From April 8 to 29, 2013, the Kaivalyadhama Health Care Centre introduced the first three-week residential program for cancer patients: Beyond Cancer (then called Detoxify and Rejuvenate for Cancer Patients). Participants came from four countries: India, Canada, Poland, and Brazil, with breast, ovarian, colon cancers and Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Three of the participants had finished chemotherapy just one month prior to coming to India. The first few days were spent...
In the next few blogs, I will cover how yoga therapy helps people to get better. But before we get to the details, we need to understand what yoga therapy is. My friends often ask me what is yoga therapy? In the beginning, I struggled to find the words to explain this emerging field in health care. From the years of experience of running intensive yogic retreats for cancer...
What is the main thing that you see that people don’t know about when starting yoga during or after cancer treatment? There is this widespread misconception that yoga equals doing strange poses called asanas, and that you have to be physically fit and slim in order to do it. Unfortunately, this is created by the yoga magazines depicting beautiful young and slim ladies in more challenging asanas. The concept...
How is the yoga program that you have designed for people diagnosed with cancer different from other yoga programs? Usually, the yoga classes offered for cancer patients are free of charge, conducted by wonderful people who have a lot of good will, but who do not necessarily understand the problems patients encounter during and after cancer treatment. These classes typically are limited to gentle asanas, offered once or...
