Yoga for cancer patients ? That's right, the ancient Indian practice of postures, breathing and meditation may be just what the doctor ordered. As a devout yoga practitioner and a fellow ThyCa survivor, The yoga practice has deepened and produced incredible additional benefits.
Yoga – Yoga is a Sanskrit word meaning yoke or union. I interpret it a the union of body, mind and spirit or a way to achieve wholeness. It is a time honored system of self care dating back 5,000 years. Yoga involves a gentle series of stretches and poses (or postures), done slowly and with attention to your breath and related sensations. For the healthy population, yoga helps take of your body in the prevention of illness or disease.
The benefits are many : physically, it increases flexibility and muscular strength ; mentally, it helps us learn to work beyond our physical limits through increasing levels of awareness. With continued practice, yoga helps us read our body signals and helps us honor the messages it send us in order to heal. For those of us with medical challenges, the practice can help us move beyond a restricted mindset of always being sick. Continually thinking of yourself as being sick can evolve into a long-term, negatively reinforcing message to your body on how its supposed to behave. With lack of exercise over time, disuse atrophy or degeneration can set it. Muscle tone is lost, particularly in the legs, the skeletal muscles weaken and become more prone to injury - not to mention depression.
The beauty of yoga for cancer patients is it can practiced anywhere and from any position a hospital bed, chair or wheelchair, if standing isn't possible. When starting out, you may wish to limit their practice to 10 minutes a day, as stamina builds. Most seasoned yoga practitioners go 1-1/2 hours or more each day. As a thyroid cancer survivor, found yoga incredibly beneficial from both a mental and emotional standpoint following my diagnosis. It provided me with a wonderful calming feeling and put my stress, and sometime sheer terror, in check. yoga can help energize even if you are exhausted! Specific postures can provide help for the following physical symptoms : backache fatigue indigestion headache stress.
By Shabeer
