Cancer Fighting Foods
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Joggers attest, for example, that after 20 or 30 minutes of sustained effort, they enter a state where spontaneously positive, even creative thoughts spring forth. Less aware of themselves, they get caught up in the rhythm of the effort that sustains and carries them forward. That is what is commonly called “the runner’s high”. It may be reached after several weeks of perseverance. Even if this is subtle, this state may become addictive. According to a number of studies, the “runners high” is an example of the mood enhancing effect of physical exercise. This effect is so striking that physical activity is now recommended by the National Health Service in the U.K. on a par with antidepressants as a first intervention for depression.
Exercises like Yoga or Tai Chi, which stimulate the body lightly, can be practiced by almost all cancer patients, whatever their condition. These maintain attentive contact with the body and its energies. They are also precious help in deepening and harmonising breathing, and thus cardiac coherence. They also improve morale.
It is essential to choose a kind of exercise you enjoy. The more entertaining the exercise, the easier it is to keep up. Those who exercise in groups are more mindful of the need for regular attendance, which is so crucial to success. Studies show that physical exercise helps the body to fight and avoid cancer. But the required dose is not the same for all cancers. For breast cancer, there seems to be a measurable effect after 3-5 hours a week of walking at normal speed. For cancer of the colon and rectum, twice as much is needed to have a comparable effect. This means walking either twice as long or twice as fast or finding activities requiring more effort to replace walking (for example, bicycling at a speed that requires twice the effort as walking). To have an effect on prostate cancer 3 hours of jogging spread over a week are required (this can be done in six sessions a week of 30 minutes).
Exercise is one of the most important things we can do to help ourselves. In the end it comes down to deciding whether to give in to disease or to sustain the energy of life. Oxygenated environment within the body through physical exercise i.e. oxygen therapy is another means to destroy cancer cells.
Caution: (i) Some cancers may affect parts of the body that make certain exercises dangerous. So consult your Naturo-Food Therapist before starting to exercise. (ii) For someone just starting to run, this inevitably means for a short distance and with small strides. Later, it may mean running faster and longer to reach and maintain “flow” but this progression may take time. (iii) When jogging, it is usually recommended not to go beyond a speed at which you can still talk but no longer sing (iv) Make sure you feel less tired after exercising than before, not the contrary.
Healing through Body Massage
Usually body massage is part of the treatment of cancer patients. Touching is a very old way of healing. Touch as a mother would touch a child, because what a mother is saying through her touch is “live”. Something in touching strengthens the “will to live” in us. Touching is evoking the “will to live” in another person. It comes about not by doing something but by letting another person know that their pain and their suffering and their fear matters. Attentive physical contact — such as massage practiced with benevolent intention — very probably stimulates the life-force in human adults, not just on an emotional level, but on a biological level inside their very cells. Touch also fosters acceptance of one’s body, bruised as it may be. The body responds in its own way to the implicit physical message, the feeling that “it matters” is accepted and still has its place among humans. Experiments have shown that three weekly 30 minutes sessions of massage slowed down the production of stress hormones and increased the rate of Natural Killer cells in women with breast cancer. These women were also more serene and felt less physical pain after just the first session — a well known effect of massage. Hydrotherapy, specially a hipbath, does wonders to the digestive and excretory systems of a cancer patient.
