Yoga Helps Cancer Survivors Sleep Better and Increase their Energy
A study shows that yoga can help cancer survivors sleep better, feel more energized and cut back on the sleeping medications. Usually cancer survivors often feel fatigued and have trouble sleeping for months or even years. Karen Mustian, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of radiation oncology at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, said “We really wanted to find something useful, because right now there are not a lot of good treatments out there for fatigue.”
The study included 410 cancer survivors who already completed treatment in the previous two years and had been experiencing sleep problems for at least two months. Half of the participants attended 75 minute yoga sessions twice a week for a month. Hatha yoga and restorative yoga were the two forms of yoga used in the study. Mustian said, “This wasn’t some kind of power Vinyasa yoga class. It was gentle.”
At the end, 31 percent of the patients who have undergone yoga sessions reported improvement in sleeping patterns whereas 16 percent of the control group reported improvement in sleeping patterns. The yoga group participants used about 20 percent less sleep medication while the control group increased their intake of drugs by 5 percent. Darlene Distler, a cancer survivor who participated in the study and was in the yoga group, said “I just loved it. This really, really helped… Several of us would fall asleep in class. It was that relaxing.”
Dr. Douglas W. Blayney, president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), said “This is a readily applicable approach that improves quality of life and reduces medicine intake in cancer survivors. This is a real positive… There are literally millions of patients to whom this might be applicable.”
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