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What alternative therapies, if any, have helped you?
If your treatment is at a cancer or breast center with an integrative medicine program (more of these are cropping up all over), chances are good that massage is on the menu. "Some people have been really frozen up by the experience of having cancer and going through an operation, so they desperately need someone to put hands on them to reconnect with their bodies," says Dr. Elam.
A 2005 study found that breast cancer patients who got either a massage or did a progressive muscle relaxation exercise for 30 minutes three times a week for five weeks felt less depressed and angry and had more energy; they also had better immunity. After a mastectomy, regular rubdowns from a therapist trained in lymphatic drainage may cut your chances of one of the more serious side effects of the surgery: lymphedema. But if you're at risk for blood clots, your doctor is likely to rule out massages.
5. Stress reduction and visualization
"Under stress, we all experience the fight-or-flight response, which releases chemicals into your system, and muscles get stressed and tight," explains Gauthier. "But if you learn techniques for turning on the relaxation response, you can turn off that stress response." The result is that you may have less pain, and you'll avoid the chronic stress that depletes immunity.
"We can't say that stress causes cancer, but we do have data that says long-term stress can impair the immune system's functioning," she adds. For guided imagery or visualization, Gauthier says it works best to use images that are the most motivating for you: "If a patient is using it for relaxation, they can just see themselves relaxing, or they can see their tissues healthy and pink and back to normal, or they can see Pac-Man going through and eating up the cancer cells."
6. Yoga
Exercise is itself therapeutic and, like good nutrition, should be a staple of any treatment regimen. But yoga, with its inherent mind-body focus, may be especially useful for cancer patients.
One small study of lymphoma patients found that those who did a gentle form of yoga that emphasizes visualization and meditation slept better; while undergoing treatment in another trial, breast cancer patients receiving radiation who took a yoga class twice a week said they felt better after just one week.
