Will yoga help me?
It’s good for the CEO of your Insurance Company, it’s good for you. The benefits are hard to quantify and validate in clinical trials, but have been noted mostly empirically, and in small trials. More and more companies are offering yoga as an onsite benefit, or as part of your health plan.
What is Yoga?
During all my patient visits, I ask them what they do for exercise. It has been well established that the physician asking about quitting smoking has a positive effect on quitting rates. Thus, I make it a habit to ask about exercise routines. When they hem and haw about it, I press on. What time do they go to work? When do they return? Do they have a lunch break? Do they climb the stairs at work, rather than take the elevator? As we get through these questions, we find the obstacles to establishing an exercise routine, and work on finding solutions.
We are encountering more people in our friends and family circle who have been touched by Cancer. The answer that it “runs in my family” is becoming more common as we take a family history from a new patient. Even in my own family, I can now count 2 maternal first cousins who have been treated for breast and ovarian cancer in their 30s and early 40s, in addition to several older extended family members. There are very few identifiable genetic mutations that would explain this rise in the visibility of cancer around us. In the older population, one can say that overall life expectancy has increased, so instead of succumbing to acute cardiac events, we are living longer, and succumbing to cancer related illnesses. In addition, our bodies have then been exposed to environmental noxious agents inadvertently or not, for a longer period of time.
All content copyright protected
