PEACE & LOVE

Instead of responding to an acute injury with Rest & Ice, try the following:

Protect

Elevate

Avoid Anti-inflammatories

Compression

Education

Load

Optimism

Vascularization

Exercise

Protection - Avoid your pain triggers. If pain worsens or gradually builds from a movement, don’t do it for a while.

Elevate - If it’s an arm or leg, get it above your heart and pump our ankle up/down or squeeze a ball with your hand while you’re watching the boob tube. 

Avoid Anti-inflammatories and ice - anything that slows your body’s natural healing process is generally frowned upon in the research. If you can’t handle the pain, do what you need to do, but if you want to heal the quickest, this is what’s recommended.

I’d also throw in to avoid known sources of inflammation in the diet such as refined sugars. Don’t add gas to the fire. Easier said than done but it plays a huge role.

Compression - Wrap it to promote pushing the inflammation out. A buildup of inflammation in one spot puts pressure on cell receptors eliciting a pain response. 

Education - the point of this post. The human body is incredibly resilient. It has its natural healing processes in place. Let it do its thing but give it a little LOVE. 

Load - following tissue trauma, a new normal is established through properly dosed loading. Tissues will adapt if consistently loaded over time. 

Optimism - no substitute for a positive mental attitude. People that believe they are going to get better often do. Instead of reaching for doom and gloom (catastrophizing - focusing on the negative, depression, stressing over the things you won’t be able to do, the work you can’t get done, etc.), focus on what you can do each day to better your situation. One day at a time, live in that headspace.

Vascularization - pain free cardio is one of the best tools for injury recovery. Cardio releases endorphins which activate the body’s opioid receptors producing a pain-relieving effect. That’s why we try to have all of our clients participate in some form of cardio regularly. That’s why cardio is the number 1 recommendation for chronic pain.

Exercise - restore range of motion, muscle recruitment patterns, strength, power, and proprioception. Active people require active solutions.