5 Natural Joint Pain Relief Remedies
Joint pain seems to be much more common than you would think! Whether it’s one of the many painful degenerative conditions caused by inflammation, or your body is just extra sore after a strenuous activity. Joint pain can be uncomfortable at its best and absolutely debilitating at its worst! This is why millions of adults seek relief in pain killers when their joint pain arises, but as we know, a natural remedy is always better for your overall health, if you can find something that works for you. Check out some of the different ways you can get joint pain relief naturally.
1. Regular Movement in your Day & Exercise
Regular movement is one of the best things that you can do to help maintain flexibility in your joints. People with office jobs sit the majority of their day and that can wreak havoc on joints! Maybe try setting a timer to get up and move around every 30 minutes. Go for a walk on your lunch break instead of sitting down. Anything that will get you up and moving around more instead of sitting the majority of your day.
Exercise is also a great thing to help with joint pain. Weight-bearing exercises such as running and walking can be harder on your joints, so that is not something that you should start with if you have joint issues already. Instead, try low-impact exercises such as water aerobics or swimming to flex your joints without adding further stress. Then maybe you can work your way up to more strenuous exercises.
2. Maintain Healthy Weight
Carrying extra weight can put a strain on your joints that can cause pain and inflammation throughout your body. It can put excess pressure on all your joints, especially your knees, hips, and feet. If you’re able to reduce the stress on your joints by losing weight, it will improve your mobility, decrease pain, and prevent future damage to your joints and inflammation.
3. Epsom Salt Baths
Adding Epsom Salts in your bath is a great way to detoxify and ease the tension in your joints, especially after exercising. They are high in magnesium and sulfates and can help lower inflammation, relax tense muscles and reduce muscle spasms. These minerals are absorbed through your skin, so adding them to your bath, or even making a compress applied directly to the achy area that is bothering you, can lead to quick results. Use about two cups of Epsom salts in your bath water, or to a gallon of water, then soak a towel in it for a few minutes before applying to your skin. There is even magnesium spray that you can spray directly on your joints to help ease the pain and also help you sleep.
4. Hot/Cold Therapy
Simple hot and cold treatments can make a huge difference when it comes to joint pain. Long, hot showers or baths can help ease stiffness in your joints, especially in the morning time. You can use an electric blanket or moist heating pad at night to loosen up your joints as well.
If you have swelling and inflammation, cold treatments are great for getting relief from that joint pain. Wrap a gel ice pack or a bag of frozen vegetables in a towel and apply it to painful joints for quick relief.
5. Anti-Inflammatory Diet
One of the main causes of joint pain is inflammation. Making some simple changes in your diet can really help decrease the inflammation in your body. So trying an anti-inflammatory diet can reduce discomfort pretty quickly.
Gluten and dairy are some of the most inflammatory food, so removing those foods from your diet can be a really good place to start to help decrease inflammation. Some other inflammatory foods include processed meats, refined sugars, artificial sweeteners, trans fats, hydrogenated oils that are usually found in fried foods, fast food, and packaged snack products.
So ditching inflammatory foods is a great thing to help reduce inflammation in your body, but you can also try eating more foods that fight inflammation naturally. Foods like organic berries, plus most other fruits and vegetables. There are some great herbs and spices that fight inflammation naturally as well, like garlic, turmeric, green tea, ginger, rosemary, and holy basil.