🚨 Read this if you’re dealing with nagging pain
It may have something to do with your stress levels!
Summer is here.
No one seems to be very happy about the current heat wave (except for me), and I can’t help but think about how ready I am to build my endurance base with summertime runs for the NYC marathon in the fall.
The summer, though, is not without its drawbacks… like, prolonged pain?
Summer training makes it easy to overshoot, dehydrate, and possibly get hurt if you’re not careful, no matter what training you’re doing.
As Olivia and I discussed on Tuesday, pain and injuries can manifest from heightened stress. So here are some ways to deal with nagging pain and recurring injuries.
Before that, though:
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Newsletter Summary:
The fact that cold weather has on healing (or the lack thereof)
How might this affect your pain management strategies moving forward
One quote about being smart to end the week
🚨 Read this if you’re dealing with nagging pain
If you tweaked or twisted something over the past few months and it hasn’t gotten better, an extended bout of rest or new recovery practice might be in order.
While I don’t pretend to be a physical therapist, I do know a thing or two about injuries, having suffered many.
I’ve been through the whole game of treatment protocols:
The old “RICE” Method (not unfalsifiable, btw):
Rest
Ice
Compress
Elevate
The “Contrast Therapy” Approach (effective, but not foolproof either):
10 mins of heat therapy, followed by
10 mins of icing the injured area, repeating as necessary
The “Gimmicky but Somewhat Effective” Placebos:
Stem (Electrode) Therapy
Topical analgesics like Icyhot, CBD cream, and Salonpas
KT Tape
[Insert Random, Rite-Aid-based OTC treatment here]
The “Expensives”:
Massage
Cupping
Acupuncture
There are a whole host of others that I’m not naming, but these are the ones I’ve tried.
Since pain and injuries are relatively unpredictable, it’s hard to say there’s a one-size-fits-all pain management plan.
What we can at least try to understand are the mechanisms by which pain persists.
Posture, faulty movement patterns, and stress can keep pain around for longer than we’d like.
As I noted this past winter, the temperature outside can also contribute to the intensity of pain we feel in our bodies.
It seems true that the cold can have a dulling effect on our bodies, regenerative processes:
“Cheng et al. found that cooling skeletal muscle to temperatures as low as 15°C slowed the recovery of contractile function and endurance in humans and mice, primarily due to impaired glycogen resynthesis.[1] Similarly, Shibaguchi et al. reported that icing treatment (0°C) delayed the restoration of the myosin heavy chain profile and muscle mass in rats recovering from bupivacaine-induced muscle injury, whereas intermittent heat stress facilitated recovery.[2]”
This makes sense from a scientific standpoint.
If you remember anything from chemistry class in high school (don’t worry, I barely do too), entropy, or the speediness of molecules moving around, is generally a good thing.
It is a key component of cell division and heating, both of which are helpful for recovery (spoiler alert:🚨If you own a heating pad and want to stop reading here, that might be your go-to for healing yourself).
Considerations for pain management moving forward
If you spent the winter with an injury that hasn’t gone away, the warm weather might not necessarily cure it. But a nice walk outside in 70-degree weather could be the stress relief you need to give your body a break.
For most nagging injuries, you’re likely going to want a mixture of heat, pressure, and maaaybe a small dose of NSAIDS, depending on recommendations from your doctor, about how to manage the pain and its intensity.
Like I mentioned this past winter, muscle contraction is more difficult in the cold.
But the heat can also dehydrate us and make contracting harder, too.
So train hard this summer, but hydrate harder, and recover the hardest.
If you haven’t thought about ways in which you can mitigate stress in this heat, consider…
The beach (ideally without drinking, if you can)
Meditating in an air-conditioned room
Practicing breathing underneath a shaded tree
Taking a sick/self-care day (looking at you, workaholics)
Supplementing Ashwagandha, Rhodiola, Moringa or Cordyceps
One Quote About Being Smart To End This Week
“Genius is talent set on fire by courage." 🔥
— Henry Van Dyke
If you read this newsletter, you care about being smart. Maybe not being a genius, but having the courage to try new things and learn more about yourself.
If you learn anything from reading my newsletters, I would encourage you to share it with a friend.
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