Yoga offers relief from the side effects of treatment for many women with breast cancer. Yoga helps to promote a feeling of well-being and balance, which helps a person experience a wholeness of body and spirit. Many losses are likely to occur during breast cancer treatment — loss of appetite, hair, body image, and energy — and many women are finding this ancient discipline can comfort and help them feel whole again. Yoga often helps reduce breast cancer treatments' side effects. Studies suggest that doing yoga while going through treatment helps the patient get through it with fewer side effects by reviving her sense of energy and making her feel good mentally. Other research has shown that yoga can ease the nausea, depression, and anxiety that often come with breast cancer treatments.

Yoga can be done in a class setting or in your home. With regular yoga practice, you will get a sense of physical movement and experience peace, harmony, and inner strength. Through yoga, you will feel the benefits of exercise while balancing your breast cancer treatments, providing you with techniques that promote healing and reduce anxiety.

Jinani Chapman, a yoga teacher and registered nurse who works with cancer and chronically ill patients at the University of California-San Francisco's Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, developed six poses to see you through treatment. They are reprinted here with her permission. The poses were designed to help with lymph drainage and for anyone in treatment for breast cancer, but can also be used in all stages and treatment of breast cancer. It is recommended that you consult your health-care provider and team to get their approval before you undertake this type of physical activity.

The Hip Walk

This pose is designed to boost energy, activate pelvic and abdominal muscles, and massage organs, along with promoting lymph drainage.

Begin by sitting erect on the floor with your legs extended in front of you. As you inhale, consciously elongate your spine upward through the crown of your head so that the pelvis tilts slightly forward and the back is straight. Alternate scooting or lifting first one hip and then the other forward until you have moved to the front edge of your mat. Then walk your hips backward in the same way. Continue “walking” forward and backward for a few minutes or as long as it feels comfortable. Use deep breaths and abdominal contraction on exhalation.

The Cormorant

This pose helps activate and strengthen the midriff and chest muscles by promoting healing after lymph node dissection.

Begin by sitting on a chair with both arms extended out in front of you parallel to the floor or at a slightly higher angle. Bend your elbows to 90 degrees. Throughout the movement, keep the lower arms perpendicular to the floor and parallel to each other, with each hand directly above its respective elbow. Keeping the arms and elbows at shoulder height or slightly higher when moving them allows gravity to facilitate lymph drainage down the arms and into the chest. Exhale as you bring the elbows toward each other in front of you. Be sure to keep the forearms parallel to each other — do not let the hands come any closer to each other than the elbows are able to come. Then, inhale and fill your lungs to capacity to open the chest upward as you open the arms as far out to each side as they'll go. Maintain each hand directly above each elbow. Continue this practice for as long as it feels comfortable. Start small, with a few repetitions; you can build to eight or ten repetitions over the course of a few weeks. Rest as needed.

The Silly Teapot

This pose helps to activate the inner and outer intercostal muscles (the rib muscles) to deepen breathing and stimulate the flow of lymph fluid through the trunk of the body and through the arms.

Sit on an armless chair and place your left hand on your left hip for support when you start moving. Imagine that your torso is a teapot that you are filling as you inhale. Lengthen the spine upward from the tailbone to the crown of the head. Lift the right arm alongside your right ear, pointing the hand toward the ceiling (or bend your right elbow and cup the back of your head with your hand). On an exhalation, bend sideways to the left in a flat plane. Imagine that you are pouring the tea out through the right hand or elbow. Keep your chest open and your shoulders stacked (no twisting or turning) as you tilt sideways, with both sides of the torso long. Return to the vertical position on the inhalation. Repeat the same movement on the other side.

The Cat Purrs

This pose is found to increase spinal flexibility, and encourage abdominal strength.

Sit erect and comfortable on the front edge of your chair with your feet on the floor or supported by a cushion. Place your palms on your knees. Exhale as you tuck in your tailbone and point it forward to round your pelvis and lower back. Continue rounding along the entire spine and tuck your chin toward your chest as you extend your arms forward on the thighs. Then, inhale as you point your tailbone down toward the floor, drawing your hands up along your thighs. Elongate up through the spine to a gentle arch. Lift the chest upward. Exhale each time you tuck and round; inhale each time you extend and elongate. Remember to purr as you relax into the movements of this sequence, enjoying whatever range of motion you have along the forward and backward axis of the spine. Witness how you feel as you explore your range of movement vertebra to vertebra.

The Winding Twist

This pose stimulates the muscles along the spine and massages the internal organs.

Stay seated in your chair, lengthen your spine, and reach the crown of your head toward the sky. Rest your feet on the floor, with each knee directly above each ankle. Place your left hand behind you, palm down on the chair seat, and extend the right arm out in front of you, parallel to the floor. Follow that hand with your gaze as you exhale and twist to the left, palm facing left, for the base of the spine. Invite that right arm to stay parallel to the floor. Time your exhalation to finish when you reach the full range of your twist. Then inhale as your right arm returns, with the palm turned in the direction of the movement. As you continue inhaling, let the arm sweep around to the right side of the body. Continue coordinating the breath with the movement and rest at the first sign of tiredness or muscle fatigue. Switch sides and continue for as long as comfortable.

The Settling Self

This pose uses gravity to help the lymph fluids drain toward the front of the chest. This helps circulation and lymph node drainage and calms and balances the nervous system, which in turn settles the mind.

Lie on your back on a cushioned mat and rest your calves on a chair at a height that allows your knees to be at a 90-degree angle. Rest your arms away from your torso, off to the sides, elbows slightly elevated on soft pillows, and place your hands on your abdomen. You can let the eyes close or use an eye pillow if that feels comfortable. Exhale and draw your abdominal muscles toward the spine as you breathe, and imagine the energy generated from your practice flowing through your palms to nourish your center. Reflect on the miracle of being alive and invite your conscious imagination to direct healing energy through the breath to every cell, every muscle, every tissue, every organ, and every system in the body so that you are envisioning physical, mental, emotional, and energetic healing. Rest here in the center of your being, restoring and renewing the life within you.