HEALING MODALITIES

EXERCISE

Exercise is one of the most important things a person can do to stay healthy after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Exercise is any bodily activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness and overall health and wellness. Research has shown that women who regularly exercise have an improved quality of life and have fewer side effects during and following treatment. Exercise has also been shown to enhance overall health and wellness, improve mood, reduce fatigue, and increase stamina, all leading to an improved quality of life. Some research suggests that exercise may reduce the chances of a breast cancer occurrence, recurrence, and progression.

YOGA BODY MOVEMENT

Yoga is an ancient form of exercise that incorporates a variety of postures and fluid movements that focus on strength, flexibility, balance, and breathing to boost physical and mental wellbeing. It also includes a variety of breath, mindfulness, and meditational practices. Research of breast cancer patients shows that incorporating yoga into a healing regimen has numerous healing benefits. Physical postures and fluid movements can assist with many side effects experienced after treatment and surgery for breast cancer. Yoga postures and fluid movements can also help to minimize the effects of scar tissue and chording, increase lymphatic flow and circulation, increase range of motion, stimulate the immune system, reduce fatigue, depression and stress, improve sleep, decrease cellular inflammation, and increase strength, tone, balance, flexibility, and bone health. The breathing practice serves as a connection between the body and mind, and strengthens the parasympathetic nervous system, promoting lymphatic flow. It also helps tone the vagus nerve, which is highly correlated to an overall sense of wellbeing. 

MINDFULNESS MEDITATION

Mindfulness meditation enables practitioners to stay present in the moment and aware of what is happening around them while remaining connected to thoughts and feelings. Mindfulness can help to alleviate feelings of overwhelm and stress, and enable the observation of the workings of the mind. The practice also involves exploring different sensations produced by actions like breathing or inhaling scents.

During treatment for breast cancer, women experience frequent change and feelings of uncertainty. When treatment ends, these women may experience fear of recurrence, loneliness, concerns about physical appearance, or anger at the life disruption that cancer has caused. Left unaddressed, serious anxiety, depression or other psychological distress can render women unable to tend to their health. Mindfulness meditation can help these women to acknowledge and accept difficult emotional experiences, and embrace change, which enables healing. Other benefits of mindfulness meditation include improved sleep, decreased fatigue, increased focus, emotional control, stress reduction, and relief from depression and anxiety.

TARGETED NUTRITION

After a breast cancer diagnosis, staying healthy is more important than ever. What we consume matters: It affects our cell health and immune system. Eating a healthy diet may help lower the risk of recurrence or progression. When we eat healthy foods that decrease inflammation and maintain a healthy immune system, our body is best equipped to fight and even prevent the start of cancer.

POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Stress has a profound impact on how your body’s system functions, and it may make your body more hospitable to illnesses such as cancer. When an illness occurs, there is an added layer of stress associated with fear and uncertainty that can take over. In an effort to alleviate stress and offer new coping mechanisms, a new form of psychology has emerged: positive psychology. Positive psychology is grounded in the belief that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within them, and to enhance their experiences of love, work, and play. It centers on topics like character strengths, optimism, life satisfaction, happiness, wellbeing, gratitude, compassion (as well as self-compassion), self-esteem and self-confidence, hope, and elevation. Positive psychology's main aim is to encourage people to discover and nurture their character strengths, rather than channeling their efforts into correcting shortcomings. Positive psychology emphasizes shifting a negative outlook to a more optimistic view in order to improve quality of life.

Positive thinking helps with stress management and can even improve health. Health benefits that positive thinking may provide include an increased life span, decreased stress and depression, improved immune function, better psychological and physical well-being, improved cardiovascular health, and better coping skills.  

INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE

Integrative medicine is the practice of medicine that focuses on the whole person and makes use of all appropriate therapeutic approaches, healthcare professionals, and disciplines to achieve optimal health and healing. It is based upon a model of health and wellness, as opposed to a model of disease, and combines state-of-the-art, conventional medical treatments with other therapies that are carefully selected and shown to be effective and safe. It seeks to care for the whole person by considering the many interrelated physical and nonphysical factors that affect health, wellness, and disease, including the psychosocial and spiritual dimensions of people's lives. The goal is to unite the best that conventional medicine has to offer with other healing systems and therapies derived from cultures and ideas, both old and new.

Complementary and alternative medicine therapies such as acupuncture, yoga, and meditation are increasingly integrated into today's conventional treatment of breast cancer—and scientific evidence supports this approach to health and healing.

FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE

Functional medicine is a similar discipline to integrative medicine, except functional medicine goes a step further to identify and address the root cause of the illness.

Functional medicine is a holistic systems biology–based approach that focuses on identifying and addressing the root cause of disease, and promoting optimal wellness. Each symptom or differential diagnosis may be one of many contributing to an individual’s illness.

Functional medicine practitioners spend time with their patients, listening to their histories and looking at the interactions among genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that can influence long-term health and complex, chronic disease. In this way, functional medicine supports the unique expression of health and vitality for each individual. Genes and environment are at the heart of functional medicine.

Functional medicine practitioners include:  MDs, NPs, OBGYNs, DOs, Naturopaths, Chiropractors, psychologists, acupuncturists, and health coaches.