50 copies of my book will soon be going home with cancer patients in Vermont thanks to a grant from the Vermont Community Foundation and the efforts of volunteers and others at the Franklin County Kindred Connections organization. Personally, I’m very happy to know that the book will reach people free of charge when they may most find it useful to them.

My book will be given to patients in “Care Bags”, described as “fifty handmade cloth bags filled with thoughtful and caring gifts will be given to newly diagnosed cancer survivors”. The gifts will be given through a collaboration of the Northwestern Medical Center, Crafty Ladies, and various Vermont businesses.

One reason to stay physically active during cancer treatment is because it makes you feel better emotionally and physically.

In the book Active Against Cancer, you can learn more about the medical reasons that exercise helps you heal better from cancer. Being physically active may help you tolerate your cancer treatment better and may help you make a full and lasting recovery from cancer.

The reasons why exercise can help your cancer recovery are explained in easily understood language with medical accuracy. Here is a summary; the book provides further important details.

1. Exercise creates an anti-inflammatory cellular environment, and this helps fight cancer.
2. Exercise boosts the activity of your immune system, and this helps fight cancer.
3. Exercise lowers your stress level and this helps to regulate chemicals like cortisol, which helps fight cancer.
4. Exercise helps to regulate levels of important sex hormones, and this can help fight certain cancers.
5. Exercise helps lower your fat burden in your body, and this can help your body fight cancer at the cellular level.

6. Exercise improves your energy-level, reduces your sensations of fatigue, and helps improve your sense of well-being.
7. Exercise can help you sleep better and receive the therapeutic benefits of sleep.
8. Exercise encourages healthy eating helps, improves appetite, helps you to crave nutritious foods, and helps your digestive processes.
9. Exercise lifts mood which in turn helps promote healthy self-care choices, clear thinking, and reduces or avoids depression.
10. Exercise increases your fitness and strength, which can help your body fight illness and recover faster.

Bonus: Exercise is fun!

Ask yourself these questions.

1. Am I doing everything that my medical team suggests?

2. Am I doing everything that makes sense to support my health generally? This is called “self-care”.

3. Am I eating well, sleeping as well as I can, and exercising as well as I can?

4. Am I addressing my emotional and spiritual needs? Do I have support?

5. If I could take one step towards better self-care today, it would be to …

6. If I start to exercise better, then I will feel more…

We hope you will find exercise to be a useful tool in your cancer recovery. If you have never loved exercise, maybe you will find that you can now appreciate a short walk or new routine. If you have been a “striver” always reaching for higher performance, maybe you can now appreciate living in the moment and enjoying every step you take.

However you choose to look at exercise, remember that being active is so important that doctors say that if they could prescribe it, they would. Prescribe it to yourself. Check your plans with your medical team, and go enjoy a prescription for life!

I set out for a long run, recently, and remembered one of the virtues of a long run: pure relaxation. Planning to run an hour makes it automatic for me to relax for the first five, ten, twenty minutes. There is no pressure to do anything but find a comfortable “go all day” rhythm and relax my mind and body. Because of the distance involved, the first mile is just a happy warm-up and goes by quickly.

It’s not unlike taking a trip in the car. If you plan to go across town quickly on a short trip, it can seem to drag on because in your mind “it shouldn’t take long.” But if you plan to drive for, say, six hours to start your vacation, the first hour will go by in a snap.

So, this got me thinking two things. One: running or exercising for a long duration is easier than you might think. The mind and the body make adjustments. If not the first time, then with a little practice, it will happen that you relax into a long outing. Stay in the moment; don’t worry about how far you have yet to go.

Second thing: Cancer recovery is a long outing, an endurance event, a trip far from your normal life habits. So, too, perhaps in cancer recovery there is a need to relax as much as you can. Pace yourself to go easily. Don’t worry about how long it will all take; just stay in the moment.

That’s my thought for the day. I’m wishing all of you in cancer recovery to build up endurance and find a way to relax during your cancer challenge. Stay hopeful in the moment and try to find the positives in every day, as you make your way back to health.

This time of year, in Vermont, the leaves are just coming out. We’ve had a lot of rain this year, and the green is a very welcome sight. I was driving back home, along a river, when I remembered: this is the time of year that I was just starting chemotherapy four years ago.

I remember how strange the normal signs of spring looked to me during my cancer ordeal. I felt like I couldn’t get enough of looking at those new signs of life. Spring, always beautiful to see, looked even more potent and life-filled.

I was scared of chemotherapy, and didn’t know how it would be to have chemotherapy drugs (Carbo/Taxol) for six times, every three weeks. I had just had major surgery. But, I remember just looking at the leaves and thinking how beautiful they were.

Nature has always been a tonic to me. It was before cancer, and it certainly was during treatment.

I like to enjoy nature and exercise together. During my cancer treatment, I would walk outdoors often, swim in a lake , or just enjoy walking around the garden. I know some people enjoy “working out” in a gym. I applaud them for their exercise habits, but I’m more comfortable exercising in the natural environment. It adds so much pleasure, for me, to hear the sounds and see the sights of nature around me. It reminds me that I’m alive.

I hope that if you are facing a cancer challenge, you will find a way to make exercise part of your cancer recovery. I also hope you can do some of your exercise in nature.