This workout lowered fear, stress, and anxiety during prostate cancer

Prostate cancer messes with your head more than people talk about. You get the diagnosis, and while the disease and your physical health are the focus, your mind also starts going places you did not expect.

Even if it is early stage or you are on active surveillance (where the doctor says everything looks stable for now and treatment can wait). That sounds fine at first… but your brain does not just sit there. It keeps checking every little thing: PSA levels, some random ache in your side, “what if” scenarios that pop up out of nowhere. The body might feel steady, but inside, all this tension builds up slowly.

And it’s not just you. There was a large review of studies (over a hundred), and it showed 17% of men with prostate cancer end up with severe depression symptoms. Anxiety hits about the same, around 17% too. Then suicidal thoughts in nearly 10% (much higher than the general population). Those numbers stuck with me.

For a lot of these men, the cancer does not stay put in the prostate, it creeps into their life. Quiet times alone, family dinners, even waking up in the middle of the night. Especially on active surveillance, where you are just waiting, month after month or year after year, for the next test result or scan. That waiting drags on the mind.

So, can exercise actually help with mental health too, not just physical health? And what about mental health issues specific to prostate cancer?

There was a study that tested it out, a randomized trial with 52 men on active surveillance for prostate cancer, and split them into 2 groups. One did high-intensity interval training, supervised, three times a week for 12 weeks, on a treadmill. The other group just kept doing their usual routine. Most of them (50 out of 52), finished the assessments, and the exercise group stuck with exercising consistently (96% of the time). Consistency is the most important element of lifestyle as medicine.

While there was no change in the usual care group, the exercisers had significantly less anxiety specific to prostate cancer, less fear about the disease getting worse, fewer hormone-related symptoms, lower stress levels, less fatigue, and better self-esteem.

Wow! is there ANY pill, herb, or any other remedy out there that can target all those prostate cancer-specific mental health domains and improve them all at once?

That shifts how you see things. Active surveillance can feel like you are stuck, paused, with cancer there, but nothing happening yet. You watch and think and try not to let it spiral. But exercise, structured like that, gives you something to do, something solid. It fills out your week, gives your body a point, and maybe shows your mind you are not totally powerless.

And this is where it gets even better. This was the same HIIT protocol I wrote about in another article, which also improved fitness and lowered PSA. So the men were not only coping better mentally. The same training was a medicine for prostate cancer as well.

I wonder how much impact improving mental health on its own had on reducing PSA and prostate cancer growth, actually.

Back to mental health however; it matters A LOT, more than you might think at first (and I’m sure you know it). It affects every part of your daily life, every interaction, every thought, and feeling. It is also on how heavy your thoughts are when you wake up, if the cancer takes over your whole day, if you feel like you are acting or just waiting for the next bad thing.

If the cancer has been hanging out in your head without paying rent, exercise might be a way to push back and take some control.

If you want more strategies based on evidence for dealing with prostate cancer, my newsletter has that.

But what might be the best solution for specifically mental health during prostate cancer is my Prostate Cancer Health Coaching and Support Group. Apart from a structure that will keep you consistent, you will regularly touch base in a group with other men with prostate cancer using their lifestyle as a medicine, who will give you support, camaraderie, and push you forward. You do not have to handle it by yourself.

Or for direct help and someone to check in with, I also do 1-to-1 coaching (and you also get access to the group). I help guys with prostate cancer put together exercise and nutrition plans that fit their situation, like the diagnosis, past treatments, side effects, any injuries, their schedule, energy levels, and everything else life throws at them. And most importantly (like the study), I help them find strategies to use their lifestyle as a medicine consistently.