Cold Weather and Arthritis | 5 Tips for Preventing Pain
Are painful arthritis flare-ups keeping you from doing the things you enjoy during the winter? Unfortunately, cold, damp weather and inactivity can both contribute to joint stiffness and discomfort. If this sounds all too familiar to you, don’t miss these quick tips for preventing arthritis pain in cold weather:
Keep Moving
While it might seem more pertinent to hunker down under a warm blanket at home during cold days, it is widely known that physical activity plays a key role in keeping joints loose and mobilized. Find a way to exercise each day, even if it’s just for 15 minutes at a time. Try going for a walk, practicing yoga, swimming, biking, or even simply exercising at home with a stability ball and resistance bands.
Wear Layers
Heavy winter clothes may feel great at first, but they can quickly increase your body temperature and actually leave you sweating underneath them. When that moisture on your body mixes with cool air, you have a recipe for freezing and making your joint pain worse. Opt instead to wear multiple light, breathable layers of clothing when heading out on cold days and always cover vulnerable joints with gloves and other accessories to keep them warm.
Update Your Arthritis Toolbox
Invest in basic tools that simplify daily tasks that can become more difficult during arthritis flare-ups. For example, a soft, wide handle grip that you slide over utensils like a fork or toothbrush can make it easier to eat and brush your teeth when your hands are sore and stiff. Tools like jar openers, reacher grabbers, button hooks, and dressing sticks can help too.
Get a Massage
Massage therapy has long been touted as an effective method for managing arthritis symptoms and for good reason. Massage can loosen tight muscles that are constricting joint motion and it can boost blood circulation and trigger the brain to release feel-good hormones. You can turn the heat up on a professional massage too with warm oils, hot towels, and even hot stones.
Eat Warm Foods
Oftentimes the foods that are promoted to help relieve inflammation are also those that generate thermogenic (temperature increasing) properties in the body. Ginger, cayenne, and turmeric, for example, have been shown to help relax and expand blood vessels for improved blood flow that benefits arthritic joints. Try them in a warming winter tea or soup.
Guest Blog: How Well Nursing Education Can Benefit You?
Nursing education applies to formal nursing science education and training. It includes the tasks and obligations of physical care for patients and several various fields that facilitate and help support a patient’s health. Over the years, there have been striking shifts in nursing education. A relentless fight for autonomy and professionalism exposes this past. There have been many strains on nursing practice in the past, including women’s struggle for professional recognition and rank, faith, war, technology, and social attitudes. And today, those variables continue to affect nursing.
Many looking to start or improve their careers in our increasingly fast-paced and busy world want as many opportunities as possible to get their education. Remarkably after recent world health events have changed so much in our everyday lives, it is more important than ever that schools allow potential students to earn their degrees while maintaining life’s other responsibilities. More and more schools are introducing online options that will enable students to complete their coursework when and where it works for them, whether you’re a single parent or need to work while you finish your education. Create a transition that you would like to create. But for nurses, does this apply, and, if so, how does it work? Many online schools allow nursing students to earn online, though not entirely, the associate, bachelor, or master’s degree. You will also need to acquire experience to prepare you to work directly with patients in the field since nursing is a hands-on career. So, though you can take much of your classroom coursework online, you will need to complete in-person clinics. If you already have an associate’s degree, a valid RN license, and a minimum amount of clinical hours under your belt, an exception maybe. You may find bachelor’s degree programs exclusively online. They will provide you with advanced nursing theory education and train you to take on higher responsibilities and management positions. Online programs allow students to obtain knowledge without giving up other things that matter in their lives. Online students also have full-time work prospects, save time and money on commuting, and don’t have to break their commitments to other responsibilities. Students taking online courses will also benefit from having the lectures of their professors in written form.
Benefits of nursing education:
Nursing has profound social implications. No, we’re not talking about Facebook, Twitter, or other social media, but rather nursing’s intrinsic social context. In its mission to support the public interest, nursing is accountable to society, specifically our society’s overall health. Nursing is a very fulfilling profession. Then a job as a public health nurse can appeal to you if you want to give back to your community. A public health nurse also works in undeserved environments, usually with low-income communities, reaching out to patients who need care. Your roles can include working at events to inform community members in your local area about health risks. For example, in the event of a virus or sickness outbreak in the region, you could provide the community members with a list of symptoms.
