Whenever you experience any arthritis symptoms like joint pain or tendon stiffness, what do you do?
Take meds? Do yoga? Or maybe seek help from a physical therapist?
Whatever your treatment plan is, sometimes they are not enough to save you from morning aches due to swollen or stiff joints.
In that case, it is better to close the medicine cabinet and rely on the age-old, cheapest, and safest recovery therapy: heat. And just like any other treatment, you must know the proper instructions to get the best results.
I’m sharing about this topic of how to incorporate heat therapy into your daily routine because I’m the bestselling wellness author. I wrote the book Instant Calm and I founded the popular video course called The Anxiety Cure.
So, let’s dive into this article and discuss everything you need to know about heat therapy.
It has been medically proven that applying heat on sore or stiff joints can loosen things up, as well as reduce chronic pains and muscle aches.
The heat warms up the blood vessels and dilates them to improve blood flow, allowing oxygen and nutrients to reach the injured tendons. This increased blood flow also removes pain-inducing metabolites from the tissues, which helps your muscles relax.
It also helps with:
Furthermore, the warmth also stimulates the pain receptors in your skin to reduce joint and muscle aches.
And for joint stiffness, CLHT(continuous low-level heat wrap therapy) increases the flexibility of the collagen and helps the joints to move more easily.
As a result, people who have neck and lower back pain experience much fewer arthritis symptoms through regular heat therapy. It also helps athletes warm up their stiff muscles before starting any intense workout. (Source: National Library of Medicine)
There are two types of heat therapy that can help you relieve chronic pain or older injuries. Those are:
Both of these heat treatments work the same way. But moist therapy is better if you have higher body fat and want to cover a larger pain area.
From taking a hot shower in the morning or applying a heating pad on a stiff joint, there are many easy and cheap ways you can get the benefits of heat therapy for your pain recovery.
And by incorporating them regularly, you can recover from various chronic issues like arthritis or osteoarthritis. Here’s how:
Moist heat therapy is usually more effective than dry heat treatments as it can penetrate the skin and muscle more easily.
And the best form of moist heat therapy is taking a hot shower at the start of the day.
People who suffer from inflammatory arthritis or osteoarthritis tend to wake up in the morning with stiff joints or muscle spasms. A hot shower in the morning helps your muscles and joints relax, so you can move about more easily and experience less pain throughout your body.
However, only stay in the bath for around 10-15 minutes and make sure the water temperature doesn’t exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
Furthermore, while you’re taking a hot shower, you should do some low-impact exercises like neck rotations and wrist/elbow twists to loosen up your body.
The benefits of frequent visits to saunas extend beyond joint pain relief. It also helps improve your cardiovascular health and increases blood flow to quickly recover from tendonitis or sprains.
The warm vapors also increase muscle relaxation and reduce chronic pain from inflammatory symptoms.
According to Thermo Wellness, “Infrared sauna therapy, in particular, emits radiant heat that penetrates deep into the muscle tissues, accentuating these benefits to even greater levels”.
However, not everyone can afford to visit the sauna on a regular basis. In that case, you can submerge your body in a hot bathtub with some essential oils or bath salts, which would give somewhat similar results.
Take a dry towel and heat it up by placing it on a hot surface. Then wrap it around your sore joint or muscle. It will loosen the tendons and relax the muscles for a more easy movement.
Remember to check how hot the towel is with the palm of your hand. It should be comfortably warm, not piping hot.
You can also soak the towel up with hot water and press it on the affected body part. This thermotherapy is also great for headaches and sinus congestion.
Alternatively, you can use water bottles or an after-market hot water bag and fill it up with hot water(not exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit).
Another cheap and quick way to apply dry heat is to invest in microwavable heat packs.
These packs can be quickly heated up in the microwave in just under 60 seconds and quickly applied to your sore body parts for quick relief.
If you want a more regular and effective solution, you can buy electric heating pads from any drugstore. Plug it into the power outlet and use the heat pack to focus the warmth on a particular body part, like hip, wrist, elbow, knee, etc.
But don’t overdo it. 15-20 minutes of thermotherapy should be more than enough to reduce muscle and joint pains.
In recent years, wax therapy has been becoming quite popular due to its several benefits. Such as improving blood flow and focused heat on tendons to remove lactic acid, increase oxygen saturation, etc. (Source: National Library of Medicine)
You can dip your hands or feet into melted paraffin wax(test the temperature beforehand) and cover it in plastic or rubber wrap. Then peel off the wax when it dries up.
Pro tip: Remember to stretch your body after any kind of heat therapy session. It would ease the body’s movement and boost the recovery process.
Despite such benefits of thermotherapy, you shouldn’t always resort to heating things up before assessing the situation properly.
For example, if you have an acute injury or severe muscle inflammation, applying heat would do more damage than good. In that case, it is best to apply cold water therapy for a quick and better recovery.
You should also avoid heat therapy if you have:
These thermotherapy strategies are more like band-aids rather than the ultimate solution. You should always seek professional help if you have severe arthritis symptoms and have chronic muscle pains for a prolonged period.
Also, having a good balance between hot and cold therapy is the most effective way.
Anyway, that’s it for today. I hope this write-up has provided you with all the information you were looking for.
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