Yoga for Cancer: My Journey to Healing and Managing Side Effects
If you're curious about whether yoga for cancer can actually help with recovery, you’re in the right place.
As a 900-hour certified yoga teacher and someone who’s been through carcinoma myself, I get it. The treatment side effects can stick around longer than you expect, and no one really prepares you for that.
So, I’m sharing my story and what I wish I had known back then, hoping it can help you. If you’ve recovered from cancer but still feel the effects of treatment, keep reading. You’re not alone, and there’s support out there for you.
What is yoga for cancer?
This type of yoga is a sequence created by medical professionals who recognize the power of holistic practices like yoga to support healing during treatment.
In my studio, I offer free yoga for cancer classes using variations of a sequence I learned at the Yoga Institute’s special program for advanced yoga teachers and paramedics.
I knew right away that this was a meaningful way to give back—to pay my karma back. Yoga has been a powerful tool for restoring my own health, and I wanted to share it with others to help them heal as I did.
The sequence is mostly made up of restorative poses, allowing your body to heal gently, strengthen, and open so you can take deeper, higher-quality breaths. Just to clarify, yoga for cancer isn’t a treatment for cancer itself.
If you’re currently undergoing cancer treatment, please follow the guidance of your medical team. But once you’ve recovered, you may need support for the damage caused by the treatment. Yoga can be a helpful tool during that phase of healing.
Yoga is what brought me back to health
Before I dive into the amazing, science-backed benefits of yoga for recovery, I want to share my own story with you. To give you a little background: I was always very active and loved extreme sports. But when I was 22, I was diagnosed with carcinoma.
To treat it, I went through radiotherapy and local surgery. Afterward, my doctor told me I was fine, cured, and could go back to my old life and celebrate. That was all the information I received. I beat cancer, but the side effects of the treatment hit me hard, and for a long time, no one knew what was really going on.
I was having digestive issues, which led to skin problems, hair loss, and even osteoporosis. At first, I had no idea why all of this was happening. I saw multiple cosmetologists and tried expensive products, but nothing worked.
I thought going back to my old life meant getting active again, and doing the extreme sports I loved. But instead, I developed osteoporosis of a very high level when I was just 23. I didn’t even know what osteoporosis was at the time!
That’s when I started to feel hopeless about my health and knew I had to find a way to heal my body. And that’s when I found yoga—a full-body recovery practice.
My spine and body were weak, and I needed something gentle yet effective. Yoga helped me strengthen my body, detox my liver (along with the right diet), and get back on my feet, creating lasting health.
This is why I’m sharing this with you. As a yoga teacher, I see firsthand how yoga improves the quality of life. It helps you feel better, eat better, and sleep better—it's not just what you see on Instagram.
Benefits of yoga for cancer patients
The benefits I’m about to share come from the Yoga Institute, where I also had the privilege of studying. It’s a team of doctors who’ve spent over 20 years researching yoga as a method of recovery and creating specialized yoga programs.
Only teachers who’ve completed their 900-hour training have access to this science-backed information, so it’s not something you’ll find just anywhere on the internet. Now, let’s dive in.
1.You’ll help detox your body
Yoga is a gentle yet effective way to support your body’s detox process, especially after cancer treatments.
Through movement, inversions, and compression, yoga helps release toxins that the body needs to let go of, which is especially important after chemotherapy or radiation.
The lymphatic system relies on muscle movement to flush out waste, and yoga encourages this flow.
Certain postures help move lymph fluid toward the thoracic duct, where it’s processed and eliminated, helping the body feel clearer and more energized.
Inversions are particularly helpful for reversing the effects of gravity, allowing toxins to be expelled from the extremities. Compression poses, like twists and restorative positions, activate the internal organs, supporting the detox process.
2.You’ll build up lost strength
Chemotherapy and radiation can leave the body weakened, affecting healthy cells and causing fatigue. And, this makes any normal activity feel challenging.
Traditional strength exercises like weightlifting or running can be too hard on the body, especially when bones and joints are already fragile. Yoga, however, is a gentler way to rebuild strength.
It never pushes the body beyond what it’s ready to do. Instead, yoga uses the body’s own weight to build strength gradually, without putting strain on vulnerable areas.
This approach allows for strength-building that’s both safe and effective, even for those with weakened muscles and bones.
Yoga also helps support bone health, which is especially important for cancer survivors, as treatments like chemotherapy can disrupt bone density.
Gentle yoga poses help counter bone loss, and studies show that yoga can help increase bone density in both the spine and hips.
Starting with restorative yoga practices, you can build strength and improve your breathing over time, eventually moving to more active practices like Sun Salutation (Surya Namaskar), which connects movement, breath, and mental focus.
3.You’ll increase your range of motion and flexibility
Many people avoid yoga because they feel they’re not flexible enough. “I can’t touch my toes” or “I’m not flexible” are common reasons I hear. But flexibility is something that can improve gradually with regular practice.
Over time, you’ll find yourself moving more freely and without pain—and yes, even touching your toes with ease!
For cancer patients and survivors, the challenge is even bigger. Treatments like surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and hormone therapy can reduce flexibility by causing scar tissue, joint stiffness, and muscle tightness.
This can make simple movements, like even doing housework, feel difficult and painful. Yet, yoga can help change that.
By practicing asanas like Downward Dog, Crescent Moon, and restorative poses like Fish Pose, you can increase your range of motion, ease pain, and make movement feel easier.
