Movement and exercise and therapy

Physical exercise is often hard for cancer patients to imagine, let alone do. You may feel exhausted from treatment and more frail, older than ever before. The body that once gave you the pleasure may now seem like a burden. These can be obstacles, but they are not insurmountable ones. Experience the results of good exercise: the physical PLEASURE of MOVEMENT; the sense, afterwards, of being both RELAXED and ENERGIZED, of feeling at home in our physical body; the heightened feelings of CONTROL and MASTERY; and the improvement in MOOD that results from increased release of endorphins and other neurotransmitters in the brain.

Some Basic Principles for Exercise

1.Check on your physical status. Make sure, for example, that you don't have bony metastases, which make CERTAIN kinds of exercise - like weight lifting, contact sports, running hazardous. Consult your physician.

2.Find the exercise that suits you now. Whether you're still on treatment like chemotherapy or radiotherapy, just had them recently or long ago, or maybe post surgery, the appropriate exercise for you may change.

3.Exercise within your capacity now and push the limits very gently.

4.Include walking as a significant part of your exercise plan. It uses many major muscle groups; can give you an aerobic workout; easy to do; moves you around, to, and through pretty and interesting places.

5.Consider experimenting with yoga, tai chi, and qigong. These systems of gentle moving meditation- stretching, breathing and imagery - are integral part of Indian and Chinese medicine. These practices have been demonstrated to have significant effects on increasing muscle relaxation, flexibility and balance; decreasing pain, increasing depth of respiration, improving mood, decreasing anxiety, and enhancing feelings of well-being and control. Some research on traditional Chinese medicine even show significant improvements in immune functioning among people with cancer who practice qi gong regularly.

6.Start where you are. Five or ten minutes of walking or even five or ten minutes of stretching while you are in bed is definitely a beginning. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Every time you exercise, you are not only gaining a specific physiological and psychological benefit, you are also overcoming residual feelings of helplessness and hopelessness; taking control of your own health and your own life; and participating in your own good care and recovery. This is taken from the archives of our friends from the KAHAYAG Network of Cancer Support Groups.