Yoga And Cancer

Of the many techniques people use to reduce stress, yoga is among one of the more popular. Although some may believe that effects of yoga are merely physical, there is research that suggests that yoga has direct impacts on one’s mental state. According to Forbes, in addition to the benefits on the heart and blood flow, yoga helps release dopamine and gaba and serotonin (Walton, 2012). All of these are known to create feeling of happiness in a person (K. W. Brown, personal communication, Sept. 7). For this lab, I decided I would try yoga for myself to test the results.

A growing body of evidence suggests meditation-based interventions have the potential to reduce symptoms and improve well-being (Marchand, 2013 for review; Mitchell et al., 2014). The Stanford University study entitled Breathing-Based Meditation Decreased Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms in U.S. Military Veterans: A Randomized Controlled Longitudinal Study explores the effects of Sudarshan Kriya yoga, a meditation-based therapy, on U.S. military veterans with PTSD symptoms having served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Not only is yoga a healthy way to stay fit, but also gives emotional and spiritual support to those in recovery. Prinster researched yoga and found out that it strengthens the immune system, which provides protection against cancer recurrence. She constructed a system of yoga poses and sequences, each one based on needs of cancer survivors. This is the Yoga 4 Cancer method.

So how can one make it through these physical obstacles and come out on the other side? We need a strong physical and mental base to guide us through the physical pain. This is what a yoga practice brings to our healing as we strengthen our body through the strengthening of our mind and vice versa. The authors highlight this with an insightful quote

This was an interventional study to understand the effect of two low-cost interventions; yoga and peer support on the quality of life (QOL) of women with type 2 diabetes.

In many studies done Kundalini yoga has proven to improve depression, anxiety, and much more disorder when doing kundalini yoga meditation. Based on the success of treating the disease, “therapies also are expected to address emotional distress that comes with a cancer diagnosis. (Subedi 3). The article demonstrates how kundalini is being studied to treat other medical problem and how it improves person's life when doing these activities. In the article mentions that many scientists have noticed that “Patient that cancer can affect them physically and psychologically, causing pain, fatigue, insomnia, depression or anxiety” (Subedi 3). The author illustrates how in the cancer patient, this problem occurs as for disorder patient too, which allow seeing where cancer patient can benefit from this treatment. Furthermore, Kundalini yoga can be proven to help many patients and to the

However, in this study the follow up interview was completed 3 months after the intervention finished. In another study comparing yoga to usual care provided by the doctor, there was significant improvement in the back functionality and decrease in pain after a year compared to usual care (Tilbrook et al., 2011). Because the study did not follow up with the three groups past 6 months, this study was not able to say whether stretching or yoga was a better treatment for chronic low back pain over time. What the researchers could do to change the limitation into a positive and innovative addition to the study would be to go back and interview the study participants at 1 year from the start of the trial and another year after that. A common method for studies like this is to have the participants return at the halfway point, at the end of the intervention, and 6 months after the end of the intervention (Williams et al., 2009). If the study was to have a longer follow up than the customary amount, it would change the study from examining the short term effect of yoga is on an individual’s chronic low back pain, and extend it to the long term effect on an individual’s chronic low back pain. It would be a pioneering prospective study on how yoga affects chronic low back pain over the course of years rather than 6 months.

During a trial that took place at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, 15,500 healthy middle aged people participated in a study that showed that yoga and weight loss are definitely connected, and yoga prevents people who have lost weight from gaining it back. While it burns less calories than some other more intense forms of exercise, it helps to create focus and mindfulness that can be a valuable tool to everyone, especially those carrying the burden of extra pounds. In the end, people who practiced yoga were shown to lose about 5 pounds in the same amount of time those who did not practice it gained fourteen

