As the age old saying goes, dying is easy living is hard. Living with pain is one of the hardest things imaginable. Chronic pain, no matter where it comes from can be grueling and cause severe debilitating effects on your psyche and alienate many people.
Whether you're involved in a brutal sport or just having side effects of other injuries these tips will help you deal.
It's never a good idea to skip out on sleep. Good night's rest is the best thing for muscle recovery, rest and relaxation. Any changes to the natural rhythm should be avoided at all costs. Optimal sleeping hours are between midnight and 9 AM. There's some wiggle room but complete abbreviations usually aren't a great idea unless you're one of the rare individuals with altered biorhythm.
Food usually provides sustenance but it can also act as a replacement for any anti-inflammatory medication you're taking. One recent research has shown that there are intense positive effects from food rich in anthocyanins. How to recognize this type of veggies and fruits? It's usually purple or deeply red. D A J Connolly, M P McHugh, and O I Padilla‐Zakour have done a research in 06 that had shown that consuming cherry juice before and after exercise can reduce average strength loss to only 4% which is quite a change from the typical 22.
Anti inflammatory medication is not a good idea.Many athletes take ibuprofen daily and in turn wreak havoc on their organism. NSAIDS blunt the gains received from exercise and increase the risk of heart attacks. Further, there's scientific evidence to corroborate that chronic use of this type of medication actually **causes chronic inflammation. **
In addition to all of this you might want to reconsider your stance on benefits of icing injuries. The famous RICE protocol (rest, ice, compress, elevate) is not as infallible as broscience leads you to believe. One experimental study (Takagi et al 2011) crushed muscle belly of the extensor digitorum longus of anesthetized rats with a forceps. Without getting into study specifics they found that the injuries that were iced recovered 65% less in terms of muscle regeneration. In addition to this after a month long period the iced rats had abnormal collagen formations. To sum up their finding: you might be better off avoiding icing!
In addition to all of this it's never a bad idea to get some pot. Marijuana has anti-inflammatory properties that makes it the weapon of choice of many including UFC's Diaz brothers who are quite open about the use for this exact purpose.