How To Help Your Diabetic Feet And Legs Or Recover From A Leg Injury
You might have pins and needles, pain or numbness in your feet. Maybe you fell and bruised or broke you leg. And so maybe you can’t walk so well right now.
But, here’s the thing: Don’t stop moving.
You might not be able to walk or stand right now but can you still move your feet and legs?
If yes, that’s great! Here are some ideas to keep the blood flowing and the muscles moving. (Even a little movement is better than none at all.)
1. You can shake your feet from side to side, or roll your legs from side to side when you are in bed. Pretend your feet are windshield wipers on a car. Swipe one at a time from side to side. When you move your feet like that it also moves all the muscles in your whole leg and even in your hip!
Can’t swim? No problem! Water is a great resistance tool for exercising and almost anyone can enjoy it.
When you are in water, movement becomes easier because the water supports you. Gravity cannot pull so much on your joints. The spaces between your spine bones can actually get more open.
Water resists your movements. That’s what strengthens your muscles. The water acts as a resistance tool.
And it just plain feels good! Here’s the video:
If you cannot go into the deeper end of the pool, don’t worry. You can do most of these movements in the shallower end, too.
And something else you can do in the shallow end is resistance walking. Just walk pressing your legs (and maybe your arms, too) against the water with forward movements. Use your whole foot to walk and push off with your toes.
Here are some of the reasons I love doing water exercises.
It’s easier to move your joints in the water.
You don’t sweat while you are working out.
It’s refreshing.
You get a good workout.
If you are outside, you are getting your Vitamin D and that’s really important!
I really did learn to swim by watching turtles and I’m not really a mermaid. But it’s fun to pretend and you can, too!
Do you start having back pain when you are sitting for a while? Here are a few quick tips that can help.
Here are some arm movements to do when you are home or work. They will help relax the muscles around your chest, shoulders, arms and upper back.
Pretend an arm is a windmill. If you can, rotate your arm in a full (or pretty full) circle. Go forward and then backward. Always do a new movement thoughtfully and gently and see how it feels to you.
Noodle is a type of stretching movement to do at home unless you have a private office at work. It will help you open and stretch your chest muscles.
Also, imagine there are long, strong cords attached to your breastbone and to the crown of your head and they are pulling you up to heaven.
Do you feel that correction to your posture as you imagine those cords pulling straight up? Your chest lifts and your natural curve returns to your lower back behind your waist. 🙂 Your head moves back over your body where it belongs.
A rolled towel placed behind your waist when you are seated will also help you sit up straighter.
Now you have some nice and easy ways to correct your posture when you are sitting.
Do you have pain in your breast that’s in about the same pattern as the deep red in the picture?
All the little red dots indicate a typical area of discomfort but the more solid red indicates an area of more pain.
You have muscles behind your breast tissue in your chest. You might not have thought of muscles causing your breast pain. Most people don’t. Not even most doctors.
Regardless, muscles are responsible for most pain, one way or another.
Do you see the “X“? That is the location of a trigger point. A trigger point is an area of extremely irritated soft tissue that causes or “triggers” pain at a distance away from itself.
The X is where you want to focus. The muscle that harbors the trigger point is on your chest, on the ribs, toward your armpit.
How can you treat the X–the trigger point-to get rid of the muscle pain behind your breast?
You may be able to apply pressure from the outside of your chest. Just press into the tissue. It’ll be tender. Tender means the muscle is “too tight.”
But if you are the one doing the pressing you can easily control the amount of pressure. You definitely want it to be uncomfortable.
If you don’t feel any discomfort it won’t help. If it’s too much discomfort, it won’t help as much as if you keep it around a “7” out of “10.”
That’s the goal whether you do this yourself or have a professional massage therapist or someone else help you.
Alternatively, you can reach behind your chest muscle from the armpit side. Curl your fingers toward your heart to catch the muscle. Pull the muscle toward your breastbone. See if you can get your fingers into a tender place.
This is not a job for people with long fingernails! Ouch! 🙂
You can help the muscle with the trigger point relax by massaging, pressing or pushing into it where the X is. Hold the pressure for about 12 seconds. You can always go back and do it again.
When the muscles on your chest relax, the pain from the trigger point will start to go away.
That’s how you can get rid of the muscle pain behind your breast naturally.
How can you get rid of pain in your muscles and joints? Would you believe me if I said it’s fairly simple? All you have to do is…
Exactly what your body wants you to do! 🙂
Truly, your body has certain things that it needs and wants. When you don’t hand them over, it gets cranky. And when your body is complaining it makes you hurt.
What does your body need?
Realfood. There are tons of reasons not to eat highly processed food-type items that were made in factories.
