How Exercise Helps to Improve Breast Cancer Outcomes?
According to the American Cancer Society, breast cancer is the second most common cancer among females in the United States, who have a 13% risk of developing the disease in their lifetime and can even affect males in rare cases.
An oncologist may prescribe a combination of treatments, including surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, or other medications, to treat breast cancer. Getting regular exercise may help improve survival and quality of life in people with breast cancer.
Why Exercise?
The American Cancer Society recommends that ladies who’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer exercise regularly (about 4 hours per week) to enhance their quality of life and reduce the danger of developing new cancers.
A study on exercise shows nearly 1 / 4 of the respondents exercise quite 5 hours per week and 15% exercise 3 hours per week. About 90% of the people who had been diagnosed with breast cancer, told that exercise is outstanding.
What exactly is so good about exercise? Here are the ways exercise can improve your life:
Regular exercise lowers the chance of breast cancer returning, yet as reducing the danger of ever being diagnosed with breast cancer. Exercise can also lower your risk of cancers of the colon, lung, and uterus.
Regular exercise can help patients to keep up a healthy weight by building muscle and burning fat. Overweight and obese women defined as having a BMI (body mass index) of over 25, have a better risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer compared to women who maintain a healthy weight, especially after menopause. Being overweight can also increase the chance of breast cancer coming (recurrence) in women who have had the disease. This higher risk is because fat cells make estrogen; extra fat cells mean more estrogen within the body and estrogen can make hormone-receptor-positive breast cancers develop and grow.
Patients may have less severe side effects from treatment. Many research suggests that exercise helps patients who undergo breast cancer treatment, which as follows:
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Ease nausea during chemotherapy
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Improve blood flow to the legs, reducing the chance of blood clots
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Ease constipation by stimulating digestion and elimination systems
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Rev up sex drive and enhance your arousal
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Ease fatigue caused by radiation and/or chemotherapy
The patient will have more energy. Fatigue could be a side effect that a lot of women have during and after treatment for breast cancer. Regular exercise can boost your endurance and help a patient’s heart and lungs work more efficiently, both of which offer you more energy for the work you are doing day by day.
The patient will have better mobility. connective tissue that forms after breast cancer surgery, reconstruction, or radiation can result in your arm and shoulder muscles feeling tight. Not using your arm and shoulder the maximum amount after treatment can also cause the muscles in those areas to lose flexibility. Over time, careful stretching exercises can improve any range of motion issues a patient may have in your arm and shoulder.
The patient will have more muscle and be stronger. As people age, they have an inclination to lose muscle and gain fat. Strength training exercises can help patients to possess more muscle than fat.
The patient will keep their bones healthy. If a patient has been diagnosed with breast cancer, maintaining healthy bones is extremely important. study shows that some breast cancer treatments can cause bone loss. Plus, women are about twice as likely as men to develop osteoporosis after age 50. Weight-bearing exercises, like jogging or walking and strength training, can slow bone loss.
The patient will feel better about herself. A breast cancer diagnosis can leave some women feeling scared, depressed, and anxious. Exercise can help lift patients' spirits, keep them depression free, and boost their self-esteem. Physical activity triggers the discharge of brain chemicals like endorphins which will cause you to feel happier and more relaxed. The patient also might feel better about herself and her appearance if she exercises regularly and see a fit, strong, toned woman looking back at her in the mirror.
The patient will sleep better and if she struggles with insomnia, regular exercise can facilitate her to go to sleep faster and sleep more deeply.
Patients are going to be less stressed. Any style of exercise can help melt away stress. Besides pumping up endorphin production within the brain, exercise is often a sort of meditation.
What are the Basic Types of Exercise?
Aerobic Exercise
Increases heart rate, works your muscles and helps breathe faster and harder
Flexibility Exercise
May include stretching, foam rolling, yoga, tai chi, and Pilates
Strength/Resistance Exercise
May involve barbells and weight plates or dumbbells
The ideal exercise program contains all three types, plus warm-up and cool-down sessions. This will sound sort of a lot, but after the patient got the doctor’s approval to start exercising, she can start slowly and gently then gradually extend the time.
According to an exercise survey by Breastcancer.org, 82% of respondents - walk for exercise. Other top exercise choices were weight lifting (35%), cycling (29%), yoga (28%), and running (23%).
Here are the Top 10 Exercises for Breast Cancer:
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Wand exercise
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Elbow winging
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Shoulder blade stretch
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Shoulder blade squeeze
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Side bends
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Chest wall stretch
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Shoulder stretch
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Seated Lateral Raise
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Seated Biceps Curl
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Pendulum