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...
(Photo courtesy of Bryan Minear) There is a big gap in cancer medical care that I have recognized from my own experience. Typically, after surgery, cancer patients undergo chemotherapy and radiation, which may last from four weeks to a few years. Often, such intensive treatments result in severe mental and physical side effects. The allopathic medical system tends to take us to the point where all our chemical treatments...
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...
HOW IT ALL STARTED From now on I will be posting every two weeks. I will start from the beginning, with excerpts from the interview I did with a friend of mine, Marion Cirone, founder of Integrative Cancer Review (www.integrativecancer.org). After that, I will be covering numerous subjects connected to yoga and yoga therapy. If you would like me to cover any of particular subjects – please contact me at...
