Pain can be experienced as a result of old age, physical illness, extensive exercise, strained muscles or broken bones.
Supermarkets and pharmacies have aisles and aisles of pills, powders and bandages to help with pain relief. Some common pain relief medication can cause mild side effects like drowsiness or nausea. Other pain relief medications are prescribed and can have even more serious side effects. Drugs like vicodin and percocet are prescription, heavy duty narcotic pain relief pills that are addictive and dangerous if not taken carefully. A safer option for society’s pain relief is the variety of all natural products. These all natural products aid in pain relief for muscle and joint pain, as well as relax the body for a general improvement of the body and soul. Some examples of natural pain relief products are vitamins, supplements, herbs, ointments, creams and even bath formulas to reduce inflammation.
Natural Pain Relief Safety and Benefits
Pain can be experienced as a result of old age, physical illness, extensive exercise, overwork, heavy lifting, strained muscles or broken bones. Pain triggers a region of the brain known as the lateral occipital complex, reducing a person’s ability to concentrate and accurately recognize images, i.e. our ability to think and perceive properly. Pain also interferes with our ability to cope with life emotionally, e.g. sadness, irritation and perhaps depression and hopelessness. Supermarkets and pharmacies have aisles and aisles of pills, powders and bandages to help with pain relief. Some common pain relief medication can cause mild side effects like drowsiness or nausea. Other pain relief medications are prescribed and can have even more serious side effects. Drugs like vicodin and percocet are prescription, heavy duty narcotic pain relief pills that are addictive and dangerous if not taken carefully. New studies suggest those drugs that block pain could also be stimulating receptors that cause pain as well.
A safer option for society’s pain relief is the variety of all natural products. These all natural products aid in pain relief for muscle and joint pain, as well as relax the body for a general improvement of the body and soul. Some examples of natural pain relief products are vitamins, supplements, herbs, ointments, creams and even bath formulas to reduce inflammation
Both glucosamine and chondroiton are a nutritional approach to maintaining the fluids needed to lubricate joints and cartilage. . Glucosamine is an amino found in the body that stimulates growth of new cartilage and can also help to reduce joint pain. People using glucosamine experienced as much pain relief as those taking over-the-counter medications. Antioxidants such as glutathione can help tissue recover from inflammation. The antioxidant acetyl-cystine, a precursor to glutathione, can reduce pain from nerve damage. There are widely known natural and herbal remedies for pain relief. These include varying dosages and combinations of “Devil’s Claw”, Willow Bark, Boswellia, Camomile, Bromelain, Oil of Oregano, Nettle leaf, St. John’s Wort, arnica gel, celadrin, hyaluronic acid, collagen, msm and natural pain relief formulas to reduce neuropathic pain.
Bromelain is particularly useful for reducing muscle and tissue inflammation and as a digestive aid. Supplements are made from enzymes found in the pineapple stem. Bromelain is believed to be an effective blood thinner and anti-inflammatory that works by breaking down fibrin, a blood-clotting protein that can interfere with good circulation and stop tissues from releasing used material and toxins properly. Bromelain also blocks the production of compounds that can cause swelling and pain. When inflammation is reduced, blood can move more easily to a traumatized area, Bomelain can help reduce muscle and joint pain, reduce swelling, bruising, redness and drain excess fluid from the injured area.
Sleep disturbance is one of the most common experiences for people with chronic pain. It may not always be that the pain itself prevents a good night’s sleep. Some studies suggest that poor sleep makes the pain worse. In fact, one study in healthy men found they grew more sensitive to painful stimuli when deprived of sleep. There are many natural sleep aids available to facilitate a good night’s sleep that do not carry the risk of morning after drowsiness, dependence, or impaired thinking or physical ability.
As mentioned earlier, pain can also interfere with one’s ability to cope emotionally, concentrate, and perceive properly. Pain may arouse fear, sadness, irritation, moderate depression and decrease one’s ability to give and hold attention. There are a wide variety of natural supplements and formulas to help increase oxygen and serotonin to our brain to help us remain calm and alert. These natural supplements include may also be pain relieving as well as mood enhancing at the same time e.g. St. John’s Wort, acytl-cystine, and other antioxidants and amino acids that improve general circulation and promote healing as well as enhancing brain function.
Hydrotherapy, i.e. the use of water for relieving stress, tension, and muscle aches, is an ancient and widely used form of natural pain relief. There are natural elements that can be added to our warm, soaking baths to increase water’s natural ability to relieve pain. There are also many aromatherapy bath products, e.g. sea salts, minerals, and oils, that not only help with pain relief but also provide therapeutic aromas that help soothe our emotional well being and emotional ability to cope with pain.
