As a crossfitter, I know better than anyone how painful muscle soreness can be, but why do we get muscle soreness, what causes other than sports can be identified for it and can you do something about it? In this blog article you can read more about muscle soreness, causes, solutions and how hypnosis helps.
Muscle pain after exercise
Have you ever noticed that you don't always get muscle soreness immediately after exercising, but that the day after or even on day 2[1] you suddenly fade with muscle pain? How about that?
When you train harder than normal it damages your muscles, and in the time after the workout your body then produces more free radicals than usual. These are molecules that are looking for another molecule to connect with, so to speak.
These can be good and bad connections.
Free radicals you have to deal with during the day anyway, as these are also dust particles in the air and the like. This is why vitamin C is important, because it can neutralize harmful free radicals by connecting with them.
But so the free radicals also send signals to your muscles that certain processes are put into action to rebuild your muscles. That's what can be so painful after several hours of exercise.
The funny thing is that vitamin C supplements because they work so well against free radicals can crazily get in the way of muscle recovery[2].
Muscle pain in the elderly
When you are older (65+), you get muscle pain faster because your muscle strength decreases and you more often lead a sedentary lifestyle. When you then move once, it causes more pain than when you are younger, because your muscles have to work relatively harder.
Risk factors for muscle pain
Besides being older and training really hard, there are other factors that contribute to getting sore muscles faster, namely:
- Smoking
- Sedentary lifestyle
- Few social contacts
- Insomnia or other sleep problems
- Fears
- Depression
- Physical work
- Recently emigrated are
- Being divorced or widowed
- Living in developed area (but can also because better measurement can be done there)
- Socially economically disadvantaged[3].
Always muscle pain/ chronic muscle pain
Do you always have muscle pain? Then you may be suffering from chronic inflammation of the muscles or fibromyalgia. Always see a doctor if your muscle pain does not go away automatically.
Of people who frequently suffer from muscle pain, nearly half can experience long-term problems because of it (source 3). Something that can cause a lot of negative impact on life.
Usually chronic muscle pain is somatic, meaning it is "between the ears." Something is then going wrong in the communication between your body and your brain. Back pain is the most common chronic muscle pain. After that, neck and shoulder pain can also be a form of chronic muscle pain. This is often due to tension, but fibromyalgia and rheumatic pain can also be the cause of chronic muscle pain.
The older you are, the more likely you are to suffer from chronic muscle pain.
Muscle pain after hip surgery
Hip surgery is often necessary because the hips are worn out. As a result, there has often already been an extended period of decreased activity and thus weakened muscles. After hip replacement surgery, movement becomes easier again, but you don't immediately feel like you've been reborn.
It is normal to experience pain for 8 to 12 weeks after hip surgery. Researchers also recommend doing exercises specifically aimed at strengthening muscles related to the hip[4].
A physical therapist can help you with this.
How to reduce muscle pain
Researchers indicate that paracetamol and iboprufen also help (source 3), but then again you run the risk of becoming addicted to these painkillers. Your kidneys and liver will not be happy about that.
People think that massage is the best way to reduce muscle pain, but the interesting thing is that warming up your muscles by moving "again" (slightly less intense or not) also works well to reduce muscle pain (source 1). With exercise, however, you only notice the effect after 20 minutes, whereas a massage has the pain-reducing effect almost immediately. This is especially true with muscle pain caused by exercise.
In addition, you can also take advantage of:
- Hotpacks.
- Stretching.
- Cold therapy on muscles with muscle pain.
- Heat therapy on areas of muscle pain (such as infrared)(source 3).
Equine remedy for muscle pain: hypnosis
A good horse medicine for muscle pain is hypnotherapy. As mentioned, muscle pain is either logical because of the sport you play, it comes from illness, or it comes from tension (giving you back, shoulder and neck pain) or it is somatic. Then it's between the ears.
In all of these cases, hypnosis can play a role in the solution because you can change the perception of pain with hypnotherapy. This is because the brain processes pain differently with hypnosis.
If you don't know exactly where your muscle pain is coming from, do get it checked out by a doctor first. For example, if you have torn something or something similar, it is good to know that before you use hypnosis to ensure that you process pain in a different way.
When you have chronic pain, such as muscle pain, hypnotherapy helps you suffer less from it. If the muscle pain is affecting your movements, hypnotherapy can even make you able to move more again than before hypnotherapy[5].
This is often done through exercises that give you more control over pain. For example, you can visualize a kind of volume button that you use to control the pain. You can then use that button to turn the pain up and down.
If you're reading this, this may sound unbelievable, but that's why hypnosis and hypnotherapy is something you have to experience. A hypnotherapist will practice this with you first, and then you can use it again at home with self-hypnosis.
So another way hypnotherapy helps is to return your range of motion to more normal. This is done, for example, with suggestions during movements, so that you can imagine being able to make the full movement again in the future.
This is ideal during rehabilitation, such as after surgery, or if you can't walk properly after `leg-day' 😉 .
Muscle pain due to tension, anxiety and depression
Do you have chronic muscle pain due to being as stiff as a board throughout the day due to a variety of emotions? In that case, hypnotherapy helps because it also combines psychotherapy[6].
The visualizations that reduce pain are then less important. Instead, hypnotherapy then helps to relax and identify and change the beliefs that cause the negative feelings and tension.
Usually these are limiting beliefs, such as the belief that you "must" do all sorts of things. This needing hinders your relaxation and keeps you "on" all the time. Problems such as anxiety, depression and insomnia arise and, as a result, muscle pain.
The regression technique is often used to repair limiting beliefs[7].
The technique first ensures that you find the cause of the impeding, or tension and thus muscle-ache giving belief. Then it depends on that event how a hypnotherapist will help you.
Usually it is childhood events that cause you to acquire certain beliefs, but as a child you do not know everything. Therefore, sometimes conscious thinking back (with the help of the hypnotherapist) can help to quickly find and remove an illogical belief.
Next, you want the gap in beliefs that then arises to be filled with helping beliefs that allow you to go through life with more relaxation. This can be done, for example, by retrieving certain hypnotic suggestions, such as:
"I may ask for help."
"I get to set my boundaries."
"I get to rest."
"I get to take good care of myself first."
"I am worthy."
These are just examples. Depending on your issues causing muscle pain, a hypnotherapist may offer other suggestions that will help you move forward.
There are also numerous other techniques that a hypnotherapist can help you with if you have muscle pain due to tension.
Learn hypnosis techniques
Do you want to know about hypnosis techniques and how to use them to help yourself and others? Come to the free master class for an introduction.
Or register directly for one of our events and trainings. There you'll experience hypnosis, get hands-on with techniques and get demonstrations that show how quickly hypnotherapy can create change in people.
Want to know more?
Click here for our training courses.
Have a question about the training? Schedule a 1-on-1 consultation here.
PS: Want to do something about the long waiting lists in the mental health system? Support our petition to allow hypnotherapy in mental health care. Click here.
Sources:
[1] https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/fulltext/2013/12000/acute_effects_of_massage_or_active_exercise_in.16.aspx
