Practicing yoga can benefit cancer survivors

We all know how important exercise is for our health and wellbeing, and some believe for cancer patients it has an even bigger pay off.

It looks like a typical yoga class. But there’s nothing typical about this. It’s a class for survivors, cancer survivors specifically, and also for their caregivers. Its one of a host of free classes put on by Cancer Wellness at Piedmont Newnan Hospital.

Cancer survivor Carol McKennzie says, “Not only is it great for your body but I’ve made some really great friends, and we’ve all been down road together. Maybe not the same kinds of cancer, but we’ve all been in the same boat, so we can really relate to each other.

Dr. Vasiliy Assikis, an oncologist at Piedmont Newnan Hospital, says “A lot of patients when they are going through cancer they have this feeling of something is wrong with me so you can go back to feeling normal exercising regularly.”

While all forms of exercise are encouraged, workouts like yoga may provide a special bonus. Assikis says, “So when you go through chemotherapy many times you have muscle achiness, and many times the stress of dealing with cancer causes achiness, tightness; so yoga has been found to release a lot of the stress and make you feel more agile.”