There are many topical and ingestion natural supplements and formulas available to help us relieve and cope with pain. These natural substances do not present a risk of harmful or unwanted side effects e.g. dependence, drowsiness, pain increase, etc., as do some prescription synthetic drugs. Natural pain relief supplements can actually help eliminate the source and cause of pain, i.e. aid healing, as well as reducing the feeling and experience of pain. Often natural pain relief supplements provide additional benefits, beyond pain relief, for improving our overall health in general.
How to Use Water for Natural Stress and Pain Relief
We all experience some form of stress in our lives. Clinically, stress is a negative element that can threaten our physical and emotional health. One form of stress can diminish our resistance to other forms of stress. Therefore, stress seems to take on a momentum or it’s own i.e. stress can cause more stress. When our healthy resistance, i.e. our immune system, begins to break down under too much stress, physical damage and disease results. In addition to physical stress e.g. sore muscles, pain, aches, tension, overexertion, exercise and inactivity that causes back pain, minor strains and sprains, we also experience emotional stress as well. Emotional stress can come from many sources. Emotional stress, as we know, comes from discord in our work and personal relationships, economic pressure, loss, grief, anger, fear, etc. Over time, stress actually builds up toxic deposits in our cells. Stress can create physical pain and chronic fatigue that leaves us without energy or rest, leaving us accident prone and effects our emotional and cognitive abilities leading to even more stress. Again, stress builds upon itself and causes a vicious cycle. Our lives can be charted in a energy wave pattern with healthy activity being at the high point of the wave and rest being at the lower point of the wave. If one phase suffers, it effects the other phase. Our energy wave pattern becomes almost flat. We then experience restlessness, lack of energy, depression, insomnia, muscles tension, less frustration tolerance, exaggeration of emotional reaction e.g. constant anger of a feeling of our wanting to cry constantly. This in turn strains our work and personal relationship and our relationship with ourselves. Sleep and relaxation interrupts this vicious cycle of stress and restore a healthy energy wave pattern of activity and rest which interrupts stress building on itself and causing us to experience emotional and physical distress. Water can play a vital natural role in helping us experience the rest and relaxation we need to end the cycle of stress and pain we are experiencing.
Our natural, innate relationship with water is both primordial and present. We live in water for months before we are born. Our bodies are composed of a large amount of water. We could say that we are water. We all know the natural attraction we have to creeks, lakes, and the ocean. Although not always in our conscious awareness, we instinctively “know” that water is vital and “alive”. All our physical, intellectual, and emotional functions are modalities of water functions. Water provides all living things/beings with a flow of nutrients as well as a means of elimination. All living forms exist within the Earth’s great hydrosystem. Water is the origin and present source of all life. In a full hot bath we become surrounded by water, the source of all life. This stimulates our primordial security feelings and responses and provides us with comfort, relaxation, and pleasure. Heated water relaxes our muscle tension that restricts fluid and energy flow. The magnetic fields of our nervous system flow through the surrounding water malecules. We experience the profound and relieving effects of water’s releasing us from stress and pain.
We can turn our bath into a therapeutic anti-stress, anti-pain treatment. Our bathroom should be warm and we should have clean towels and a robe ready for coming out of our bath. We just fill our tubs with hot water increasing or decreasing the temperature as is comfortable for us. When our tub is as full as we can get it, without running over as we get into it, is the right temperature for us, we can note the time. We need to stay in the bath for 15 to 20 minutes, not longer. Submerge yourself with only your head above water. Let your thoughts drift into the quietness of your awareness of your breathing in and out. Inhale and exhale fully, which releases tension from our muscles. Relax into the water and become “one” with the water. Add hot water if you need it, but beyond that, stay as still as possible. When time as passed, rise slowly and towel off lightly and put on the robe. This process will greatly help reduce stress, break the stress cycle, and allow our bodies to fall into a deeper rest. Regular use of anti-stress, anti-pain bath will release many stress factors through relaxation. This allows us to recover our energy and stimulate a stronger natural resistence, enhance our immune system and recover our health.
We can further enhance the effectiveness of water’s stress and pain reduction by adding herbal extracts and essential oils to our therapeutic bath. Herbal extracts and essential oils are made from natural plans by various means of distillation. Essential oils, e.g. Lavender, provide a relaxing aroma that in itself reduces stress and pain. These essential oils are used in the treatment modality of aromatherapy and can be added to our bath water for added benefit. We can also use aromatherapy candles by our bath to add even more effective benefits to our therapeutic bath experience. Aromatherpy candles add a soothing light and aroma to ease stress and pain.
