Yoga helps to mesothelioma and other cancer patients for easier breathing.
Yoga helps cancer patients learn to reconnect with their breath and their body, something especially useful for patients with mesothelioma or lung cancer. Cancer patients may feel that they don’t have the strength to participate in yoga classes, but if they can get over their initial misgivings, they can find it to be very beneficial.
Cancer patient Gale McCombie had seen a brochure for free yoga classes offered to cancer patients while she was sitting in a hospital waiting room. Having been told a lot about the importance of physical activity, she decided to give it a try, bringing her mom along for comfort. She was happy to learn that the yoga instructor made sure that everyone was comfortable, using props or modifications when necessary, as the other members of the class also had cancer.
Yoga Thrive is a community-based program for cancer survivors in Canada and parts of the United States. It was created by cancer researcher Dr. Nicole Culos-Reed and yoga instructor Susi Hately to provide gentle, therapeutic yoga for people in all stages of cancer treatment. Instructors take a seven-week yoga program and learn about cancer treatments and their side effects.
Culos-Reed has been a yogi for seven years, and she believes that yoga’s ability to align breath with movement is particularly beneficial for cancer patients. When patients can develop that mind-body connection, it gives them back some of the control they lost when they were diagnosed. Yoga also improves strength, flexibility and quality of life.
Yoga Bear was founded by Halle Tecco of San Francisco, California in 2006. The non-profit organization offers free yoga classes to cancer survivors in partnership with over 180 yoga studios across the country that have donated passes. They also send trained instructors into hospitals to give classes to patients who are undergoing treatment. With 70 percent of their participants new to yoga, Yoga Bear furnishes each one with a handbook that tells them what to wear, what to bring and what to expect.
Source Link: - http://www.mesotheliomanews.com/2009/10/23/mesothelioma-and-other-cancer-patients-may-breathe-easier-with-yoga/