“Eat healthy!” and “Exercise as much as you can!” are the most recommended pieces of advice we hear every day. But how many of us really do it? Although physical activity has been shown to help people keeping fit and healthy, we still are acting as if there was no benefit at all from exercising. And we couldn’t be more wrong because there is strong evidence showing that physical activity helps even people who are diagnosed with different forms of cancers and are undergoing chemotherapy or radiation.

One study funded by the National Cancer Institute in 2006 looked exactly at the effects of moderate exercise on people suffering from breast and prostate cancer who were undergoing radiation therapy for six weeks.

The study showed that people who were exercising on daily basis had less fatigue, greater strength, and better aerobic capacity than those who weren’t.

These findings are not the only ones showing that cancer patients could benefit from exercising. Dana-Farber studies revealed that patients diagnosed with colon cancer who exercised regularly had a 50 percent lower mortality rate during the study period no matter how much they had previously exercised.

All doctors should recommend their cancer patients to exercise, as it improves their chances of survival and has a benefic result on their mental health as well.

The American Cancer Society promotes moderate exercise but also encourages patients to discuss their exercise plans with their oncologists. Oncologists even prescribe their patients gently exercise such as light walking, exercise with resistance bands and simple stretches.

Being a cancer patient does not mean that all your options are gone and there is nothing else to fight for. Even though the cancer treatment makes you weak on some days, you could use the others to regain your strength and be more active. These days could be the ones helping you defeat the disease or make it disappear for good.