According to the CDC, 1 in 5 Americans struggles with chronic pain each day. If you are suffering from body aches and pains, you’re not alone, but how do you deal with it?
Thankfully, you don’t have to be in chronic pain all the time. There are plenty of things you can do to help ease the muscle aches and pains, so keep reading to find out what to do!
1. Start Moving
First, you should try and start by moving around. When you’re in pain, you may not want to move at all, but this can just make your joint pain hurt even more.
If you don’t exercise, your muscles will start getting weaker and more susceptible to pain. So to relieve pain, try exercising and being as active as you can.
Another added benefit of working out is that when you exercise, you release endorphins into your body. These endorphins are hormones that make you feel happy and relieve pain.
You should only need about half an hour of aerobic exercise, to help decrease some of the pain that you’re feeling. One great exercise to try is swimming because it doesn’t put as much pressure or stress on your joints.
2. Incorporate Fiber Into Your Diet
Your diet can also help to relieve some of your pain as well. Some studies have shown that if you eat a diet that is really high in fiber, you have less of a chance of feeling some pain.
This is because fiber helps to give you a lot of fatty acids. When you have enough fatty acids in your digestive system, it can help to regulate the amount of inflammation in your body. This inflammation is what helps to contribute to your pain.
3. Focus on Your Breathing
Surprisingly, your mind and your body are related very closely. So if you are stressed or depressed, your pain may feel even worse.
To help alieve your mental and physical pain, you can try meditating. Some people who have pain like low back pain said that they feel like they can cope with their pain better after they started meditating.
Part of meditation is focusing on your breathing and making yourself relax. When you make yourself relax, you’re less likely to be tense and tighten your muscles, which will help to relieve some pain.
4. Eat Turmeric
Another thing you can try adding to your diet is turmeric. Experts have proved that this supplement is also helpful for reducing inflammation. You can easily include it in your smoothies or sauces as well.
Before you start taking it, talk to your doctor. But you may want to take a supplement that is anywhere between 200 to 1,000 mg.
5. Use Heat and Ice
Heat and ice are also great, easy solutions to reduce pain.
Many people know to do this, but it can be difficult to know which one. If you’re trying to reduce inflammation or swelling, you should use an ice pack.
However, once the inflammation is gone, then you may want to use heat. The heat will help reduce the stiffness that comes afterward.
If you have just a headache, you may want to experiment to see if heat or ice works best for you.
6. Plan Time to Relax
While meditating can be a great way to relax, there are plenty of other things to help put you at ease as well.
Whether it’s finding the best chiropractor, taking time for you, managing your entry, or going to hang out with friends, make sure that you schedule a time for it.
If you don’t schedule time for relaxation, you may be overwhelmed with life and never schedule it. But if you don’t take time for yourself, you’re also not going to be able to heal your pain.
7. Follow Your Treatment Plan
Regardless of what type of pain you’re feeling, you should reach out to your doctor to see if they can help in some way.
Your doctor can use several diagnostic tests to figure out what’s wrong with you. This could include a blood test, MRI, ultrasound, or an X-ray.
Depending on what the tests say, they will give you a plan to treat your pain. This might include taking some pain medications or seeing another specialist or exercising.
Regardless of what treatment plan they prescribe, make sure that you keep up with it in order to feel some pain relief.
8. Try Acupuncture
Lastly, you could also try using acupuncture. This is a medical practice that came from the ancient Chinese. They used it to relieve pain by balancing energy pathways in your body.
They say that if the flow of the energy is blocked, this is what causes the pain.
In order to help the flow of energy, they put tiny needles into your skin. They will put them on your body based on where you’re having pain.
When they put the needles in your skin, your body will release serotonin. This is another hormone that makes you feel good, which helps to ease the pain.
Learn More About How to Relieve Body Aches and Pains
These are only a few things that you can do to relieve body aches and pains, but there are many more things to relieve your pain!
When in doubt, make sure you talk to your doctor about the pain you’re feeling. They will be able to recommend a treatment plan for you.
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