Yoga Poses and Breath Aide Cancer Patients During Treatment by Jillian McKee

For centuries in India, yoga has been a practice used to promote and sustain a healthy and well-balanced life. Currently, it has gone global and is being recognized more and more as a practice for healing. Scientists are organizing studies and testing the effects on cancer patients and cancer survivors, and doctors are suggesting yoga as a complimentary treatment alongside traditional medicine such as mesothelioma treatment. In fact, Duke University offers a Yoga of Awareness for Cancer training program for yoga instructors that will teach them specifically how to help their practioners with cancer.

Yoga is so encouraging to healing cancer patients and normal populations alike because it works at various levels and is adaptable to every person and skill level. Just practicing yoga for 30 to 60 minutes twice a week can provide sustained benefit throughout the week.

But what are the benefits? Studies repeatedly show that yoga lowers heart rate and boosts mood. Rare aggressive diseases like mesothelioma that is triggered from asbestos exposure and other cancer patients go through a battery of testing, treatment and diagnoses causing a roller coaster of emotions, especially those going through mesothelioma prognosis, piled onto of the accompanying pain of the illness. This may, in part, explain why patients also report decreases in depression and anxiety. Also symptoms that accompany cancer and treatment like fatigue and nausea also decrease with yoga.

So what are the best poses? The class of restorative poses is very valuable to patients, especially if the person is feeling too weak to move through a sequence of strength poses. Child’s pose: resting with folded knees, forehead and hands (by the side or outstretched) on the floor is the basic pose that brings back comfort and stability after stress or strain. Also try reclining bound-ankle pose: lying on your back with feet together in butterfly and knees open and sinking towards the floor. Use supports for your back and knees for a more comfortable pose and hold it to sooth depression.

Breathing techniques taught in yoga can be practiced outside the class and even employed during a doctor’s visit or procedure to decrease stress; for example alternate nostril breathing can reduce anxiety. Simply fold the first two fingers of the right hand. Place the thumb on the right nostril to close the right nostril and breathe in through your left. Then place the ring finger on your left and exhale through your right nostril. Repeat at least 4 cycles or until you regain your balance.

Jillian McKee is a yoga enthusiast and cancer activist. She works as the Complementary Medicine Advocate at the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance. Her time is spent mostly on outreach efforts and spreading information on complementary and alternative medicine use in cancer treatment.

You can contact her at jilliansmckee@gmail.com and check out the Cancer Alliance at @canceralliance on Twitter and Facebook.com/mesotheliomacancer.

Editors Note: It is with great pleasure that I introduce you to Jillian. Nothing would thrill me more than to share inspiring information and resources for people to create a life that they can thrive in. Yoga has been recognized around the world for an extremely long time as a system that heals. It is encouraging to see that traditional western medicine is examining the effects in a scientific way because so many people look to traditional therapies for healing. I encourage you to contact Jillian for more information. ~ Namaste, StephanieTweet