Guest Posts

Exercise to Make Cancer Treatments Easier

When most people consider exercising, they imagine that they’ll have to enroll in a gym for a membership, shop for new exercise clothes so they don’t embarrass themselves in front of strangers in their ratty old workout clothes, or that they’ll spend hours each morning before work sweating it out. While they don’t necessarily look forward to these things, they do look forward to what will happen as a result of their hard work; they will have a killer body that will look great in anything! Only one part of these thoughts is true; exercise will give them a killer body. However, exercise does not have to mean hitting the gym for hours at the crack of dawn.
Exercise is any type of physical activity that gets a person up and moving. This could be running on a treadmill or even going out for a walk This means that people can exercise in their own homes, doing activities they enjoy, rather than torturing themselves at the gym each morning. If a person likes going to the gym, that’s great. But, if they do not, they can do plenty of other, more enjoyable things, to get fit and get healthy. Taking an evening walk with the family, going on a hike in a lovely forest or park, going swimming, taking a leisurely bike ride or even enrolling in salsa dance lessons are all great forms of exercise. With that in mind, everyone should take up exercising.
There are a number of reasons for exercising. Doctors are quick to inform their patients that it is good for their health. Many assume that exercise is only worthwhile if they need to lose a few pounds or tighten a few muscles, but it is actually good for more than that. Exercise makes a person healthier from the inside out. It makes the immune system healthier whether one uses fitness equipment or goes out for a walk.
Exercise also makes it possible for a person to reduce their risk of being diagnosed with many different forms of cancer, of having heart problems and of getting certain types of diabetes. For patients who have already been diagnosed with any form of cancer, including mesothelioma cancer, fitness can reduce their risk of a second cancer occurrence by up to 40 percent. This is great news for those who have been diagnosed with cancer. Even better news is that exercise can reduce the severity of the side effects that plague those who are undergoing cancer treatments.
Exercise can help those with cancer to minimise the side effects of their treatment. Treatment often causes cancer patients to feel depression, fatigue and nausea. Exercise can help a person to sleep better and feel better by improving overall quality of life, which will help them to feel less depressed and less tired. Additionally, it will also help patients to feel less nausea by building up their immune system. Exercise is beneficial to everyone, but also to cancer patients. The benefits of exercise are too good to ignore and those who aren’t exercising their way to a better experience with cancer should start now; doctors are recommending it.
By: David Haas of the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance