Creating harmony and balance in your life while dealing with breast cancer can be difficult. Complementary medicine techniques like yoga are thought to improve your mood, quality of life and ability to cope while conventional treatment does its work. While scientific research on most complementary therapies is relatively new and the studies are small, early results have shown that some complementary therapies may help ease physical and emotional symptoms in some people. When combined with conventional medicine, complementary therapies may offer a more integrated approach to healing. The study reviewed here shows that yoga has benefits for women with advanced breast cancer.
Yoga, which means "union," is a 5,000-year-old system of principles and practices originating in India. Yoga incorporates nutrition guidelines, ethics, exercise, and meditation with the intention of bringing together the mind, body, and spirit. One of the most frequently practiced types of yoga is called hatha yoga, which uses physical poses and breathing techniques to increase strength, flexibility, and well-being. Research in breast cancer patients has shown that yoga may be able to improve strength, enhance sleep quality, reduce fatigue, and improve overall quality of life.
In the breastcancer.org Complementary Medicine section you can learn about 16 types of complementary techniques, including yoga. You'll learn about:
As you try to balance your life during breast cancer treatment, you might want to think about whether a complementary medicine technique might be right for you.
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women with breast cancer that has spread beyond the breast may benefit from participating in a tailored yoga program that includes gentle yoga postures, breathing exercises, and meditation, new research suggests.
"The benefits could include less pain and fatigue, and more vigor, relaxation, and acceptance," study leader Dr. James W. Carson, from Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, told Reuters Health.
Effective ways to curb cancer-related symptoms are needed for women with advanced breast cancer, Carson and his associates note in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management. The "Yoga of Awareness" program, which is specifically designed and tailored to address patients' pain, fatigue, and emotional distress, seems to fit the bill, according to results of a pilot study.
Thirteen women with breast cancer that had spread to other sites in the body attended the yoga classes once weekly for 8 weeks. The women were an average of 59 years old and had been first diagnosed an average of 7 years beforehand.
The program proved "helpful in significantly boosting daily invigoration and a sense of acceptance," the investigators report. "There were also trends for improvement in pain and relaxation."
They also found that "greater practice on a given day was associated with improvements not only on the same day, but the next day as well."
This study "provides some of the first, tentative evidence for yoga's potential benefits in this vulnerable population of women with limited life expectancy," Carson and colleagues conclude.
SOURCE: Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, March 2007.
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