Tag Archives: Thermal Cancer Care

Relieve Stress and Insomnia with “Laughter Yoga”

Have a Good Laugh
Have a Good Laugh

It’s long been said that laughter is the best medicine. Letting go with a deep belly laugh can provide a physical and emotional release. A doctor in Taipei is helping cancer patients improve their moods and sleep better with a class in laughing.

Liao Chih-Ying, director of radiation oncology at Taichung Hospital, first learned about “laughter yoga” in the United States and introduced it at his hospital in October 2013. This innovative method is based on the idea that forced laughter provides the same physical and emotional benefits as spontaneous laughter. Through regular practice, the fake laughter can eventually become genuine.

According to Dr. Liao, many cancer patients experience varying degrees of post-traumatic stress disorder. Symptoms can include depression, stress and insomnia. This creates a domino effect when stress-related hormones and chemicals weaken the immune system, which can allow the cancer to spread.

Laughter stimulates production of endorphins, which are the body’s natural pain relievers. Dr. Liao believed that learning to laugh more frequently could be a healthy way to reduce the patients’ mood disorders. Yoga instructor Lai Ching-ju was asked to teach a weekly one-hour class at the hospital. Two months later roughly 70 percent of the participants reported improvements in their pain and mood levels as well as better quality sleep.

At Issels Santa Barbara we also believe that improving your quality of life can help build your defense mechanisms. Our personalized alternative cancer therapies take a mind-body approach toward restoring health. Please contact us for more information.

Using Thermal Therapy to Fight Cancer

Alternative Cancer Therapy
Alternative Cancer Therapy

Fever is one of the natural defensive weapons your body uses to fight infection. When bacteria, viruses, toxins or other foreign invaders cause infection, your body turns up the heat. Under the guidance of knowledgeable and experienced physicians, this powerful immune system response can be used to help fight cancer via a therapy known as Hyperthermia.

Also called Thermal Therapy or Fever Therapy, Hyperthermia is the deliberate heating of the whole body or affected parts of the body for therapeutic purposes. For many patients at Issels Alternative Cancer Treatment Centers, thermal therapy has proven to be a valuable and effective component of integrative cancer treatment.

Fever Therapy has a long history of medical use dating back centuries but fell out of favor with the traditional medical community with the rise of the pharmaceutical industry and development of fever-reducing drugs such as aspirin and acetaminophen. More recently, practitioners of western medicine have begun to realize that the body knows best.

As Discovery Fit & Health explains, “It used to be standard medical practice to knock that fever out as quickly as possible. Not so anymore. The value of fever is recognized.”

Hyperthermia is now being used to treat cancer at several university hospital centers in the U.S. and Europe; however, our founder, Dr. Josef Issels, recognized the value of invoking this powerful immune response in the treatment of cancer in the early 1950s. Trained in Dr. Issels’ effective techniques, Issels’ cancer treatment teams have extensive experience administering hyperthermia in the treatment of cancer. Visit our website to find out more about thermal therapy and our non-toxic integrated immunotherapy approach to cancer treatment.