Yoga and Can­cer — A good rem­e­dy for feel­ing helpless

Counter can­cer with gen­tle yoga. Peo­ple suf­fer­ing from can­cer often ben­e­fit from addi­tion­al sup­port dur­ing or after their lengthy and dif­fi­cult med­ical treat­ments in order to regain bal­ance with them­selves and their lives. And to do some­thing about the “at the mer­cy” feel­ing. Ill­ness brings a lot of uncer­tain­ty and fear. Can­cer patients are often in a tense situation.

A study in 2019 proved that gen­tle yoga in con­junc­tion with relax­ation and med­i­ta­tion tech­niques can restore a sense of body and well-being to patients. In total, the sci­en­tists eval­u­at­ed 29 ran­dom­ized con­trolled stud­ies on the influ­ence of yoga on the well-being of adult can­cer patients. 

With the right exer­cise pro­gram, dis­ease and ther­a­py-relat­ed symp­toms can be reduced. Hard times are bet­ter accept­ed and the effects of chemother­a­py, radi­a­tion and tablet ther­a­pies can be reduced.

Source: Overview study on symp­tom man­age­ment in can­cer (2019)

Yoga improves qual­i­ty of life with cancer

Yoga has a pos­i­tive influ­ence on the gen­er­al qual­i­ty of life dur­ing and after can­cer ther­a­py. Above all, the phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al and social well-being increas­es and is also used for fur­ther prevention. 

The sec­ond area in which there has been clear improve­ment is so-called fatigue: it is sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced through reg­u­lar yoga. In addi­tion, yoga improved cog­ni­tion, lym­phede­ma and vital­i­ty. The con­cen­tra­tion of var­i­ous bio­mark­ers for stress and inflam­ma­tion also decreased. 

The ran­dom­ized con­trolled tri­als on symp­tom man­age­ment in can­cer patients main­ly includ­ed breast can­cer patients. How­ev­er, study par­tic­i­pants with oth­er can­cers (e.g. ovar­i­an can­cer) also showed pos­i­tive results for bet­ter qual­i­ty of life, sleep and depression.

Above all, the emo­tion­al sup­port, the so-called “Feel Good”, is pro­mot­ed through gen­tle yoga exer­cis­es with a focus on breath­ing and flex­i­bil­i­ty. Yoga not only sup­ports the fight against can­cer, it also serves as gen­er­al pre­ven­tion against times of cri­sis. There are no neg­a­tive effects from yoga. 

The con­clu­sion of the sci­en­tists: Yoga offers clear­ly rec­og­niz­able advan­tages at low costs — they would there­fore encour­age can­cer patients to par­tic­i­pate in appro­pri­ate programs.