- The Anticancer Lifestyle Program Awarded Nutrition Accreditation
- Rediscover the Authentic Magic Bag: A Comforting, Therapeutic Classic
- Winter Thriving
- Warming Winter Entrées
- Before a Lump Develops
- Learn to Cook Healthy & Holistic Food
- Birthday Crepe Cake
- 3 Trendy Summer Salads with Protein
- 5 Causes of Chronic Inflammation and How to Prevent Them
- Be UTI-free with Utiva
- The Easy Way to Grow Your Own Food
- Grow Your Own Tomatoes
- Fresh Herbs for the Spring
- How to Grow Sprouts
- Top 5 Spring Superfoods
Walking on Sunshine
Stay active and pain free.
A study conducted by the Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute found that injury was among the top five barriers to physical activity. If your favourite summer activities include canoeing, hiking, and biking, but pain is raining on your parade, follow these tips to stay active this summer!
Eat
As produce stands pop up along roadsides, the Canadian summertime is best for eating fresh and local food. Locally grown produce is typically transported less than 100 miles from where it’s grown, meaning that we get to eat it while it’s fresh and at peak nutrient value. Eating produce with more vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants gives the body better building blocks with which to promote optimum structure and function.
Knowing what building blocks are required for your particular barrier to exercise is key. Joint pain can occur due to an age-related decline in cartilage, a connective tissue that acts as a cushion between bones. One of the best ways to plump up the cartilage layer in the joints is to increase vitamin C. Vitamin C is required for the synthesis of collagen, an important protein found in joint cartilage. Dig into fresh berries, leafy greens, and colourful vegetables for an ample dose of vitamin C. You can also directly increase your collagen intake by drinking bone broth. Collagen is the gelatinous layer you can see on top of chilled bone broth, which goes to show how well it acts as a protective cushion for your joints!
Arthritis pain involves inflammation of joints and surrounding tissues, and benefits from an anti-inflammatory diet. Avoiding inflammatory sugar, dairy, white grains, and nightshade vegetables including tomatoes, eggplant, and bell peppers, and increasing anti-inflammatory foods like leafy greens, fish, extra virgin olive oil, turmeric, and nuts, can be helpful for reducing arthritis pain.
Move
When you’re in pain, moving might seem like the last thing you want to do. But if you have arthritis, exercise can be very beneficial for regenerating protective joint fluid, reducing stiffness, and building up muscle strength for joint support.
The Mayo Clinic recommends applying hot packs to your joints 20 minutes before exercise, to reduce surrounding muscle tension. Then, gently warm up your major joints (shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, and ankles) by circling through their range of motion for about 10 minutes prior to exercise (ibid).
Choose gentle exercises with low-impact on the joints, such as recumbent biking, elliptical, and swimming, which allow for full range of motion to reduce stiffness. Pace activity by slowing down if you notice joint redness or swelling, and stop if you experience sharp pain that’s worse than usual. When you’re done, cool down and reduce swelling with an ice pack
on your painful joints for up to 20 minutes (ibid).
Chill
Life is full of unavoidable stressors, like bill payments, work deadlines, and relationship challenges. The connection between stress and disease has been explored in medical research, and it’s been found that chronic pain is exacerbated by an overactive stress response (Hannibal et al, 2014). But, how we manage our subjective feeling of stress in response to these life stressors is key in determining its toll on our physiology. Lifestyle practices including meditation, mindfulness, yoga, diaphragmatic breathing, and positive social time are all evidence-based interventions shown to reduce stress. Choosing one or several of these practices to implement into your daily routine can help reduce stress and lower your pain perception.
Supplement
If your healthy diet, mindful movement and stress-relieving practices aren’t enough to shift your pain, the answer might be in your natural health store. Help your body maintain joint cartilage by looking for a supplement that combines hydrolyzed type II collagen with other cartilage building blocks, like vitamin C, silica, MSM and glucosamine.
If you’re having a bad pain day, you can try natural analgesic supplements, with herbs like devil’s claw and boswellia. Reduce inflammation with turmeric, which can be paired with black pepper to improve its absorption. Enzymes like bromelain and serrapeptase are also anti-inflammatory, and have been used to reduce pain conditions ranging from joint pain to carpal tunnel syndrome. If you want to take serrapeptase on its own, look for a product with a delayed release capsule so that the enzyme can be maximally absorbed. Reducing inflammation can help lessen your perception of pain, allowing you to stay active and take the biggest bite out of summer!
Cassie Irwin, BA (Hons.), CBP cultivates limitless health for you to live in the fullest expression of yourself. As a Certified Bowen Practitioner, Cassie uses this gentle physical therapy to relieve chronic pain, stress & anxiety, and improve overall well-being. She serves the Niagara Region in her practice at Integrated Health Care in St. Catharines. Call 905-988-9160. Learn more at www.cassieirwin.ca and follow Cassie’s musings on Instagram @cassieirwin.ca
Related Posts
Latest News
-
Winter Thriving
Are the shorter days and colder weather leaving you feeling...
- Posted November 1, 2020
- 0
-
The Anticancer Lifestyle Program Awarded Nutrition Accreditation
The Anticancer Lifestyle Program (ACLP) has been welcomed as an...
- Posted November 13, 2020
- 0
-
Rediscover the Authentic Magic Bag: A Comforting, Therapeutic Classic
Seeking relief from all these months of uncertainty? Looking to...
- Posted November 3, 2020
- 0
-
Warming Winter Entrées
The rich flavours of browned beef only get better when...
- Posted November 1, 2020
- 0
-
Before a Lump Develops
The statistics today are alarming: one in eight women will...
- Posted October 25, 2020
- 0
-
Learn to Cook Healthy & Holistic Food
Holistic Culinary Program now offered by CSNN Toronto East Branch...
- Posted August 31, 2020
- 0
-
Birthday Crepe Cake
Add a little Flourish to your next birthday with this...
- Posted July 16, 2020
- 0
Join our E-Newsletter
Quote of the day
Prize Giveaways
-
Win! A Sugarmat Yoga Mat
Sugarmat, the clever creator of the lightest (and most beautiful) yoga mats has teamed...
- April 8, 2019
- 0
-
Instant Pot® 6 Quart Prize Giveaway
Instant Pot® Duo is a smart Electric Pressure Cooker designed to be Safe, Convenient...
- October 25, 2018
- 1
Featured Events
-
Guelph Organic Conference 2020
Experience over 40 workshops: Jan 23 – 26, 2020The free Trade Show runs: Jan...
- December 13, 2019
- 0
-
Bentway Skate Trail’s Official Opening
Toronto’s Newest Public SpaceLocated Under the Gardiner Expressway Saturday, January 6, 2018 @ 11am#BENTONWINTER18...
- December 6, 2017
- 0
Product Profile
-
Be UTI-free with Utiva
A New Way to prevent UTIs…naturally. The all too familiar urinary tract...
0 comments