There’s Something About Yoga

By Megan

From The Occasional Hot Flash

If you were to ask me my religion, my answer would be yoga. That's how deep my faith in yoga is. It's my personal panacea, and I suggest it to almost every woman who calls the SHARE Hotline, where I work as a volunteer. Here's why I find it so helpful:

• Every pose activates every body part. Even if you're "just" standing with your feet on the ground and your arms at your sides in mountain pose, you get explicit instructions on how to engage your head, neck, shoulders, arms, hands, chest, hips, thighs, knees, calves, ankles, feet and toes. The same is true in every other pose. Just as cancer and its treatment take a toll on your whole body, not just the tumor site, so each yoga pose exerts its healing power on your whole body, not just a single part, making you flexible and strong and resilient.

• Because every body part –– inside and out –– is engaged in every pose, yoga becomes an anatomy course. Before I took my first yoga class, I didn't know my biceps from my quadriceps, and if you had told me I had uniceps, I would have believed you. One challenge of a cancer diagnosis is the need to quickly master human physiology. Yoga helps you understand your body and learn the names and functions of all its parts.

• The physical practice of yoga can help you resolve psychological issues. In stretching a muscle, say, you may find yourself becoming more adaptable mentally. In flexing a muscle, you may find emotional as well as physical strength. When you "open up your heart center" (lift your sternum and press your shoulder blades into your back ribs), you may feel as if you are opening your metaphorical heart too: letting your grudges slip away and expanding your ability to accept and express affection. The inversions –– headstands, handstands, shoulder stands, lying on your back with your legs up the wall –– turn your body and your brain upside down, so that you are able to view the world from a different perspective literally and figuratively. Dealing with cancer is mentally and physically taxing, and yoga trains your mind as well as your body.

• For every yoga pose, there are explicit instructions on when to inhale and when to exhale –– and how deeply. The focus on breathing makes yoga a meditation in motion. It also keeps you from accidentally holding your breath as you hold a pose. That's important, because the movement of the diaphragm as you breathe massages the central lymphatic vessel, stimulating the flow of lymph, an important part of the body's immune system. A cancer diagnosis is a psychological as well as a physical trauma, and yoga uses the breath to help heal the body and sooth the psyche.

• Breathing in unison as you move through the sequence of poses cultivates a subtle sense of community between you and your classmates. A cancer diagnosis can make you feel isolated, and yoga makes you feel less alone.

Have I converted you? Or at least persuaded you to give yoga a try? Then pick a beginner's class, be sure to tell the teacher about your cancer history, and enjoy.

Posted February 24, 2011.