subject: Natural Cancer Prevention And Treatment: Do I Really Need To Go To The Gym? [print this page] . I'm sure it is a good idea." And then we promptly forget about it. However until I started to research the medical papers I didn't have any idea of just how important exercise was in both preventing and treating cancer. This article will focus largely on the prevention aspect.
Most of us are largely set in our ways and are very busy. The thought of having to add hours more of exercise time into our lives is just more than we want to have to think about.
I am fully well aware that unless most people have a health scare, either their own or someone close to them, most won't even think about prevention of disease.
But as we get older, as our bodies don't respond in quite the way we want them to; as a friend, or two or three, faces the prospect of a life with definite limits (that is, they now know they are dying), then we start to think of what we can do to put off the inevitable.
The thought often goes to having a medical check up and socially that is the acceptable thing to do. However the doctor is likely to want to prescribe you drugs. In my case the doctor wanted to prescribe me drugs which, despite the pharmaceutical hype, have not been proven to have any beneficial effect on lengthening women's lives at all - for men it might decrease their chance of dying by less than 1%. This attitude is very common.
I then discovered that exercise could reduce my risk of dying from cancer (and other causes) by around 30% to 50% and sometimes even more. That is a huge amount. Study after study after study is showing that exercise reduces the risk of many different types of cancer.
But then we are back to the issue of how to fit it into our lives and the question of where we are going to do the exercise. Is it best to go the gym? For those who fit going into the gym seamlessly into their lives: congratulations. For the rest of us the short answer is NO, we don't have to go to the gym.
BUT we do have to do SOMETHING. We do need to walk, move, lift and carry so that our body is used to capacity on occasions. And we need to do this physical activity regularly, most days of every week.
It sounds boring to suggest that you fit physical activity into your everyday life, but that is the most time effective way of doing it. If at all possible make it something very enjoyable. But if you can't make enjoyable, then make it acceptable.
If you have to do housework or yard work anyway, or if you have to walk to or from work then you might at least do it to the stage where you are gently sweating - it doesn't have to be overdone and you don't have to smell like a sewer. You just need to get the heart rate up and the blood system and oxygen moving around your body.
And don't avoid lifting and carrying. Your body is made to do it, so make the most of the little things you need to do anyway. Do be conscious, however, of your limits. Take it slowly and build up your capacity again if it has dropped over the years.
That is the first step. The second is usually to add some more activity. Make sure this additional activity is fun and by letting the feel-good hormones out into the body the immune system gains an additional boost in its functioning. Our mind and body are intimately connected and we need to remember that and make the most of the fact. A multitude of positive actions not only make you feel better they might just be sufficient to keep your immune system functioning at full capacity, keeping you healthier for much longer.