And here’s a thought:
If you had the choice of a luscious salad with a mix of fresh ingredients or a piece of cake, which would you choose? Which do you think your body would choose? Why?
Here’s another thought:
If I offered you pancakes made with white flour, egg whites and fake maple syrup made with high fructose corn syrup and artificial color and artificial flavor, would you choose that? Or would you choose whole eggs, whole grain toast with real butter and a piece of fruit?
Which would your body choose? Be honest.
When we don’t feed our bodies what they want, here’s what we get: Fat. Sick. Old.
Think about your car. Your car needs the correct fuel to operate properly. You wouldn’t put milk in your car because that isn’t the right fuel.
You need the correct fuel, too.
Think about what Grandma ate and you will be much, much closer to real food. (If Grandma had enough money and food, she ate whole eggs, right? And meat with fat? That’s the way God made them.)
Movement. You were built to move but most of us spend way too much time sitting. Bodies don’t like that.
If you are slumping and have back pain, I can help.
Your poor back muscles are complaining. They hate being stretched when your heavy head is out in front of your body. It’s supposed to be over your body.
But lots of positions that we work or sit in let our heads move forward. Not good.
And, lots of times we get into habits like sitting on our tailbones instead of on our sit-bones. Also, not good.
But, here’s an easy way to improve your posture and start to feel better.
Think “long in front and strong in back.” That’s the goal–long muscles in the front of your body and arms and a strong backside from knees to head.
Here’s a little video to help you get started:
Whenever you do a new movement, do it thoughtfully. Pay attention to your body.
Where are you feeling the stretch? How does it feel? How much is enough?
When you do the movement in this video gravity works with you. That’s a really good thing because most of the time gravity is not your friend.
You can also place the noodle off-center and use it as a pivot point to get even more stretch in your chest muscles. Place the noodle lengthwise along your spine but between one shoulder blade and your spine. And don’t do this until your chest muscles have adapted to the movement in the video.
I’d love it if you leave a comment here and let me know how this simple method of improving your posture worked for you.
Remember, bodies are logical. If you do certain things that they don’t like they will complain. They will give you pain. 🙁
Lengthening the front of your body and stretching your chest muscles will help you get rid of the pain in your back caused by poor posture. 🙂
You need energy to get through the day. But you are so tired!
Here’s how you can have the energy to carry on:
Eat real food–things that grew instead of things that grow in boxes.
Make water your beverage of choice. Lots.
Use your body every day–stretch and move.
Get enough sleep. At least 7 to 8 hours a night.
Turn off the news. No news is good news.
Consider taking a good multivitamin and mineral supplement. Seriously.
It takes energy to be able to keep on going and feel your best.
When you take good care of your beautiful body you will have the energy you need. It won’t happen overnight. It took a while for you to get to this point.
But if you take these action steps you WILL start to feel better and have more energy naturally. 🙂
Arthritis is probably the most common word that doctors use. Just because something is stiff or hurts that doesn’t mean it’s arthritis. It could be out of balance or tight muscles pulling over that joint.
Muscles are the most common cause of aches and pains. Out of balance muscles actually cause arthritis!
There’s a really good chance that your posture is to blame. Muscles and joints get strained and achey when posture is poor. Try these tips for better posture:
If you suffer from pain in your lower back and neck you can benefit from a lumbar support pillow. It’s easy to make your own and it’s a good way to get natural back pain relief.
Do you have a stiff neck? Here are eight ways you can get that tight neck loosened up.
1. Massage. If you have massage, does your massage therapist massage, warm and loosen the muscles on the front of your chest and arms and abdomen? Does she or he or has anyone checked to see whether you have flat arches on your feet? Did you know that flat feet can cause neck pain?
2. Posture corrections. Neck muscles can pull your head forward. I hope your massage therapist works on the muscles in the front of your neck and chest and on the sides of your neck and not just in the back? Do you Continue reading “Stiff Neck? 8 Tips To Get Rid Of Pain In Your Neck”
Tension headaches should really be called Muscle Tension Headaches. They happen when we do things that tighten the muscles that attach at the base of the head. What are some of these things?
1. Driving. Most car seats tilt back too far or have headrests that push your head forward. Either of these will strain the muscles that cause tension headaches.
2. Couches (sofas) and chairs that have too much backward lean.
3. Slouching or sitting on your tailbone with a rounded back. Slouching or leaning sideways will do it, too.
4. Forward head posture or holding your head in front of your body.
Muscle spasms are contractions in your muscle. Imagine you are flexing your upper arm by bending your elbow. Your bicep muscle will pop up. It is contracted or in contraction.
At the very same time, the muscle in the back of your arm is also going into a different type of contraction. It has to. That’s how muscles work.
When a muscle stays contracted for a long time it can develop a fairly constant but reversible spasm.
