The Benefits of Yoga for Cancer Patients

By Anne Harding / Source: CNN

Cancer survivors often feel fatigued and have trouble sleeping for months -- or even years -- after their last chemotherapy or radiation session. Now, a new study shows that yoga can help them sleep better, feel more energized, and cut back on sleeping medications.

"We really wanted to find something useful, because right now there are not a lot of good treatments out there for fatigue," says the lead author of the study, Karen Mustian, an assistant professor of radiation oncology at the University of Rochester Medical Center, in Rochester, New York.

Compared with sleep medication, yoga "can be really empowering," says Suzanne Danhauer, a professor of psychosocial oncology at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Sleep medications aren't always effective and can have side effects, and people who've just been through cancer treatment may not want to take any more drugs, adds Danhauer, who studies the benefits of yoga for cancer patients but didn't participate in the new study.

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