Breast Cancer Survivor and Yoga Clinical Trial

I mentioned a month or so ago that I had been asked to participate in a clinical trial to see if yoga would have any effect on the sleep and overall well-being of breast cancer survivors.

In case you weren't aware, a breast cancer survivor has one hell of a time getting a full night's sleep. It is not known why but waking up frequently and being unable to go back to sleep is a real problem.

Two weeks ago I started my part of the study. I am in the control group. I was asked to wear an actigraph on my non-dominant wrist for a week, never taking it off. The thing measured my sleep and activity somehow - it's all magic as far as I know. Anyway, I wore the thing which was similar to the ugliest watch ever made.

I was asked to fill out several questionnaires regarding the amount of sleep I was getting, how many times I got up, what times, how many hot flashes in a day, etc.

I turned it all in to the Cancer center last week and now I will continue filling out questionnaires without taking any yoga classes.

In four weeks I will wear the actigraph again and after that week is over, I will be able to take 4 weeks of yoga for nada. That's right, for free.

That was the big draw for this study - the fact that I got to get free yoga classes.

The last study I participated in was regarding chemotherapy, and being a novice at cancer I said, sure, I'll do it...but I could have royally screwed myself because one group had 6 chemo treatments and the other 4. Luckily I got the 4 - it is so horrible that 6 is just unfathomable to me at this point. I would have really hated myself if I'd had to do 6 just for some stupid study.

Anyway, looking forward to the yoga lessons soon.