The Role of Yoga in Integrative Oncology
Earlier this year I attended the IPM Congress in London where there was a whole day devoted to Integrative Oncology. It was so heartening to hear so many doctors and researchers who are seeing the benefits of, and advocating for, a more holistic approach to cancer care.
What excited me was how clear it is that yoga has huge potential to support doctors in delivering that. If you haven’t come across the term before, Integrative Oncology is a holistic, patient-centred approach using a combination of conventional treatments, lifestyle adjustments and complementary therapies. Typically this includes conventional treatments such as surgery and drugs but also understands the importance of gut health, diet, the use of supplements and natural remedies, sleep, exercise, mind-body practises and stress management.
As you can see there is a huge role that yoga can play in cancer care alongside conventional treatment. My long-term ambition is to have yoga on prescription as part of NHS cancer care.
Challenges for Doctors
Integrative medicine is new and not all doctors have time to learn about different complementray therapies to be able to advise or recommend them. Even the most up to date specialists who are keen to offer a more holistic approach are currently limited by the system they work in and face many challenges.
Whilst they understand that allowing patients to have a say in their treatment to have their needs and wishes taken care of gives better outcomes, they have very little time allocated to each patient. This means that they are not able to spend time answering all the patients questions, or discuss lifestyle adjustments, meaning that the patient is more likely to have anxiety, make poor choices and miss out on important and useful information.
6 Ways Yoga Can Support Oncologists
It is important to reiterate that yoga is not a cancer treatment by itself but plays an important role in overall cancer care.
As yoga teachers we are well placed to offer people with cancer more time and personal care than many doctors are able given the constraints they work under.
Keeping within our professional boundaries these are ways we can support both patients and doctors to get the best from their medical treatments:
Prehab - If you have a student who is at the diagnosis stage, advise and support them in being as fit and active as possible before treatment begins. It leads to better recovery from surgery and fewer side effects from other treatments.
Keeping Active – Outcomes are better when patients stay active through treatment. Adapting practices to suit where they are at will help students to maintain a regular practice which in turn will give them the knowledge and confidence to be more active in day to day life.
Anxiety & Emotions – Regular yoga classes not only offer people practises such as meditation and pranayama to help people manage all the thoughts and emotions that may come with cancer but also offer a place of connection and community which help in the co-regulation of people’s nervous systems.
Restorative Yoga – This has been shown to help improve the quality of sleep for participants and is a useful part of stress and fatigue management. All of these are really important for maintaining their quality of life and help reduce side effects of treatments.
Signposting – Find out what other specialist support and professionals are in your area so you can signpost students to help they need or are looking for. Doctors have very little time for this so we can help our students find additional services.
Providing Free Resources – Doctors would love to have some quick and easy lifestyle advice to give patients from trustworthy reliable sources. They cannot signpost to paid services, but they can add links to free information and resources in patient letters.
It is clear that yoga can be a significant part of helping medical treatments be more effective and less harmful. It is important that we don't underestimate the impact of helping people manage their stress, sleep better, maintain and regain mobility and strength, reduce the risk of recurrence and return to life again.
The process with cancer is a long one for most people, often 1-2 years in duration from diagnosis to completion of treatment. Then there is long term recovery and the years of follow ups. Having consistent support is so valuable.
As yoga teachers we can support people through all phases of diagnosis, treatment and recovery, adapting our teaching to each stage.
If you would like to be part of the growing community of teachers working with cancer patients, I offer both a Foundation Course and an accredited 12 week YFCA Holistic Teacher Training Course.