Cardiovascular disease is a global burden and by changing risk factors such as increasing physical activity and reducing stress by relaxation can lower the incidence of the disease (Hartley, Dyakova, Holmes, Clarke, Lee, Ernst, & Rees, 2014) The study had 800 participants with high risk factors of the cardiovascular disease and were recruited to 11 study trials. After eight months of this ongoing study, Hartley and Colleagues (2014) found that any form of yoga showed reduction in the systolic and diastolic blood pressure, triglycerides, and an increase in high-density lipoprotein. Since patients with the cardiovascular disease are unable to perform rigorous exercises, yoga was concluded to be an ideal choice for them. Participants, who

Yoga has been associated with stress. The larger the amount of stress a person has, the less likely that person is to feel in control of themselves and their surroundings. Yoga has also been linked to a person’s health and wellbeing. During a one week experiment, a researcher did yoga once a day at 7:00 pm for a half hour. A survey was taken twice, in hour intervals, after the yoga session was completed, at 8:30 pm and 9:30 pm. The surveys are what was used to find the data that created the results of the experiment. One type of yoga, integrated yoga, was used throughout the week. The results concluded yoga helps relieve stress for one hour after the session was completed, but was stressed again shortly after that hour was finished. Different styles of yoga classes could be offered and more times could be made available at the Elmen Center. Yoga is currently offered at 4:30 pm in the Back Alley, but more class times could be 5:30 pm and 6:30 pm. Different styles include hot yoga, iyengar yoga, or hatha yoga. To improve evaluations, a person could add questions about their level of stress before and after the yoga class. These improvements will allow researchers to see if the results are true for the majority of people.

Yoga's psychological benefits include; improvement of anxiety, depression, stress tolerance, addictive disorders, bi polar disorders, eating disorders, insomnia and overall emotional balance. Physical benefits include; improvement of chronic pain, reduction of heart rate and blood pressure, increased circulation, and function. The benefits continue; improvement in venous return of the

However, what if chronic back pain could be managed by adding alternative therapies such as yoga to modern treatments? Yoga is an additional therapy that decreases chronic back pain by promoting movement and decreasing pain medication dependence (Lee, Crawford & Schoomaker, 2014). This could radically reduce the dependence on drugs for pain relief and lead to a movement where pain is managed with the help of both modern medicine and affordable alternative remedies. With this in mind, promoting alternative therapies, such as yoga, in collaboration with modern treatments provides a larger range of options with different efficiencies for those with chronic back pain.

In today’s environment, many people are suffering with the stress and anxiety of day to day living and are finding themselves unable to cope with life’s little emergencies. Prescription drugs are on the rise due to the increasing need for people to deal with their stress and anxiety. However, many people are searching for ways to be less stressed and live a happy and healthy life without drugs. If stress and anxiety are getting the best of you, then think about grabbing a mat and giving yoga and meditation a spin. With that in mind, this paper will take a look at the benefits of yoga and meditation to create a more peaceful and healthy lifestyle.

The health behavior that was chosen to promote during our campaign was yoga. We encouraged students, staff, and faculty members at Knox College to partake in yoga classes offered by the school in order to reduce stress and target a particular health/illness outcome. The main physical health/illness outcome targeted in this campaign was reduced blood pressure. Yoga is also seen to improve cardiovascular health. We chose to focus on the benefits of yoga to improve blood pressure and cardiovascular health instead of just one or the other because most of the studies that we found while researching mentioned both decreased blood pressure and improved cardiovascular health occurring from practicing yoga.

My yoga journey started more than ten years ago with an intense and dedicated interest in learning yoga postures from Ashtanga, Hatha, Jivamukti, etc. In the beginning I practised most days of the week and imagined that I would never tire, in spite of long trips to the studio in the early hours of the morning. A pleasant reward was that my blood pressure dropped back to normal and I could stop taking medicines. So, from the start, I knew that yoga could provide health benefits as well as an enormous feeling of wellbeing. No matter how tired and fed-up one felt at the beginning of a session, the mental lift afterwards was deeply satisfying. Meditation, Savasana, or corpse posture, wound up every session so it also became clear that postures or asanas were only part of the remedy. Meditation and yoga practise from the very beginning fired my interest in searching for an inner consciousness. This is an easily misunderstood word and means many different things to many different people. Some will associate it with awareness, or mindfulness