With consistent practice, flexibility improves, and everyday tasks become more manageable.
4. Improve posture and spinal health
Good posture is necessary for our overall health—it helps our lungs, stomach, and other organs function properly, allowing us to breathe and digest more effectively while also supporting detoxification.
When we slouch, it limits the space those organs need, making it harder for the body to get oxygen and remove waste. For cancer survivors, especially breast cancer survivors, maintaining good posture is even more important.
After surgeries like axillary node removal or breast reconstruction, many women deal with scar tissue and restricted movement, which can affect balance, breathing, circulation, and digestion.
Developing back strength through yoga helps support proper posture, aiding recovery and improving overall spinal health. And this is super important for feeling balanced, breathing easier, and supporting the body’s detoxification process.
5. You’ll boost the immune system
For cancer patients and survivors, a strong immune system is a must. It helps fight infections and ensures the body can handle the strain of treatments like chemotherapy and radiation.
These treatments can disrupt cell balance and stress the body’s systems, increasing the risk of infection or other health issues.
Even after treatment, it’s important to continue supporting your immune system to stay strong and reduce the risk of relapse. Yoga can be an amazing tool in ongoing care.
6. Ease pain
For many cancer patients, the pain they feel often comes from the treatments and their side effects, rather than the cancer itself. The fear of cancer can make patients very sensitive to every new sensation in the body.
This can lead to confusion or misunderstanding of what’s really happening.
Yoga can be a gentle way to ease that tension and anxiety. By focusing on the body as a whole, yoga helps bring balance.
Using pranayama (breathing techniques) when the mind feels unsettled and asanas (postures) when it’s calmer can help calm the body and mind.
Poses like Warrior 3, leg extensions, supported eagle pose, and restorative poses like Child’s Pose, Bridge Pose, and Legs Up the Wall can be soothing and effective in easing pain and discomfort.
These simple practices offer a way to feel more at ease during your recovery.
7. You might alleviate fear and anxiety
A cancer diagnosis often brings a wave of fear. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by thoughts of pain, how it will affect your personal life, and the uncertainty of what lies ahead.
Yoga can help ease those fears by guiding patients to focus on what they can control and letting go of the need to control the things beyond their reach.
Along with fostering gratitude and positivity, yoga relaxation techniques help calm the nervous system, reducing the risk of sleep problems and depression.
Poses like neck stretches, Downward Dog with a chair, restorative Bridge Pose, and Legs Up the Wall can be especially helpful in easing fear and anxiety. Research shows just how beneficial yoga is for calming the nervous system and reducing anxiety.
A study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in 2013 found that 90% of cancer survivors who participated in a yoga program experienced better sleep quality, reduced daytime sleepiness, and a better overall quality of life.
Since sleep problems affect up to 90% of cancer survivors, this is a major benefit of incorporating yoga into recovery.
8. It helps maintain a healthy body weight
It’s a common misconception that cancer patients always lose weight and become frail. While weight loss can happen during treatment or in later stages, weight gain is actually a more frequent side effect.
It can also bring up worries about the risk of cancer returning. That’s why it’s so important to begin with gentle, restorative yoga practices to help strengthen the body and support healing.
Once you’re ready, adding in regular asanas can help you maintain a healthy weight, boost your confidence, and offer both physical and emotional benefits.
Yoga is a beautiful way to reconnect with your body, build strength, and feel more in control of your health and well-being.
9. You might help to manage incontinence
For cancer patients dealing with tumors in the bladder, prostate, or pelvic region, bladder incontinence can be a tough challenge.
The tumor may press on the bladder or spine, or treatments like chemotherapy and radiation can weaken the muscles that control these areas.
The good news is, yoga can help. It’s a gentle way to strengthen the pelvic floor, the muscle foundation that supports the bladder, uterus, prostate, and rectum.
Poses like Restorative Cobbler Pose, Happy Baby Pose, Legs Up the Wall, and some gentle flow sequences can work great for alleviating incontinence when practiced regularly.
Yoga provides a calming and effective approach to managing this issue during recovery, helping you feel more at ease and supported on your healing journey.
10. You’ll support a healthy body image and overall well-being
Yoga is all about tuning into ourselves—starting with practices like kriyas to cleanse, followed by asanas and pranayama that help us reconnect with our bodies.
It’s such a beautiful way to acknowledge what we’ve achieved and bring ourselves into a more balanced state. For cancer patients and survivors, this can be especially healing when there’s been a disconnect with the body or a struggle with body image.
Through regular practice, yoga can really empower you, helping you feel more capable and in control of your life.
And for cancer patients and survivors, this is huge. It’s like winning half the battle, especially when dealing with the stress and emotions that come with recovery. It’s not unlike what soldiers or people recovering from life-threatening experiences feel.
There’s research that shows how survivors who embrace resilience, a sense of purpose, and even find moments of gratitude in their journey are better equipped to manage their illness.
Yoga can help you manage stress and make you feel more peaceful, calm, and at ease with where you are right now.
Join my free yoga classes for cancer patients
If you’re facing what I faced, know that there is a way to start feeling better. Yoga can be a great place to begin, along with small changes to your diet and lifestyle. Step by step, you’ll begin to notice positive changes.
If you’d like to try a yoga sequence specifically for cancer survivors, come by my studio in Los Cabos, Mexico.
I offer free yoga for cancer patients, and my door is always open for you. You’ll find not only a supportive class but also a warm community of people who truly understand and are here to support you through your journey.
You can find the schedule and book your free class here.
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