Yoga Reduces Fear During Breast Cancer Treatment
March 15th, 2009 11:03 amRecently I came across a study that assessed the benefits of Yoga for women diagnosed with breast cancer and receiving conventional treatment. The main focus of the study was on “Anxiety”, the reason being that anxiety experienced after diagnosis and during treatment causes various problems and the overall outcome of the treatment is not as good. Here are a couple of quotes from the study:
“Earlier studies have shown that anxiety increases psychological distress and side effects following conventional treatment. This treatment-related distress is predictive of poorer treatment outcome, poor treatment compliance,
greater pain, longer hospital stays, more postoperative complications and immune suppression.”
“Therefore, there is a need to reduce anxiety in these patients.
The literature on psychosocial treatment for breast cancer patients provides uniform evidence for an improvement in mood, coping, adjustment, vigour, and decrease in distressful symptoms using a variety of behavioural approaches including alternative medicine approaches such as yoga.
Yoga as a complementary and mind body therapy is being practiced increasingly across the world. It is an ancient Indian science that has been used for therapeutic benefit in numerous health care concerns in which mental
stress was believed to play a role. This could be particularly useful in cancer patients who perceive cancer as a threat. ”
In other words, it is crucial to reduce stress and anxiety when confronted with a diagnosis like breast cancer. Yoga is one of the methods that can help to achieve better outcomes.
The reference for the study is:
Anxiolytic effects of a yoga program in early breast
cancer patients undergoing conventional treatment:
A randomized controlled trial
M. Raghavendra Rao, Nagarathna Raghuram, H.R. Nagendra,
K.S. Gopinath, B.S. Srinath, Ravi B. Diwakar, Shekar Patil,
S. Ramesh Bilimagga, Nalini Rao, S. Varambally
Departments of CAM, Surgical Oncology, Medical Oncology and Radiation Oncology,
Bangalore Institute of Oncology, Bangalore, India
Department of Yoga Research, Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana, Bangalore, India
Department of Psychiatry, NIMHANS, Bangalore, India
and you can find it at:
Till next time,
Connie,
Your Yoga Partner,
from