In natural thermal pools found in nature are many dissolved minerals that also have an effective therapeutic benefit. Minerals play an important role in water conditioning. Natural sodium (salt) minerals such as sodium borate, sodium caronate, and sodium cloride neutralize metals and provide a mild electrolyte solutions which disperses botanicals evenly throughout the water and helps attract the botanical molecules to our skin. Aromatherapy bath salts and minerals added to our bath water helps us receive full benefit from aromatherapy essential oils that we have added to our bath
Water is a powerful therapeutic natural source of stress and pain relief. We are water. Water is life. We often take this for granted and therefore do not make full use of this natural healing agent. Many of us do not even drink enough water. If we are wanting to manage stress or to break a vicious stress cycle, we need only remember that water is a powerful resource. The next time we are feeling stress, we can remember to simply wash our hands, splash some water on our faces, or take a soothing drink of water. If possible spend time with creeks, rivers, and where possible with the ocean. If possible, we can introduce swimming to our exercise program. If this is not possible, we can naturally soak away stress and pain with hot baths enhanced with aromatherapy bath salts, aromatherapy mineral baths, aromatherapy essential oils or stress and pain formulas specially designed to be used with water such as ABRA Herbal Hydrotherapy Muscle Bath or ABRA Hydrotherapy Stress Bath.
MSM for Natural Pain Relief, Tissue Repair, and General Health
Methylsulfonymethane, i.e. MSM, is a naturally occurring sulfur compound. MSM comes from plankton which releases dimethylsulfonium into the water. It is then oxidized into MSM as it reaches the surface of the water due to the presence of ozone and ultraviolet light. MSM then dissolves into the atmosphere moisture and returns to the earth in the form of rain and snow. Plants then absorb MSM into their structure. In the plant MSM and other minerals are bonded with carbon making them into a compound that animals and humans can absorb. MSM is essential for our nutrition. It is found in every cell in our bodies and is a vitally important for the structure and function of other compounds such as hormones, enzymes, antibodies, antioxidants, collagen and immunoglobulin. MSM maintains cell membrane flexibility and permeability helping to make the exchanges of nutrients and waste products function effeciently.
People have sought out hot springs containing large amounts of natural sulphur to soothe muscle aches and pains. In addition, we have obtained MSM from the food that we eat. However, now in an age of fast and processed foods, our foods no longer contain enough MSM for our bodies to use to repair connective tissue and muscle wear and tear that results in joint, back and muscles pain. Health authorities and doctors have recognized the benefit of MSM supplements in the treatment of pain. We are often able to lower the dosage of prescription pain medication with its possible harmful side effects, with the addition of MSM supplements to our diet. Prescription pain medications block our brains from perceiving pain, whereas, MSM repairs the tissue injury that originally caused the pain. Since MSM is essential for connective tissue health, it is very effective in treating the inflammation of arthritis and joint injury with it’s accompanying pain. MSM helps improve joint flexibility, reduce stiffness and swelling, improves circulation, reduces scar tissue, dissolves calcium deposits, and prevents cartilage degeneration. MSM also appears to inhibit pain impulses along nerves.
In addition to pain relief and tissue repair, MSM provides raw materials to create new cells to repair organ tissue. MSM helps with energy as a componenet of insulin and a prerequisite for normal carbohydrate metabolism. As plants absorb MSM from the soil they change them into amino acids such as methionine, cysteine and taurine that protect against radiation and chelate heavy metals for elimination from our bodies. MSM also contains keratin which is a protein that is the primary component of skin, nails, hair and teeth. Collagen, found in MSM, is a protein that forms bones, tendons and connective tissue and is the building block for tendons ligaments, heart valves, membranes, eyes and skin. MSM is also helpful in preventing nail and hair breakage and splitting as well as promoting the growth of hair and nails. MSM has been used to treat systemic lupus erythematosus, to prevent the onset of breast and colon cancer and to lessen or cure parasitic, microbial and fungal infections. MSM has been used to treat asthma because it regulates the fluid that covers the airway surface of the lungs, prevents an inflammatory response and helps to regulate the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. MSM helps alleviate allergies by detoxifying cells and eliminating free radicals. MSM is a natural and effective source of organic sulfur found in keratin and collagen which helps slow down the effect of aging on our skin and repairs skin damage.
For those of us who experience pain associated with joints and muscles due to aging or to strenuous work and activity, MSM provides us with an effective way to keep our connective tissue repaired and pain free. MSM also provides safe way to prevent and treat pain as studies has shown that no toxic effects due to MSM have been found in human use of MSM supplements. It seems like a natural occurring substance that repairs the tissue damage that is the original source of pain is a more wise choice than synthetic prescription pain medication that only masks the pain and does not address the original source of pain. MSM can be taken internally in capsule form or applied directly to a painful area with topical formulas containing MSM.
Tags: Amino Acids, anti stress, Aromatherapy, Depression, Herbs, hydrosystem, hydrotherapy, natural pain relief, sleep, Vitamins