Recently 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:

http://www.sciencedirect.com

Till next time,

Connie,

Your Yoga Partner,

from

http://www.yogainahurry.com

While driving many kilometres during my holidays I heard a little snippet on the radio. The announcer talked about a man who had made a commitment to live for 12 months with only 100 possessions. He was about halfway through the 12 months and they were going to interview him to hear how he was going. Then the radio station dropped out and I was unable to hear the actual interview.

But it certainly got me thinking – initially I thought that 100 possessions was a very generous figure. Once I got into it a bit more I realised that 100 items were adding up very quickly. I started to try and work out which 100 items I would choose for 12 months….

There was the car, the computer, the lawnmower. The house itself, clothing for winter and summer, at least once change of each – you add this up – winter shoes, summer shoes, 2 pairs of socks, 2 pairs of underpants, 1 singlet, 1 warm jacket, 1 T-shirt,  1 long sleeved top, a belt – 11 itmes out of 100 are already gone. Toothbrush, toothpaste, floss – another 3. A towel, a comb, scissors to cut nails, a pencil, pen and paper….1 pot, knife, cutting board, cutlery….

You get the picture. Pretty scary. I supposed it depends too where this person was living – house of apartment, country or city….

Now that I have written my thoughts down, I did some research – and there are a lot of people doing 100 item challenges, purging possessions, compiling lists of their 100 itmes. There are different groups and “challenges”. Quite amazing, I didn’t think that this whole idea would be that popular. I am not sure how many actual participants there are and how many on-lookers!

Right now I don’t think I will take part in any of it, but it is certainly a great thing to declutter and have a good look at our material “wealth”. Eventually it is not wealth, it actually makes us poorer – the constant care for our possessions robs us of time and energy which might be better spent doing other things.

Till next time

Connie Your Yoga Partner

from

http://www.yogainahurry.com

Today I was sent some information that I think everybody should have. Whether you use it or not, is up to you and may also depend where you live. With all the newest food scandals and scares it is vital that we know where our food comes from so we can make an informed choice what we are going to eat.

This is where the barcodes on the packets will help a great deal. Nothing is perfect and there is a loophole in the system when the packaging says: “products from various countries” and then it goes on to say: “packed in Australia”. I assume that the barcode will indicate “Australia” as the country of origin in that case. When I go shopping next I will check it out.

Now – how to read these barcodes. Go to this page, it will explain it in great detail, better than I can:

http://www.morethanyouthink.com/shopping/countrycodes.html

So you can determine where the product actually came from and if you want to avoid products from certain countries you just need take a close look at the first three digits of the barcode.

I hope you find this useful

Connie,

Your Yoga Partner

from

http://www.yogainahurry.com

To live a truly yogic lifestyle we need to develop certain mental qualities that help us to be a “true yogi (or yogini) no matter what life brings and what happens around us. For most of us (including myself) this is quite a challenge. Let us explore some of the things that might help us along our path.

Swami Sivananda talks about 18 “ities” that we need to cultivate.  They will eventually replace the not-so-healthy programmes going on in our minds.

The first one is serenity. It seems a very old fashioned or scarce thing – I have met very, very few truly serene people in my life. (more…)