How Yoga Could Ease Cancer Patients' Pain and Fatigue

Researchers in one study find patients who do yoga sleep less but are less tired, while another study sees mood benefits among those who add yoga to exercise

Yoga may help ease the pain and fatigue of cancer treatment, according to new research.

One study conducted at the University of Rochester used two surveys to interrogate why a group of about 300 mostly female cancer patients felt less fatigued following a program of yoga.

Researchers found patients who practiced yoga slept less but had less fatigue, in large part because they cut down on daytime napping. The result was a 37% reduction in “daytime dysfunction”, the study’s most dramatic finding.

“We recommend that doctors prescribe this low-risk, low-cost treatment to all cancer patients with cancer-related fatigue,” said Po-Ju Lin, a researcher from the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York, who presented one of the studies at the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.

“We would like them to prescribe gentle hatha yoga but they need to refer to appropriate yoga instructors who have experience of working with cancer patients.”

In another study presented at ASCO, researchers at the Tata Memorial Centre in Mumbai, India, compared programs of yoga and conventional exercise to conventional exercise alone in an effort to find out if yoga improved quality of life for a group of more than 600 women Read More...