The Importance of Exercise After Cancer
Cancer survivors that exercise 150 minutes a week, improve both the quality and length of their life AND decrease their risk of dying from cancer!
I’m Cancer Therapy Expert, Dr. Leslie Waltke… And this is The Recovery Room, an educational platform for people diagnosed with cancer.
Today, or tonight, we are talking about exercise. Now before you hit the delete button, STOP, YOU NEED TO HEAR THIS. If you are a cancer patient or cancer survivor, exercise can directly impact your quality of life and the length of your life. Research has even shown that exercise may decrease the recurrence of cancer, including breast, prostate, and colon. So whether you’ve been diagnosed with Stage I, stage II, stage III, or even stage IV disease, you will exercise like your life depends on It – because it does!
Here are the stats – Exercise reduces cancer-specific mortality by up to 44%. Exercise reduces all causes of mortality, dying of all other kinds of “crap,” by up to 48%, and exercise reduced cancer recurrence by up to 35%.
Welcome to The Recovery Room, which this evening is the “exercise room”. Please don’t roll your eyes or feel overwhelmed, because in the next couple of minutes I’m going to give you a broad overview of how much you need to do and ways to maximize your future success. In future videos, we will get more into the nitty-gritty detail.
Here is your overview – whether you are in treatment or in survivorship the American Cancer Society wants you to keep doing light exercise, about 150 minutes/per week, which totals 2 ½ hrs or 75 minutes/week of more moderate exercise. Some should be an aerobic exercise that works your heart and lungs and some should be weight exercise that strengthens your muscles. These exercises include things like walking, cycling, dancing, weight-lifting, walking up/down stairs or push-ups against the wall. People, it doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive!
To help ensure your success:
Pick something you enjoy and is readily available
Start with super-easy levels of exercise for you and build from there
Set a goal for yourself of 4-6 weeks and keep yourself on track, like wanting to be able to walk/run a certain distance or keep moving for a certain amount of time
Finally, my all-time favorite tip – get yourself, what I call an “ECO” exercise compliance officer. Get one or more people in your world who will keep you accountable by exercising with you, keeping you on track to reach your weekly goal. If you know your friend Jose is expected to work out with you at 10:00 am on Saturday morning, you are much less likely to back out. It’s a win, win for both of you.
Recent studies have shown, that only about 20% of cancer doctors and nurses talk to their patients about exercise. This does not mean they don’t know it is incredibly important – they do know the benefits of exercise.
So if you need help, please, contact your cancer doctor, nurse, or physical therapist to help you get started.
Whether you are old or young, fast or slow, or flashy or rusty, there is no one on the planet more important than you. Think about that. You have one life and one body. Care for them both well!
I’m Dr. Leslie Waltke, and you are in The Recovery Room! We will talk again soon.