4 Reasons Why You’re Still Hurting
People who are more active, are more likely to gain injures. That’s just the way things go, as these people are putting their bodies through more stress and pressure, which can lead to the odd strain and sprain. This is normal, however, what isn’t normal is when your minor sprain that should have healed within two weeks is still causing you discomfort a month down the line.
Having lingering injuries that overstay their welcome can be really detrimental to your training and fitness, not to mention your mental wellbeing. Here’s four potential reasons why your recovery process may be taking too long.
Not Stretching
One of the best ways to reduce the time spent recovering is to start stretching the effected area, once it’s strong enough to do so. The reason why stretching helps is because when injured, muscles and ligaments can become tight and inflexible, which contributes to them losing their strength.
The best types of stretching to do when recovering is slow, low impact static stretching, as it doesn’t put too much stress on the affected area and gradually helps build the strength and coordination. It’s always important to know that you shouldn’t stretch until a week after the injury, so that it’s healed sufficiently, as stretching too early can cause greater harm.
Not Sleeping Enough
Your body tissue needs a chance to recover, and the most optimal time your body gets to do this is when you’re sleeping. As we sleep and dream, our brain triggers the much-needed hormones that boost the repairing process, and also produces more white blood cells to help with our immune system and aid with healing.
It’s said that anything less than 7 hours of sleep can lower the amount of blood vessels we have, which are essential for recovery, by a third. It’s also said through Matthew Milewski’s study that a minimum of eight hours of sleep a day can help athletes prevent the risk of injury.
Misdiagnoses
Sometimes the doctors get it wrong, and you may end up not getting the right treatment for your injury, simply because they missed it. This can happen for a variety of injuries but depending on how serious the injury and how much harm missing this issue has caused to your body and your health, you may have grounds to make a medical malpractice claim. There’s plenty of ways to get help with medical malpractice, such as contacting an experienced solicitor who’ll be able to guide you through the process and help you fix this prolonged issue.
Your Immune System isn’t Helping Enough
The strength of your immune system helps determine how quickly your damaged tissue will heal, as different immune cells can help in various stages of the healing and repair process. This means, that if the immune system is already fighting something else, like a cold or a bug of some sort, then there will be a natural delay in the recovery of your injury.
There are plenty of ways to help give your immune system a boost to make it more effective in dealing with injuries, with the most recommend aid being to consume green vegetables and colorful berries.