Healthy Practices To Relax Your Joint and Muscle Pains

Your joints and muscles are components of your body which can get injuries from trauma, arthritis and other illnesses. Due to this common occurrence, you must be ready to handle such eventualities. Your muscles and joints can be a source of severe pain when you don’t take care of it early enough. Luckily, there are practices which you can perform to help ease this joint and muscle pain. The best part of it is that most of these activities are cost-free.

Joint pains, in particular, affects more than 10 million people around the globe. It is no surprise therefore that remedies to solve this menace have been formulated. Here are some of the common causes of joint pains and the best practices to solve them.

Stiffness of the neck

A stiff neck is a common source of joint pain. A stiff neck on its part can either be a whiplash problem or a Spondylosis. Spondylosis refers to the wear and tear of the neck muscles and its similar to osteoarthritis. A majority of neck pain is as a result of tension in the muscles. How can you tell if you are suffering from joint and muscle pains due to neck stiffness? Well, some of the early signs include general pain and stiffness accompanied by tingling. The best practice is to increase the mobility of your neck.

What causes a stiff neck?

According to Tim Hutchful of the British Chiropractic Association, poor sleeping posture such as sleeping in awkward positions or straining your neck muscles is one of the most common causes of neck pains.

For writers, there is a possibility that leaning over your laptop for an extended period can strain your neck muscles. Try this if you experience any neck joint or muscle pains; Keep your ears at equidistant from your shoulders. At all times, keep your body in a neutral position. Your chin should neither be too low nor held up high. Early on, I mentioned about increasing the mobility of your neck. What is the best way to achieve neck mobility? Rotate your neck to the left of your shoulder slowly but steadily. Repeat the same to the right each time ensuring that the neck rotates to a comfortable range. Perform this activity at least twice each day and ten times for both the left and right side.

Impingement of your shoulder

Besides a stiff neck, an impinged shoulder can be a stinging pain producer. What is an impinged shoulder? “When the rotator cuff tendon located at the top of your shoulder gets pinched in the acromioclavicular joint or the  AC, you will get what we call an impinged shoulder” Surreyphysio.co.uk’s Tim Allardyce explains.

If you realize that you can’t reach to the back of your shoulder and neither can you sleep on your painful side, then you need to do something because these are the signs to indicate you are suffering from an impingement of your shoulder. Shoulder impingement is mainly caused by the wear and tear of the AC joint.

What is the remedy for an impinged shoulder?

One common practice is to press ice packs over the shoulder for at least ten minutes. Do this twice a day, and any shoulder inflammation should subside. For regular exercises, let your arms hang down as you lean over a table or a chair. Then gently swing your arm in circles using gravity and momentum. With one minute swings in each direction and for five times in a day, this exercise should help relieve your joint and muscles pains in no time.

Joint and Muscle Pain Due to Knee Problems

The muscles and joints in the knee are vulnerable to pain because they support your body’s full weight. When you overuse or injure your knee, you will experience sudden pain. However, there is no need for alarm when you have clicking knees. Clicking knees can be experienced especially when you squat or stand. The most common knee problem which results into severe joint and muscle pains is the patellofemoral pain syndrome.

Signs of a patellofemoral pain syndrome include a dull and aching pain. This pain usually affects both feet, and it gets worse if you sit, squat or kneel for a prolonged period. Most knee joint and muscle pains are caused by an imbalance between the exterior and interior quadriceps. This imbalance eventually causes a knee inflammation.

If you are overweight, then perhaps losing a few extra pounds can take that extra weight off your knees. For the inflammation, you can use ice packs to reduce any swelling of the knee joint and muscles. For the purpose of exercising, you should work on your quadriceps. To do this, you should lie on your back and then lift up your leg. First, ensure your leg is a few inches off the ground. Secondly, rotate your leg outwards, so your foot is pointing at 45-degree to the side. You will feel a pull on the inside of the thigh muscle, from your groin to your knee. Maintain this position for 30 seconds, repeat three times a day.

Relieving Hip Joint Pain

Hip arthritis happens to be one of the obvious causes of tight hips. The femoral head enables smooth movement of the hip joints. An erosion of the femoral head due to wear and tear makes it very painful to move. As a result of the condition above, osteophytes develop. When the osteophytes develop, they rub against the joint thus causing severe pain.

You can easily detect this condition by observing any pain, swelling, stiffness, and tenderness around the hip and groin area. To solve this problem, you might have to perform a hip replacement especially if this issue affects your daily activities. Manual therapies such as osteopathy and physiotherapy have been found to be very productive.

This exercise can also help a great deal; While grasping the back of your thigh, pull your knees as close to your chest as far as comfort allows. Relax your leg at this point. This activity helps to bend your hip thus improving its mobility. Perform this exercise for ten times in a day, and you should be able to walk more comfortably.

How to boost your joint and muscle health.

Besides the exercises mentioned above, you can try out the following to enhance the health of your body’s joint and muscle;

• Include broccoli in your diet-There are some enzymes responsible for the joint Luckily, in broccoli, you can get sulforaphane which blocks such enzymes.
• Lose weight- Being overweight makes your joints and muscles vulnerable to wear and tear.
• Practice Yoga- The practice of Yoga makes your joints flexible, and it is quite effective in treating back pain.
• Increase your uptake of Omega-3s- Omega-3 is a powerful anti-inflammatory which is found in sardines, almonds, mackerel, and walnuts.
• Warm up then cool up whenever you have to exercise

Joint and muscle pain can be a frustrating discomfort to a great extent. With these exercises, you can live a healthy and comfortable life. Before you decide to go and seek a surgical operation, you should consider trying out the exercises above. These non-intrusive exercises have no side effects. You can perform them without requiring any expertise.