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Easy natural home pain remedies
Who says you need expensive tools or treatment to help alleviate pain caused from sitting at your desk all day or from those long summer road trips? Instead, try these simple household items to alleviate pain.
Towels
Simple beach towels can be used to help relieve pain and tension in the legs and neck, which may be tight after long periods of sitting. To stretch your hamstrings, lie on your back with one leg fully extended while the other is bent with the foot flat on the floor. Take your towel and place it behind the bent leg. From here, pull the towel along with the bent leg towards your chest, you should feel a stretching sensation on the back of your thigh. To make this more challenging take the bent leg and straitghten the leg at the knee.
To stretch your neck, take the towel and place it over the right shoulder. With the right hand, grab the towel from the front and with the left hand pull down on the towel from behind. At the same time, bend your head to the left and you will feel a deep stretch on the right upper shoulder leading into the neck. Hold for 20 seconds and repeat on the other side.
Tennis balls
Tennis balls work as great mini-massagers. If your feet are feeling tired after a long day of walking place the tennis ball in the arch of foot while tracing the alphabet with your foot. This will help alleviate the tightness in your arches.
Use the tennis ball to release tightness in the calves after a long hike by simply placing the ball onto the floor directly above your right Achilles tendon. Place your left foot on the floor to help you roll forward and then backwards on the ball. Slide your body forward to roll the ball up towards your knee. Stop whenever you find a knot, hold for 20 seconds and then move on.
Brooms
Brooms are great tools to help improve your flexibility. While standing, start by taking a broom and placing it behind your neck, across your shoulders and place your hands at the ends of the stick. Pull your shoulder blades down and back. With your core tight, rotate your upper body over to one side as far as it feels comfortable and then repeat on the other side. This spinal rotation exercise will help improve the flexibility of your spine, which may be restricted after long periods of sitting.
Chairs
Stretching at your chair is great for those of us who are desk jockeys and spend most of our days sitting at a computer. Sitting on your butt for long periods can cause the same muscles to tighten up. To stretch them out, plant your left foot flat on the floor, then lift your right leg and bend it at the knee so it’s crossed over your left leg. You want to place your right ankle on your left thigh, just above your knee. Flex your right foot and try to keep your knee and leg as flat as possible. You should feel a slight stretch in the muscles of your outer hip. To take the stretch deeper, gently press down on your right knee with your right hand until you feel a stretch in your glute muscles.
Cooler
After a road trip to the cottage, your hips and lower back are likely feeling tight. Using your cooler could be similar to using a yoga block to assist in opening up your hips to help alleviate stiffness. Sitting on a sturdy cooler, place the soles of your feet together while pushing down on your inner thighs. As you lean slightly forward, you should feel a stretch in the lower back and the inner thighs. Hold for 20 seconds and repeat until the hips feel loosened up.
More Knowledge: Get muscle cramps from your workouts? Check out this article on how to deal with them.
Author: Dr. Nekessa Remy is an award-winning chiropractor, a registered and medical acupuncturist and one of Canada’s fastest rising and sought-after health and wellness expert in the industry today. She is the current owner of Mississauga’s The Chiropractic Office, a comprehensive injury management clinic focused on sports-related injuries and woman’s health issues and also runs a practice in downtown Toronto, at Integra Health Centre where she works amongst other leaders in the health care field.