Stiff joints affect mobility and other activities. Diet, weight, and other lifestyle factors contribute to this body condition. Doctors can prescribe medication to relieve the pain from stiff joints but they often recommend natural approaches:
- Manage your weight
Your weight can bring about stiff symptoms. This is because extra weight puts more pressure on your joints, especially your knees, hips, and feet. When you reduce the stress on your joints by losing weight, it improves your mobility, decreases pain, and prevents future damage to your joints.
- Get enough exercise
Regular exercising would get rid of stiff joints in your body. Exercise does not only manage your weight, it keeps your joints flexible and strengthens muscles around your joints. You can partake in walking, cycling, swimming, and others to ease any stiff joint.
- Use hot and cold therapy
Heat and cold treatments help relieve stiff joints. You can take a long, warm shower or bath in the morning to help ease stiffness and using an electric blanket or moist heating pad to reduce discomfort overnight. Or you can help relieve joint pain, swelling, and inflammation by wrapping a gel ice pack or a bag of frozen vegetables in a towel and apply it to painful joints for quick relief. Don’t apply ice directly to the skin.
- Acupuncture
Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese medical treatment that involves inserting thin needles into specific points on your body. Practitioners say it works by rerouting energies and restoring balance in your body. Acupuncture may reduce stiff joints.
- Meditation
Meditation and relaxation techniques may help reduce stiff joints by lowering stress and enabling you to cope with it better. Anxiety, stress, and depression are all common complications of conditions that involve chronic pain, such as stiff joints. Reducing stress may also help lower inflammation and pain.
- A healthy diet
Ensure your diet is rich in fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole foods. This boosts your immune system and your overall health. On the other hand, a diet comprising of red meat, processed foods, saturated fat, and added sugar and salt may increase inflammation, which is a characteristic of stiff joints. These foods result in obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart disease, and other complications.
- Add turmeric to meals
Turmeric, the yellow spice contains a chemical called curcumin. It has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.
- Get a massage
After all said and done, if you have stiff joints, you should get some body massage. Massage provides an overall sense of well-being by managing joint pain and discomfort. It also reduces stress levels.
- Herbal supplements
Most herbal supplements reduce joint pain. Examples of these herbs are aloe vera, boswellia, cat’s claw, eucalyptus, ginger, green tea, thunder God vine, turmeric.