Recent medical research backs what our class participants reported and we as teachers witnessed firsthand: having a yoga practice leads to greater well-being and a better quality of life!
hol-life yoga offers healing yoga classes designed to meet the needs of cancer survivors (during treatment and post-treatment). Therapeutic yoga helps boost energy, improve sleep & circulation, recover strength & flexibility, reduce stress & depression and clear metal fog.View our upcoming classes!
Our mission is to ignite the physical and mental strength in survivors though yoga classes and supportive community. Certain locations also welcome family members, friends and caregivers!
Please read and share the stories from some of survivor students:
“It was a Monday in October 2008 when I was told I had inoperable pancreatic cancer. That Wednesday, in a different facility, I was further told, based on tests and past experiences of similarly diagnosed patients, I had at most 12 months to live. I probably wouldn’t get to see my 53rd birthday.
A lot of good fortune and one radical surgery later, I apparently wasn’t dying so fast. The surgery left me very weak, as I had lost a lot of weight and muscle, along with all or parts of certain digestive organs. I also experienced constant pain in several parts of my body. Not having my usual strength was especially difficult for me as I was use to being very active as a martial arts practitioner of several years. To go from from being the most in shape 50‐ish year old guy to someone who could barely walk my dog 100 yards without losing my breath was a huge unpleasant awakening.
After a few months, I began to regain some strength to where I could walk less uncomfortably but not do much else. One of the main issues was the surgical scar which extended across my entire torso. Fortunately, through a mutual friend, I met Shari.
Although a martial arts black belt, I never considered myself a tough guy. I did however, never think that yoga was an activity that “real” athletes like me could benefit from. Boy was I wrong. It became immediately apparent that yoga was helping me more than anything else I had tried up to that point. Shari was able to design an exercise program that helped me specifically. Areas of my body that experienced the most pain, as well as muscles that had deteriorated, were targeted so that these and surrounding muscles and tendons could be strengthened. Although when I first begin a session I may feel some pain, at the end of the session, amazingly, I feel better than at any other time. I also have had much difficulty sleeping since my surgery. Shari designed a plan with certain movements that I can do in the evening which help me fall asleep.
In addition to being a delightful and incredibly caring person, Shari is an expert at knowing which specific movements work for certain clients. I still have not regained my pre‐surgical form, but I feel, with Shari’s help, I am on my way. People who see me now all tell me how much better I look. I feel a lot stronger, physically and mentally. Cancer brings many things, including the uncertainty of whether one may live or die. Due to it’s design, I firmly believe that yoga, when learned from a superbly skilled instructor like Shari, is the best way to begin to heal one’s body and mind.” -Rob, age 53
“I contribute my cancer-free results entirely on exercise and diet, along with a great support group. Yoga was my exercise of choice, keeping my muscles strong, my joints in motion and my mind clear. The slow stretching movements amazingly strengthened my entire body and keeping flexible cleared my mind. Proper deep breathing cleansed my body and mind of toxins. Meditation cleared my mind of negative thoughts and enabled hope, giving me the ability to live my life ‘the healthy way.’
Going on a completely refined sugar-free, white flour-free, dairy-free diet combined with taking herbs and vitamins was important to me. I also temporarily eliminated foods that ‘have a face.’ Meat and fish were replaced with nuts, legumes and juiced vegetables.
Self-help has given me awareness of my body’s needs. It has enabled me to keep my emotions and mind in control and minimized stress and pain. Better posture, balance and sleep have given me a better quality of life and well-being from the practice of yoga taught by Shari.” -Peg, age 58
“Our own research at MD Anderson suggests that yoga helps improve sleep outcomes, decreases the side effects of treatment, improves physical functioning aspects of quality of life, and leads to an increase in finding meaning from the illness experience as patients transition from active treatment to cancer survivorship.” -Lorenzo Cohen, Ph.D., professor and director of M.D. Anderson’s Integrative Medicine Program
“Doctors have been especially interested in yoga’s muscle-toning stretches and meditative breathing, which practitioners say clears the mental fog of chemotherapy and the chronic fatigue that plagues some survivors for years.” -Bloomberg
“Exercises such as yoga…can be practiced by almost all cancer patients, whatever their condition.” -David Servan-Schreiber (survivor), MD, PhD, professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, co-founder of the Center for Integrative Medicine & author of the international bestselling book Anticancer
“Yoga can ease cancer treatment side effects. Women undergoing radiation felt better after twice-a-week classes.” -MSNBC
“What we conclude based on a really thorough review of [yoga programs] is that it is absolutely safe for cancer survivors during and post treatment to be physically active, and indeed there are tremendous benefits to doing so.” -Kathryn Schmitz, PhD, MPH, FACSM, of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
“Yoga can help cancer patients sleep better, feel more energized, cut back on sleeping medications.” -CNN Health
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well-being for the whole being™
hol-life yoga™