Why New Year Is Not a Fresh Start for Cancer Patients
Every January we’re surrounded by messages about fresh starts. New goals, new habits, a new version of ourselves. For many people, this can feel hopeful and motivating. But for someone living with cancer, whether newly diagnosed, in treatment, or navigating life after treatment, the New Year can feel anything but fresh.
Instead of renewal, January can bring pressure, exhaustion, grief, and a painful sense of being out of step with the world.
Cancer Doesn’t Follow the Calendar
Cancer doesn’t pause for Christmas and it doesn’t reset on 1st January. Bodies may still be recovering from surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, or hormone treatments. Fatigue doesn’t disappear overnight. Pain, neuropathy, brain fog, nausea, and hormonal changes don’t politely wait until spring.
Emotionally, many people are still processing shock, fear, loss, and uncertainty. There may be ongoing scans, hospital appointments, or the anxiety of “what comes next?”. When you’re living with cancer, the idea of turning over a new leaf can feel completely unrealistic, overwhelming or simply depressing.
The Pressure to Feel Positive
The New Year often comes with an unspoken expectation to feel optimistic and forward-looking.
But for many cancer patients:
Survival may have come at a high physical and emotional cost
Life may look very different from before diagnosis
The future may feel uncertain or frightening
Grief for the “old self” may still be very present
Being told – directly or indirectly – to “start fresh” can create a sense of failure if that’s simply not possible. Sometimes, just getting through the day is an achievement.
When Energy Is Limited, Goals Can Feel Overwhelming
New Year’s resolutions often focus on doing more:
Exercising more
Working harder
Being more productive
Improving ourselves
For someone with cancer-related fatigue, pain, or long-term side effects, these messages can feel alienating. Their energy is likely to be unpredictable; some days may be taken up entirely by rest or recovery, other days may be more active. Planning ahead can feel impossible when you don’t know how your body will feel tomorrow.
This isn’t a lack of motivation, it’s the reality of living with cancer.
A Different Kind of New Year
Instead of framing January as a fresh start, we might think of it as a gentle continuation of the annual cycle. Rather than being a time to reinvent it is a time to honour where someone truly is.
I like to focus on seasonality to keep the connection with the natural world. When we pause to reflect, 1st January is still deep mid-winter. Having classes and workshops or retreat days themed on the energy of mid-winter may be more aligned with where people are really at.
Here are some more appropriate ways we can encourage and support our students:
1. Teaching That Meets Students Where They Are
Cancer patients don’t benefit from encouragement to be positive, productive or to set health and fitness goals. Instead they need a consistent held space to be themselves regardless of the world outside. They need permission to feel:
tired and overwhelmed
grief for what’s been lost
flat and uninspired
scared about the year ahead
that New Year is meaningless or not special
It is important to be aware that for some people the turning of the year may be quite triggering in ways that are unexpected even to them. Listening without attempting to fix, reframe, or uplift can be one of the most powerful forms of support.
2. Offer Acceptance Instead of Goals
Rather than asking about resolutions, it can be useful to revisit what their needs are. What is it they would like to gain from their yoga practise? It could be useful to offer class themes such as:
Rest and recovery
Listening to the body
Being with what is
Self-trust and compassion
Kindness towards limitations
These themes allow space for experience in the moment, rather than setting an expectation of improvement or change.
3. Prioritise Nervous System Support
January can heighten anxiety, especially for those facing scans, follow-ups, or ongoing treatment. Teaching that supports the nervous system can be far more valuable than physically demanding practices. This might include:
Slower pacing
Longer rests
Breath practices that focus on ease rather than control
Gentle, repetitive movements that feel familiar and safe
For many students, feeling calmer and more grounded is far more beneficial to their wellbeing and is the foundation of a physical practise.
4. Let Go of the Idea of “Back to Normal”
For many students, there is no return to the body or life they had before cancer. Yoga can be a place where this truth is acknowledged rather than avoided – where students are supported in inhabiting the body they have now. Avoid framing practice as a way to “get back” to anything. Instead, offer yoga as a steady companion through uncertainty and change.
Closing thoughts
If you teach yoga to people affected by cancer, your presence matters more than your plans.
You don’t need a special New Year theme.
You don’t have to inspire transformation.
You don’t have to offer hope or positivity.
What many students need most is:
Consistency
Choice
Compassion
A space where nothing needs to be different
Sometimes the most powerful thing yoga offers isn’t a fresh start – but permission to be exactly where you are, supported and respected.
The suggestions here offer an insight into the unique framework I have developed around my whole approach to working with cancer patients and beyond which I share in my YFCA Holistic Teacher Training Course. It is more than passing on knowledge, it is about helping teachers be the person they need to be to hold space for people facing one of life’s biggest challenges. Find out more