I see you, thoughts. I am going to put you away in this little cabinet.' "

Luckily, she was eventually given the all clear, but Philipps made sure to use her temporary scare as a lesson for her pals.

"What I was glad for was that I told some friends about my experience and they ended up going to [get] the mammograms they had put off," said the mother-of-two.

Women are advised to start annual breast cancer screenings when they turn 40.