Taking Care of yourself during an Injury
Injuries are never fun, but can often be inevitable at some point in one’s life, even if you are the most or least active person in the world. Many of the most common injuries involve a muscle, tendon, or bone which means there are a few ways that you can help strengthen your body to prevent those injuries from occurring or being less intense.
Some helpful tips for preventing common injuries include:
1. Staying Physically Active –
Regular exercise can help strengthen your muscle and bones which allows for improvement in overall fitness. Stretching as part of your exercise routine is an important component in muscle recovery and flexibility to avoid unwanted injuries.
2. Proper Warm-Up and Cool-Down Practices
Prior to engaging in physical activity, it’s important to warm up the muscles and joints by doing some low impact exercises and easing into a workout to prevent sudden injury. It is just as important to cool down after an exercise by stretching and deep breathing to help reduce muscle soreness, stiffness and discomfort.
3. Using Proper Techniques
When performing different exercises and completing physical activity, it is important to utilize proper techniques when doing so in order to reduce the risk of injury. An example of this includes lifting weights, boxes, or other heavy items in a workout or daily life – you want to ensure to lift using your legs and not your back to avoid any muscle strains.
4. Eating Right
In addition to taking care of your muscles and tendons, it is important to boost your body and your bones by eating right! A balanced diet, and ensuring you receive enough calcium to support your bone health, will help you to strengthen your body and prepare yourself for physical activity.
These simple tips may seem like no-brainers, but when an unexpected muscle pull, strain, or bone break happens, you will start to pay more attention to the little things you do each day to prevent something like that from happening again.
Should you experience ongoing pain from an injury, there are some things you can do to help cope with the pain and allow the injury to heal faster. These include a variety of rest, ice, compression, and elevation.
If pain from an injury becomes chronic, there are options for treating the injury further than rest should the area need it. These can include various injection therapies such as trigger point injections, joint injections, steroid injections, or regenerative medicine injections. Anti-inflammatories and other pain medications can also be used as a helpful tool in pain recovery, and lastly physician therapy to help slowly restore the area in a safe and effective way.
Injuries may not always be preventable, but with these tips you can be more mindful of your body during physical activity and daily activities. If injury should occur, and at home remedies aren’t enough, consult a physician to be evaluated.