25 Minute Gentle Yoga Sequence After Cancer TreatmentAsanaverse
Phase 1 · Two Weeks of Almost Nothing
Part of the 8 Week Supportive Yoga Program After Cancer Treatment
25 Minute Gentle Yoga Sequence After Cancer Treatment
Weeks one and two. Seated and lying down, nothing on the arms, and a long rest at the end.
Treatment ends and the tiredness does not. It is a different kind of tiredness from being short of sleep, and it does not answer to a lie-in. The first two weeks of this program are deliberately small: seated breathing, a gentle turn, the legs supported, and a long rest. Nothing here puts weight through your arms or hands.
For the first two weeks, three times a week, after your primary treatment has finished.
Twenty-five minutes. Cushions, a bolster and a strap. For after your primary treatment has finished, not during chemotherapy or radiotherapy. This is supportive care alongside your follow-up, and it is not a cancer treatment: anything new or unexplained goes to your oncology team first. Never in a heated room. If you have lymphoedema or had lymph nodes removed, keep weight off the arms and hands in the poses, and raise the affected arm on cushions during the final rest. Bone metastases, active treatment, immunosuppression, recent surgery or an unclear lymphoedema all need medical clearance before you start.
Fatigue
The best supported outcome in this research. In one review across 11 trials, fatigue improved with a pooled effect of 0.48 against no therapy.
Sleep
The trial this program follows had sleep quality as its primary outcome and improved it, along with reducing sleeping medication use.
Arms and shoulders
Movement without load. That distinction is what makes this safe when lymph nodes have been removed.
01 Easy Pose
02 Staff Pose
03 Butterfly Pose
04 Bharadvaja's Twist
05 Reclining Hand-to-Big-Toe Pose
06 Legs Up the Wall
07 Banana Pose
08 Corpse Pose
Sitting
Twelve minutes seated. Nothing here takes weight through the hands, which matters after any surgery near the armpit.
Sukhasana
01
4 min
Easy Pose
Sit on a cushion so the hips are above the knees. Hands resting in your lap. Let the breath be whatever it is for a minute, then breathe out a little longer than you breathe in.
A longer out breath than in breath is the simplest way to shift the balance towards settling, and it needs no equipment and no energy.
Lying flat, covered, cushion under the knees. If you have lymphoedema or had lymph nodes removed, rest the affected arm up on cushions above the level of your heart.
Five minutes, with the arm raised. That last detail comes straight from the one trial that studied this practice in women with lymphoedema.
It belongs to Two Weeks of Almost Nothing, the first phase of the 8 Week Supportive Yoga Program After Cancer Treatment. The program says how often to practise it, what comes before and after, and when to move on.
Three times a week for the first two weeks. If the fatigue is worse for more than a day after a session, do less next time rather than pushing through. On a bad day, the ten minute evening version instead is a complete way to practise.
Sukhasana
Dandasana
Baddha Konasana
Bharadvajasana 1
Supta Hasta Padangusthasana
Viparita Karani
Bananasana
Savasana
