Exercise
Did you know pain is the top reason people seek healthcare services and a leading cause of disability worldwide? A report published in the Lancet Journals reveals that pain causes intense personal and economic burden, affecting over 30% of people globally. If uncontrolled, pain reduces the quality of life, leading to chronic diseases like hypertension, depression, sleep disorders, and even immobility. While medicine is the first choice for fixing the underlying cause of pain, sometimes eating a balanced diet and exercising go a long way in reducing it.
How does nutrition and physical activity ease the pain? This article will explain why a balanced diet and exercise are crucial for pain management.
How a Balanced Diet Affects Pain
If you do a quick online search for tips for maintaining a healthy lifestyle, the first recommendation you will see is eating healthy. You know the connection between a balanced diet and overall physical health. But have you ever thought of how your diet influences pain?
Chances are you have experienced pain when you eat certain foods. That is because some foods can increase inflammation while others reduce it. For instance, if you eat red meat and foods high in processed sugar, fat, or carbohydrate proportions, you will likely experience pain because these foods are pro-inflammatory or increase inflammation. On the flip side, a balanced diet that consists of foods rich in proteins, healthy fats, vitamins, and minerals helps control pain.
Understanding Inflammation and Anti-inflammatory Foods
What exactly is inflammation, and which foods are anti-inflammatory? When you have a wound, bruise, or fractured bone caused by an injury, the body responds naturally through inflammation. Although inflammation promotes healing, chronic inflammation causes pain and destroys healthy cells.
To counteract the effects of inflammation, body cells, including immune cells, require adequate nutrients. This outcome means you must stick to a balanced diet, which entails eating proportions of anti-inflammatory foods rich in nutrients and antioxidants. Maintaining an anti-inflammatory diet can help reduce pain associated with disorders like fibromyalgia, arthritis, osteoporosis, and rheumatoid. Examples of anti-inflammatory foods include:
- Fatty fish like salmon, tuna, and sardines
- Fruits (cherries, grapes, avocados, apples, and oranges)
- Turmeric
- Mushrooms
- Whole grains
- Proteins (poultry, beans, gluten-free oats, nuts, lentils, and eggs)
- Vegetables (kale and spinach)
- Legumes
These anti-inflammatory foods are rich in antioxidants and nutrients that help reduce inflammation and pain while promoting healing. For example, fatty fish (which contains Omega-3 fatty acids) and fortified dairy products are rich in vitamin D, essential for improving bone health. A deficiency in vitamin D increases pain sensitivity. Therefore, consuming foods that provide vitamin D and exposure to sunlight can help reduce pain and inflammation. Likewise, magnesium-rich foods like leafy greens, whole grains, nuts, and seeds, help relax muscles and lower pain. Besides eating nutritious meals, you must keep your body hydrated.
Role of Hydration in Pain Management
When you drink water, you are not just quenching thirst. Staying hydrated helps the body flush out toxins that increase inflammation. Drinking water also helps reduce friction around bones, thus reducing joint pain. How? Water acts as a lubricant around joints and helps cushion them to reduce friction and pain. This effect means dehydration can increase joint pain and cause muscle cramps. With that said, always drink enough water and incorporate hydrating foods like oranges, watermelons, and cucumbers into your diet.
Exercise and Pain Management
Many people respond to pain by reducing physical activity or becoming inactive. However, resting for an extended period can interfere with healing and worsen pain. Typically, a sedentary lifestyle leads to weight gain, which puts stress on joints and causes chronic pain. Being overweight also contributes to the development of diabetes and cardiovascular disorders that trigger inflammation in the body. A series of studies published on the Utah State University website reveal that physical activity decreases the risk of chronic pain and helps manage existing pain.
How Exercise Controls Pain
Did you know when you exercise, the brain produces more endocannabinoids (your body’s natural painkiller)? In short, exercise is a natural pain relief medicine. Remember, your daily exercise routine should not be an all-cardio workout. A simple workout like walking can improve your health and lower the risk of pain, as it helps the body release endorphins.
Endorphins are hormones that stimulate a feeling like morphine, which eases pain in the body. Physical activity also reduces pain by:
- Building muscle strength and flexibility prevents muscle atrophy or degeneration, often leading to pain.
- Reducing fatigue.
- Increasing anti-inflammatory cytokines that promote tissue healing, thus reducing inflammation.
Based on the above, exercise can be an alternative treatment for chronic pain. So, do not be surprised if your doctor provides a daily workout plan, medication, and a healthy diet to ease your pain. According to OKspinepain.com, a combination of medical intervention, lifestyle changes, and supportive care can help you manage chronic pain effectively and experience lasting relief. With time, exercising improves your health and body mobility. As a result, you will notice decreased levels of pain and inflammation.
Conclusion
Eating a balanced diet and engaging in physical activity should not be an option. Nutrition and exercise are crucial for maintaining a healthy lifestyle and managing pain. Pain is how you respond to injuries such as cuts, bruises, and burns. Tissue inflammation caused by conditions like arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes, or osteoporosis also results in chronic pain. However, you might experience pain because of poor lifestyle choices, mainly eating less nutritious food and being inactive.
For this reason, consider eating foods rich in nutrients and staying active to prevent pain. Typically, nutrient-rich foods contain antioxidants that help eliminate toxins in the body, thus reducing inflammation. As for physical activity, workouts trigger the brain to produce the body’s natural painkiller – endocannabinoids and prevent muscle degeneration and inflammation.