Nursing is a very active task. Not only must you be mentally engaged at all times, but you also have to be physically involved. Nurses must walk from room to room a lot. You will burn lots of calories, and you will probably have a much easier time staying in shape. It is perfect work for anyone who wouldn’t want to sit all day in front of a computer. Nurses advocate for the advancement of well being, educate patients and the public on disease and injury prevention, provide treatment and cure assistance, engage in recovery, and provide support. No other health care professional has such a far-reaching and diverse role. By helping them appreciate the variety of social, physical, mental, and cultural interactions they face through health and disease, nurses help families learn to become healthier. Nurses support patients, and parts of their lives can continue. Nurses do more than just caring for people. They have always been at the forefront of progress in public health and health care.
A nursing degree does not automatically mean you must follow a traditional path, and a hospital or doctor’s office is not the only place to find employment. You can work in a variety of different environments to develop your skills and build your resume. The trick is to get out of your comfort zone and search for alternatives that allow you to use your degree and enjoy an exciting career. Good nurses love patients and have the power to affect others in a way that leaves the hospital even after they leave. Nurses, everywhere they go, inside and outside the hospital, affect. We should all be honoring nurses and their commitment to the public on May 12th.
Guest Blog: Spinal Health: How to Decrease Your Back Pain
Back pain can affect every aspect of your life from your job, sleep, sitting posture and so much more. It prevents you from being able to accomplish your daily tasks. In fact, back pain causes the highest number of job-related disabilities. As such, you need to take care of your spine today to ensure that you reduce the chances of getting back pain in the future. Here are a few ways to do that:
Sleep Right
While you sleep, your spine should be restful and straight. You can ensure that happens by getting the right pillow and mattress combination. Get a firm or a medium-firm mattress that supports your spine as an old and soft mattress allows the spine to sag. Choose pillows that only elevate your head enough to align the spine.
The pillows and their placement should be ideal for your sleeping position. For back sleepers, place a pillow beneath your knees. For side sleepers, place a pillow between your knees, and you can also have a neck pillow to support the neck.
Exercise the Core Muscles
Exercising the core muscles gives them the strength to support your spine. These are the muscles of the lower back and the abdomen. When they are strong enough, the muscles will take the pressure off the lower back. In most cases, you will not exercise the core muscles during everyday activities. To exercise the muscles, you need to take on targeted exercises. If you already have back pain, or you have other medical conditions, you need to talk to your doctor or therapist to find the best exercises for you. There are those exercises that can reduce back pain to keep you comfortable.
If you do deadlifts, you need to lift right. When lifting, use your legs and knees instead of the lower back to lift the item.
Surgery to Ease the Pain
If you have a nerve condition that causes back pain, you need less invasive surgery to correct the pain. This surgery, known as rhizotomy, helps correct back pain for people with conditions, such as arthritis, joint pain, disc herniations, degenerative spinal conditions, spasticity, pain from cerebral palsy, and trigeminal neuralgia.
A specialist will assess you to determine the level of nerve pain and whether the procedure is right for you. If they determine you are eligible for the procedure, they will place an electrode through fluoroscopy and then stimulate the nerves and then deaden the sensory nerves to stop the pain.
Massage the Lower Back
Massage has several advantages. For starters, it increases blood flow to the back, loosens the tight muscles and the connective tissues, and helps you relax. The massage doesn’t have to be vigorous. Get some moderate level massage, and it will be stress-relieving.
If you are not able to visit a massage spa, due to financial or time constraints, you can get a massage chair, which offers Swedish or shiatsu massage. Combining massage with exercises for the core will give you all the benefits of a strong lower back. Besides, the massage will help with insomnia, restore the full range of motion, and increase endorphin levels.
Besides massage, you can use heat therapy around the muscles that surround your spine. This will increase the flow of blood to the spine and in turn bring healing. You can go for heating pads, heat wraps, or seek professional heat therapy.
Eat Well
Your diet can help maintain the health of your spine. To get the best from your food, limit your food intake to only the items you can find in nature, such as fruits and vegetables, whole grains, meats, legumes, and others that are rich in anti-inflammatory agents and antioxidants. When you take foods rich in vitamins and calcium, you can treat conditions, such as osteoporosis and osteoarthritis.
Limit the intake of processed foods and unhealthy sweet treats. This will help you fight weight gain and reduce pressure on your spine. People who are obese place too much pressure on their spines, and losing weight can be a good remedy.
There are many other practices that can help you relieve back pain. These include re-evaluating your sitting posture, doing yoga, staying hydrated, and paying attention to any back pain warning signs.