Yoga Stimulates Natural Anti Cancer Defences

Sareeka Tewari

National Cancer Institute estimates about one million suspected or diagnosed cases of Carcinoma.

The treatment options for most of them probably included chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery. When battling cancer, the worst part is not just the symptoms of the disease itself, but often the discomfort and debilitating fatigue brought on from cancer treatments. Whether faced with the scar-tissue of surgery or ongoing nausea and weakness from chemotherapy or radiation, cancer patients endure a long road of physical trials.

For patients, such side effects can take over daily life. They can make patients uncomfortable at best and miserable at worst sometimes affecting their ability to stick to their treatments, or making treatments less effective than they could be.
But as many cancer patients and cancer survivors are discovering, there are ways to strengthen their bodies and deal with the uncomfortable side-effects of treatment, both during and after treatment. As the interest in more holistic approaches to healing is growing, yoga therapy for cancer patients and cancer survivors is emerging as one of the more successful methods for combating the physical discomfort of cancer and cancer treatment.

Cancer patients who practice yoga as therapy during their treatment often refer to their yoga practice as a life-saver. The healing power of yoga helps both cancer patients and cancer survivors. No matter how sick from treatments and no matter how little energy, many find that the one thing that would bring relief were a gentle set of therapeutic yoga poses geared for cancer patients.

Yoga for Cancer 

How does yoga help relieve the suffering that cancer all too often brings with it? Gentle yoga poses for cancer patients can work magic on many levels.

Clearing out Toxins from Cancer Treatment

First of all, yoga used as therapy for cancer can help clear out toxins accrued during cancer treatment more effectively. Yoga asanas stimulate not just muscles, but also increases blood flow, balances the glands and enhances the lymphatic flow in the body, all of which enhances the body’s internal purification processes. The deep, relaxing breathing often emphasized in yoga for cancer therapy also increases the current of oxygen-rich blood to the cells, delivering vital nutrients to tired cells and further clearing out toxins.

Reducing Stress and Anxiety in Cancer Patients

In addition to removing toxins, yoga for cancer can help dissipate tension and anxiety and enable cancer patients to settle into a greater sense of ease and well-being.  Stress depresses the body’s natural immune function, which may be one of the reasons that there is evidence that people who practice yoga for cancer have greater recovery rates.

Yoga as Exercise for Cancer Patients

Regular exercise also has been shown to stimulate the body’s natural anti-cancer defenses. However, few cancer patients or cancer survivors feel up to the task of engaging in a ‘regular’ exercise regimen Many find that yoga as therapy for cancer provides an ideal, balanced form of whole-body exercise. It’s no wonder that more and more doctors have begun to recommend yoga as exercise for cancer patients and cancer survivors.

As an Holistic Healing for Cancer Patients

For those enduring chemotherapy and radiation, yoga for cancer provides a means to strengthen the body, boost the immune system, and produce a much-sought-after feeling of well-being. For those recovering from surgery, such as that for breast cancer, yoga can help restore motion and flexibility in a gentle, balanced manner.

Yoga for cancer survivors and patients also provides an internal anchor of calm. Many practicing yoga therapy have discovered an interesting, subtle benefit, an increased awareness of a great, internal stillness and sense of unity. They’ve found, at the most fundamental level of their own consciousness, a sense of true health and vitality that spills over into other aspects of life.

It is found that yoga could help to reduce anxiety, depression, tiredness (fatigue) and stress for some patients. And it improved the quality of sleep, mood and spiritual well being for some people. The authors of the study said that overall yoga may be associated with some positive effects on psychological well being for people with cancer. But the review results have to be used with caution because there were some weaknesses and differences in the research studies included. You can read the  review of yoga for people with cancer on the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE) website on the link below.

Other studies have shown yoga can help reduce tiredness and depression in people with breast cancer. A small study of men with prostate cancer also noted an improvement in their quality of life and general well being when they practised yoga regularly.

Yoga can also have an impact on sleep. Some people reported that their sleep improved after following a regular yoga programme.