If your joints hurt without having had direct injury, you may have arthritis. All arthritis starts with stress that triggers inflammation which then manifests as pain. There are no exceptions! Certain triggering events can happen—a fall, a car accident, surgery, etc.—but underneath all the pain and discomfort are these players of stress and inflammation. Without inflammation there is no pain. Without stress there is no inflammation. Knowing this, let’s explore the best practices for keeping your joints as happy and healthy as possible.
Move the joints. By including low-impact activities like walking, cycling, and water exercises you keep blood flowing to the affected areas. More blood flow means more nutrients and more oxygen. By strengthening the muscles surrounding the joint, you can relieve much of the pain without any prescriptions. For instance, if your knee is “bone on bone” with no cartilage to cushion each step, you can walk backwards on a treadmill set at a pretty steep incline. Be sure to hold on for balance. This builds up your quadricep muscles that help support the knees naturally. Even though it will be uncomfortable to do squats with lower back or knee pain, doing them (correctly) will strengthen your pelvic floor which supports your lower back, and strengthen the muscles that support your knees. Start with ten and work up to one hundred daily! It doesn’t matter if it takes you five years to achieve this, because after all, you will be using your joints till the end of your days. They may as well feel better.
The final reason to move your hips, knees, shoulders, waist, elbows, wrists and ankles is that when you are moving these joints, proprioceptors are going to the brain to create a sense of calm and wellbeing. In the reverse, when you sit for more than an hour at a time without moving these large joints, they will begin firing chemicals called nociceptors to the brain which cause the body to flip into a stress state. Since stress is the underlying culprit in joint pain and arthritis, move all your big joints every hour or so. This can look like squats, arm circles, touching your toes, ankle rolls, arms stretching overhead, waist twists, and wrist twirls.
Eat foods daily that are anti-inflammatory in nature. These include berries, grapes, plums, lime, honeydew melon, red cabbage, artichoke, asparagus, broccoli, Brussels sprout, cabbage, green beans, okra, lettuce, leeks, watercress, zucchini, dark cherries, and cauliflower. Spices that are anti-inflammatory include curcumin, ginger, cinnamon, Boswellia, black pepper, garlic, and oregano. Other foods that are anti-inflammatory include oily fish and avocados that are high in Omega3 fats (if you can’t eat fish, try our Omega3 gummies or capsules) green tea, dark chocolate and raw cocoa. These foods discourage inflammation in the joints.
Try taking natural supplements instead of over-the-counter pain relievers like Aleve, Motrin, or Tylenol. Glucosamine is a building block that helps form cartilage—that cushioning substance in your joints. Glucosamine reduces pain and improves joint function. Turmeric is a time-honored herb used to support overall wellness and battle inflammation with its main chemical ingredient, curcumin. (Try our Turmeric supplement!) DHA is an Omega3 fatty acid that helps with arthritis by reducing inflammation, reducing the breakdown of cartilage, and counteracting the inflammatory molecules called cytokines and prostaglandins, all of which are key players in the destructive cycle of arthritis. (EPA/DHA Omega 3) Devil’s Claw is an African herb used for centuries. It has strong anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties that help reduce pain. Serrapeptase helps control inflammation and pain by reducing prostaglandins. Prostaglandins are hormone-like fats that regulate inflammation and pain. White Willow Bark Extract helps reduce pain, swelling, and stiffness in the joints. Ginger Root is a powerful pain reliever, so it works well on arthritic conditions. In a 2020 trial study that compared the benefits of naproxen (a commercial pain reliever) with a combination of ginger, black pepper, and curcumin, scientists found that the herbal combination was just as effective in reducing inflammation and pain in arthritis when taken twice a day for four weeks. (For an amazing supplement that contains eight different, natural anti-inflammatory herbs and spices, try this: Muscle & Tissue)
Sleep well. Stress hormones are dismantled during deep sleep, and the body has a chance to repair damaged tissues that cause pain. Getting a full eight hours of deep, restorative sleep will do wonders for your pain levels. (To help get you to sleep and keep you asleep, try this product: Sleep MAXX)
Red Light Therapy utilizes specific wavelengths of red and near-infrared light to penetrate the skin and stimulate cellular processes. This enhances mitochondrial function which helps repair and regenerate damaged tissues and increase energy production. By modulating inflammation and promoting healing, red light therapy can help with the pain of arthritis.
As you can see, there are many ways to reduce the inflammation and pain of arthritic conditions naturally without any side effects, so you can get back to your happy and healthy life with less pain and more joy!