Can an 8-week Qigong program be run safely and reliably for women who are just weeks out of breast cancer surgery and still in treatment?
As we observe Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, new research offers an insightful answer to this question.
Meet the 14 Women
Fourteen women aged 42 to 73, with stage I–III breast cancer, took part in the study. All had recently had surgery (two weeks to three months earlier), and many were on ongoing therapy such as letrozole. Eleven of the 14 reported no regular exercise, so for most of them this was their first structured movement practice.
The program ran inside a public hospital’s integrative oncology clinic in southern Italy, where patients get free access to complementary therapies. It was built into the clinical pathway, not offered as an outside add-on.
Inside the Classroom
- Format: small classes of four or five women, one hour a week for eight weeks, all taught by the same certified instructor.
- Screening first: in the first session, the instructor checked each woman’s shoulder and arm mobility, balance, breathing, and tolerance for exertion, then adjusted the practice to fit.
- The practice: a mix of Qigong Easy (a few simple, repeated movements) and Ba Duan Jin (the Eight Pieces of Brocade), with an emphasis on posture, diaphragmatic breathing, and present-moment awareness.
- Gentle intensity: low enough that women could hold a conversation throughout. Movements could be done seated, lying down, or with a wall or furniture for support.
- Home practice: guided videos and a suggested 30–45 minutes a day, with a journal to record it.
How the Eight Weeks Went
All 14 women finished the program, and attendance was about 92%. No adverse events were reported. Recruitment was the harder part: of 25 eligible women, only 14 enrolled. Getting started seemed to be a bigger hurdle than staying with it.
On symptoms, the women rated 11 problems (including pain, fatigue, sleep, hot flushes, mood, and anxiety) from 0 to 5 before and after. Every woman had a lower total score at the end.
Anxiety showed the biggest change: the share of women with moderate-to-severe anxiety fell from 86% to 43%.
Pain, mood problems, and fatigue each dropped by about 29 percentage points, and sleep disturbance and hot flushes by about 21.
Some symptoms barely moved. Tachycardia stayed the same, and appetite and nausea changed little. Qigong wasn’t a cure-all here.
With only 14 women, each person is worth about 7 percentage points, so the percentages jump around. Read them as a description of this small group, not as population figures.
The Fine Print
There was no control group, so the improvements cannot be credited to Qigong specifically.
“No adverse events” in 14 women is also reassuring but limited. It can’t rule out less common problems.
What You Can Learn from the Study
A good model for teaching vulnerable students. Screening before teaching, adapting movements to each person, and keeping intensity gentle are practices any teacher can borrow, especially for students who are older, recovering from surgery, or managing a chronic condition.
Simplicity helps. A short set of repeated movements is easier to remember and practice at home, which is likely useful for tired, anxious people. The study doesn’t prove this, but it’s plausible.
The group may matter. In exit interviews, the women repeatedly mentioned mutual support and belonging, along with greater awareness of their breathing and bodies. Not everyone needs a class, but it’s a reminder that practicing alongside others may be part of what makes a program work.
Home practice is the weak spot. Some women struggled to keep up their home routine around work and family, and the study couldn’t measure it. If you teach, a simple way to track practice, like a weekly checklist, would close that gap.
If you or someone you love is going through this
Talk to your oncology team before starting, and ask specifically about arm and shoulder movement after surgery. That includes lymphedema precautions if lymph nodes were removed. The study screened for medical suitability and excluded people with more advanced or complicated conditions, so its results don’t apply to everyone. Keep your regular symptom management in place, and consider rating your top few symptoms from 0 to 5 each week to see whether anything is shifting.
The Takeaway
This study doesn’t show that Qigong reduces symptoms in breast cancer survivors. It shows that a carefully screened, adapted, small-group program can work inside a public cancer clinic, and that women recovering from surgery will keep coming. The women improved and valued the experience, but a controlled trial would be needed to say whether Qigong was the reason.
Source: Marino G., et al. “Mind–Body Intervention for Post-Surgical Breast Cancer Patients in Southern Italy: A Pilot Feasibility Study of Qigong on Patient-Reported Symptom Burden and Emotional Well-Being.” Cancers 2026, 18(17), 2758.
