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

For the past 2 weeks Sydney has been celebrating the Chinese New Year.

The Year of the Rat was ushered in in style, with lots of noise, fun, celebration and food. Contrary to what you may think, the Year of the Rat promises to be a good year!

Here in Sydney part of the fun are the Dragon Boat Races in Darling Harbour. A lot of Corporations have Dragon boat teams nowadays – I suppose it keeps the employees fit and builds team spirit.

Today some very different teams were racing – they were all comprised of women, and every single on of these women was a survivor of breast cancer.

They all wore hot pink outfits (some even had pink paddles).

They had come from all over the country to compete in the race and “give a face to breast cancer”, to have fun, stay fit and experience solidarity and camaraderie. There were hundreds and hundreds of women, all ages, all nationalities. The ones who were unable to row supported their teams from the shore.

After the races, there was a flower ceremony. All the dragon boats went back out onto the water and formed one huge raft, the women linking hands. Thousands of pink/red rose petals were thrown into the water to commemorate all the women who had died of breast cancer. Some blue petals were amongst them as well (for the men, who can suffer and die from the disease as well).

The petals were floating on the surface of the water while everybody observed a minute of silence. It was an incredibly moving ceremony.

If you want to find out more go to:

http://www.dragonsabreast.com.au/