Is My Lifestyle Helping Me Heal?
Posted on 23rd April 2021 at 10:00
There’s nothing worse than being in any kind of pain for a long period of time. More often than not, massage therapy and other hands-on treatment can alleviate a lot of these symptoms of pain and also help to identify restrictions before they become a problem. Unfortunately, though, we don’t have magic wands. Where most people find great relief after receiving a treatment from our therapists, others find niggles that may take a few sessions to start to resolve and feel more comfortable.
As a sports therapist, I am a huge advocate of rehabilitation and its role at aiding your recovery. But there are a lot of lifestyle habits and changes you can make which can have a significant impact on the timeline of your recovery.
Ways To Speed Up Your Recovery
Sleep – Sleep is the most important recovery process. During sleep your body rests and repairs itself, so ensuring a good night sleep is pivotal to how your body heals itself after an injury or massage. The health guideline recommends 7-8hrs per night of sleep. This can help speed up recovery and change how you perceive pain the next day.
Nutrition – Eating lots of ‘pro-inflammatory’ foods will increase inflammation and pain signals from tissues after a massage treatment and exercise. These include fatty or processed foods, sugary treats, alcohol, and smoking! Trying to incorporate oily fish with high levels of Omega 3, pineapple, cauliflower, turmeric, or curcumin can help to reduce internal inflammation and therefore pain.
Stress – High levels of stress can be detrimental to any healing tissues by reducing healing rates. This could be from internal bodily stresses such as consuming lots of energy drinks and caffeine or environmental factors, like work or not allowing your body to recover from a heavy training session at the gym. Ensure you have some down time to give your body breathing space to repair.
Hydration – Drinking between 2-3L a day will allow your body to function as optimally as possible which is a massive plus when it comes to healing.
Daily movement – Keeping yourself active through work outs and gym sessions are great for your health, but do not disregard the rest of your day. A 1 hour gym session will not counteract 9hrs of desk work, so try to get yourself out for a long walk in natural sunlight each day to improve your daily activity and keep your body tiptop.
If you’d like to find out more about how lifestyle factors can help your body heal, book an appointment with your local therapist here!
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