Has your doctor (or mother, or mother-in-law) ever told you that exercising will make you feel better? If so, what is the effect of exercise on cancer-related fatigue for patients during and after cancer treatment?
When compared with patients that do not exercise during and after their cancer treatment, exercise decreases fatigue. The best evidence is for patients with breast and prostate cancer, and aerobic exercise makes the biggest difference. Aerobic exercise in particular (i.e., brisk walking, jogging, climbing stairs, etc) is favoured over strength training (e.g., weight-lifting).
Why You Should Consider Exercising to Help Reduce Fatigue if you are Currently Undergoing or Have Recently Undergone Cancer Treatment
- Exercise probably won’t kill you.
What could be more dangerous than a heart attack brought on by exercise? This has actually been studied. In a review of 25,000 patients across 65 different heart care centers, for every 50,000 hours that patients spent exercising there was one heart attack, and for every million hours that patient spend exercising, there was just over 1 cardiac arrest. Read more here: Safety of exercise training for cardiac patients: results of the French registry of complications during cardiac rehabilitation. That works out to about one heart attack every 5.5 years of non-stop, continuous exercise.
- Exercising for about 30 minutes a day helps to re-establish routine, but the amount of optimal exercise is unknown
One thing that is known is that daily healthy activities help to re-establish a routine. We all know people that had their daily routines completely demolished as soon as they received their diagnosis. The optimal amount of exercise is unknown. The American Society of Clinical Oncology suggests 150 minutes of exercise per week. The Canadian Cancer Society suggests about 30 minutes a day or almost every day. Pick what works.
- I’ve created a super-handy calendar to maximize your odds of success.
This calendar is intended for patients that are new to exercise or have not recently exercised.
Start at a level that makes sense for you depending on where you are at with your current level of fitness. For example, instead of starting with the 20 minute walk, start with 10 minutes and work upwards from there.
